HHS lowers ACA enrollment expectations

The Obama administration predicted Monday that the number of people with health coverage through the Affordable Care Act’s insurance marketplaces will be significantly lower by the end of next year than previous government estimates (Source: “Obama administration predicts significantly lower health-care enrollment,” Washington Post, Nov. 10, 2014).

Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia Mathews Burwell announced that, by the end of 2015, 9 million to 9.9 million Americans probably will be in health plans sold through the federal and state insurance exchanges created under the health-care law. The administration’s expectations are as much as roughly 30 percent beneath the most recent prediction of the Congressional Budget Office — that 13 million people will have health coverage through these exchanges next year.