Online Insurance Shoppers May Soon Turn To Third-Party Sites
The Washington Post reports that as officials work toward the final enrollment season push, the administration is turning to some private entrepreneurs to help sign up people. Also, the Los Angeles Times examines how many young people are signing up.
The Washington Post: Signing Up For Obamacare Could Someday Take As Little As 10 Minutes
With five weeks to go until the end of open enrollment, the White House still has a lot of work ahead if it wants to meet the Congressional Budget Office's initial target of 7 million Obamacare signups. … To further boost adoption, the administration is now turning directly to some of the private entrepreneurs who responded to Healthcare.gov's botched rollout with solutions of their own. And in some cases that's meant a much smoother and less time-consuming enrollment experience. While enrollees have largely signed up for health care plans through the federal marketplace or one of the state-based exchanges, they are about to be able to choose from a number of third-party registration services that plug right into the government's data hub (Fung, 2/26).
Los Angeles Times: Obamacare Draws Younger Consumers Online As Deadline Nears, Report Says
The average premium paid for Obamacare coverage on a leading insurance website has dropped by nearly $100 a month since October as more young people sign up, a new industry report shows. The average age of people buying coverage at online broker EHealthInsurance.com dropped from 44 mid-October to 36 in late February, according to the company (Terhune, 2/26).
The Associated Press: Obama: Health Insurance Enrollment At 4 Million
Pressing for a final rush of health care enrollees, President Barack Obama said Tuesday that about 4 million people have signed up for health insurance through federal or state marketplaces set up under his health care law. But with a key deadline approaching fast, he urged some of his most steadfast backers to help sign up millions more by then (Superville and Thomas, 2/26).
Politico: In Final Stretch, Obamacare Equation Is Numbers, Days And Attitudes
But the administration wants to boost those numbers to around 6 million before open enrollment season ends March 31. A strong March finish helps the White House put that rocky October rollout firmly behind it, give the health plans the customers needed to make the new insurance markets work and head toward the November midterms with some stories of success (Kenen, 2/26).
And in news from state exchanges -
The Oregonian: Oracle Pulls 100 Programmers From Unfinished Cover Oregon Health Insurance Exchange
Oracle Corp., the giant technology company at the center of the Cover Oregon controversy, has significantly downsized its army of software developers trying to salvage Oregon’s health insurance exchange website. What that means for the Oregon exchange -- which has been plagued by bugs and remains largely unfinished -- is an open question. Exchange acting director Bruce Goldberg did not respond to a request for comment Wednesday afternoon. In the past week about 100 Oracle employees have peeled off the Cover Oregon project, leaving approximately 65 in place (Budnick, 2/26).
The Star Tribune: MNsure Trims Projections For Private-Plan Enrollments
MNsure scaled back its estimates Wednesday for how many Minnesotans will end up using the website to enroll in private plans, but officials maintained that the agency will still be able to balance its budget. The state’s new insurance exchange had been working toward a goal of enrolling about 70,000 in private plans by April 1. But revised estimates presented to the board of directors now project that 50,518 will buy insurance by the end of 2014 (Crosby, 2/27).
