The number of people signing up for insurance through the Affordable Care Act (ACA), better known as Obamacare, is taking off and the groundswell is even making the Obama administration change its plans.
According to an update on Wednesday from the Centers of Medicare and Medicaid (CMS), the number of Americans that had signed up for coverage through the law’s health insurance exchanges had hit 4,015,709, with 1.1 million new enrollees and 2.9 million people renewing coverage.
In fact, according to a release from CMS, the rate of sign-ups has increased in recent days.
“Since December 10, sign-up activity has accelerated,” said the release. “With the December 15 deadline for January 1 coverage approaching, the last two days – Monday, December 12 and Tuesday, December 13 – have been two of the biggest days of any Open Enrollment, with more than 700,000 sign-ups.”
In total, there were 250,000 more plans selected during the first 40 days of the open enrollment than at this point last year.
Additionally, the groundswell of demand for the plans has caused CMS and Department of Health and Human Services to push back some of their deadlines.
The last day to sign up for coverage that would go into effect on January 1, 2017 was Thursday, but CMS and HHS official decided to extend this deadline due to the increased demand.
CMS director Andy Slavitt tweeted that the deadline had been extended to Monday due to "huge demand for coverage."
All of these moves come under the shadow of a possible repeal of the law by Republicans and President-elect Trump come January 20, when Trump takes office. Despite the looming possibility of changes, it appears that more people than ever are signing up for the ACA.