Open Enrollment In Obamacare's Second Year: Early Lessons Learned

On November 15, Obamacare’s second enrollment season opened. Applicants who wanted coverage starting on January 1 had to apply by December 15. Now that the New Year is upon is, we can take three early lessons away from the first six weeks of open enrollment:

1. Obamacare’s enrollment target of 9 million to 10 million for 2015 (reduced from 13 million) is still very optimistic.
2. Inertia rules: It appears that two-thirds of 2014 enrollees have auto-enrolled in the same plan, although most could have saved on premiums if they had shopped around.
3. On average, each new 2015 enrollee is receiving a bigger subsidy than the average 2014 enrollee. So, even though there are fewer Obamacare dependents than initially expected, the total cost to taxpayers may not go down.

Read the entire column at NCPA's Health Policy Blog.