A reporter for the liberal site ProPublica says between 5% and 15% have been able to pay their first month’s premium (a herculean task considering the payment system is broken), this pegs the number who have fully enrolled at 18K-54K. That figure has to send chills down the spines of Obamacare’s supporters seeing as the White House needed 800K to fully enroll by the end of November.
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services announced this morning that nearly 365,000 Americans had signed up for private health insurance under Obamacare. The vast majority came from 14 states running their own insurance exchanges, while 137,000 came by way of HealthCare.gov, the much-faulted federal website that handles enrollment for the remaining states.
But amid the rush to enroll as many people as possible by the Dec. 23 deadline, there’s a huge caveat that isn’t getting much public attention: In order for coverage to take effect on Jan. 1, enrollees must pay their first month’s premium on time. (The deadline varies somewhat by state and by insurer.)
That’s slow going, according to consultants and some insurers, raising the prospect that actual enrollment will be far lower than the figures HHS is releasing.
“There is also a lot of worrying going on over people making payments,” industry consultant Robert Laszewski wrote in an email. “One client reports only 15% have paid so far. It is still too early to know for sure what this means but we should expect some enrollment slippage come the payment due date.”
Another consultant Kip Piper, agreed. “So far I’m hearing from health plans that around 5% and 10% of consumers who have made it through the data transfer gauntlet have paid first month’s premium and therefore truly enrolled,” he wrote me.