By the Numbers: The Top 7 Obamacare Exchanges
Today, the Obama administration unveiled the first-month enrollment figures for Obamacare — showing that just 106,000 Americans have managed to select an individual insurance plan. The figure is roughly one-fifth of what the government had projected would enroll in Obamacare's opening weeks.
The new system for buying insurance combines more than a dozen state-administered insurance marketplaces as well as the troubled federal exchange. To date, the state exchanges are outpacing federal enrollment at a 3-to-1 clip. Here are the top seven exchanges, ranked by number of insurance seekers who have selected a plan:
1. California: 35,364
2. Federal Exchange: 26,794
3. New York: 16,404
4. Washington: 7,091
5. Kentucky: 5,586
6. Connecticut: 4,418
7. Colorado: 3,736
Within the federal exchange, several high-population states stand out for sub-par enrollment. In Texas, which leads the nation in those uninsured, just 2,991 have selected plans. In Illinois, the number is 1,370. New Jersey? 741. The results in low-density red states look like rounding errors. Wyoming: 85. North Dakota: 42.
The news is not all bleak. Nearly 400,000 people seeking insurance through the exchanges were determined to be eligible to enroll in low-cost coverage through Medicaid or the Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP). And on a conference call today, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius insisted that despite its catastrophic launch, Healthcare.gov should now be considered "open for business."
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/by-the-numbers-the-top-7-obamacare-exchanges-20131113#ixzz2kfnobGY1