The government is on track when it comes to the number of people who have signed up for health insurance through the Affordable Care Act, according to new enrollment statistics.
About 9.9 million people have signed up and paid for health insurance as of June 30, data from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) show, a slight decrease from a count of 10.2 million as of March 31 but still on track toward the Obama administration's goal of enrolling 9.1 million individuals in ACA plans by the end of the year.
A big challenge for the health insurance program and state-run exchanges is keeping enrollees. "They still have a tough hill to climb over the next couple of years to increase enrollment and get more people covered," Larry Levitt, of the Kaiser Family Foundation, tells the Associated Press.
The report was the first update since June on how the healthcare law's insurance markets are performing nationwide. According to CMS, 84 percent of those enrolled, or more than 8.3 million, were receiving tax subsidies to help pay for the cost. A Supreme Court decision earlier this summer upheld the legality of insurance subsidies in all 50 states, ensuring millions of Americans would retain such financial assistance.
"Consumers from coast to coast are continuing to show how important health coverage is to their families," Health and Human Services Department Secretary Sylvia Mathews Burwell said in an announcement of the new statistics.
Since 2013, the number of uninsured Americans has dropped considerably, according to a recent report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. While there were 44.8 million uninsured in 2013, that number declined to 29 million in early 2015.
To learn more:prov
- check out the statistics
- read the Associated Press report