New York’s health exchange reports nearly 101,000 signups

New York’s health exchange has enrolled nearly 101,000 people for health-insurance coverage, as of Monday morning, Dec. 9, the New York State Department of Health announced.

The NY State of Health, the state’s health-plan marketplace, reports that 100,881 people had enrolled for health coverage starting on Jan. 1, and 314,146 had completed full applications on the exchange.

Those who have finished applications need to choose into which plan they want to enroll, the state said in the news release.

To be covered by Jan. 1, individuals must enroll by Dec. 23, the state said. New Yorkers have until March 31 to enroll.

New York says it is on track to reach its enrollment goal of 1.1 million people by the end of 2016.

The state’s news release did not break down how many of the almost 101,000 signups were for private insurance on the exchange and how many were for Medicaid or other government-funded coverage.

Nationally, nearly 1.2 million Americans have selected a plan or had a Medicaid or CHIP eligibility determination, based only on the first two months of open enrollment, Kathleen Sebelius, Health & Human Services (HHS) Secretary, announced today.

CHIP is short for the Children’s Health Insurance Program.

Of that national figure, nearly 365,000 individuals had selected plans from the state and federal marketplaces by the end of November, according to a news release from the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services. 

The state and federal marketplaces added more than a quarter-million enrollees in November, Sebelius said. Enrollment on HealthCare.gov, the federal-government marketplace, in November was “more than four times greater” than October’s reported federal-enrollment number, when the website faced a multitude of widely reported technical problems.

Contact Reinhardt at ereinhardt@cnybj.com