Obamacare enrollment this year may have just hit another hurdle — even before open enrollment has begun.
Federal health officials on Monday estimated that between 9 million and 9.9 million people will be enrolled in plans in 2015 — a number well below the 13 million number that the Congressional Budget Office had projected for PPACA enrollment by the end of 2015.
Open enrollment begins Nov. 15 and runs through Feb. 15.
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In a memo released by HHS, the agency also reduced the official count of 2014 enrollment to 7.1 million people as of Oct. 15, from 7.3 million in September. HHS also projected 83 percent, or 5.9 million of those customers, would retain coverage for 2015.
The agency said it needs more time to "ramp up" to its long-term goals.
The conservative estimate comes after HHS crunched data from PPACA's first open enrollment period and recent population surveys of insurance coverage. Though many reports have guessed about PPACA enrollment numbers, the administration had previously shied away from making any predictions.
"While there is broad agreement that the number of people without health insurance will continue to fall in the coming years, projections differ in how quickly those reductions will occur and where individuals will obtain coverage," HHS said in its issue brief. "Moreover, in the early years of any new program, there is a high degree of uncertainty about projections; actual enrollment could be significantly higher or lower."
The CBO had predicted that PPACA would reach 25 million enrollees by 2017 enrollment.
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