We are well ahead of last year’s pace.
It’s constitutional – deal with it
More than 256,000 Houston-area residents have selected plans or been re-enrolled in coverage through the health insurance marketplace mandated by the Affordable Care Act, and federal and local health officials and experts believe a last-minute surge could significantly increase the numbers before the 2015 open-enrollment period ends later this month.
There have been about 75,000 more local sign-ups than in 2014, during the inaugural year of the marketplace. About 1 million Houston-area residents remain uninsured.
During a conference call with reporters on Wednesday, Marjorie Petty, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services regional director overseeing Texas, released updated sign-up data showing nearly 969,500 residents statewide selected coverage or were automatically re-enrolled between Nov. 15 and Jan. 30.
The latest update was the first to include local figures. The Houston area recorded 256,982 plan selections and re-enrollments for the period, up from the estimated 180,000 residents who enrolled in coverage last year.
“These numbers would not be as strong as they are without local leadership,” Petty said. “We are making progress across the country and in Texas.”
[…]
Despite Petty’s optimism, millions of Texans and thousands of Houstonians will remain uninsured because state leaders have not come up with a way to expand Medicaid to cover them. Since California expanded the program to cover more of its residents, Texas has overtaken it as having both the highest rate and highest number of uninsured residents.
Elena Marks, president and CEO of Houston’s Episcopal Health Foundation, said Wednesday’s updated numbers are encouraging – until one considers that about 6 million Texans are uninsured.
“If you look at the glass as half full, more adults are becoming insured at a faster rate and in a shorter period of time,” she said. “We ought to be proud we’ve made this much progress.”
See here for the last update. Local leadership is definitely to be applauded for this, since Lord knows the state leadership is doing exactly nothing to help. The goal for Texas this year is 1.25 million signups, which would be an increase of over 60% from 2014. The latest national figure has enrollments at ten million. And there’s still more than a week to go till the deadline. KUHF has more.