Obama administration quietly extends health-care enrollment deadline by a day

HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius this month asked insurers participating in the federal marketplace to grant several kinds of flexibility to customers — including allowing them to sign up for health plans in January and make the coverage retroactive to New Year’s Day. Many insurers have refused to go along. But the insurance industry’s main trade group, America’s Health Insurance Plans, last week made its own policy change, saying that anyone who signed up by Dec. 23 would be given until Jan. 10 to pay their first month’s insurance premium.

During December, enrollment through the federal marketplace has increased significantly from a meager start during the first two months — but it still lags behind the Obama administration’s expectations. As of Sunday, the total enrollment through the federal marketplace was roughly 890,000, according to government figures that have not been made public. That compares with about 137,000 who had signed up by the end of November, and about 227,000 more who had signed up by then through the 14 state-run marketplaces.

In contrast, a Sept. 5 HHS memo, obtained this fall by the Associated Press, projected that the enrollment nationally would hit 3.3 million by the end of December.

Around the country Monday, people signing up for coverage, and workers called “navigators” who have been trained to help them, were largely unaware that they suddenly had an extra day. Navigators reported that they were being inundated with walk-in clients and phone calls from people anxious for their insurance to start next month — many of them people, including some who are very ill, who had started applications in the fall but found themselves stymied by the computer system.

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