More than 1.3 million consumers signed up for health coverage through the Healthcare.gov online marketplace during the sixth week of open enrollment, according to the “weekly snapshot report” issued by the Department of Health and Human Services.
A total of 1,326,946 consumers selected insurance plans during the week, compared to 804,338 during the fifth week of open enrollment. The total for the six weeks was 4,171,714, HHS reported.
About 38% of those selecting plans on the federal marketplace during the latest week were new insureds, up slightly from prior weeks.
Many were apparently likely prompted by what had been the Dec. 15 deadline for insurance to be in effect as of January 1. HHS extended that deadline to Dec. 17 because of what HHS Secretary Sylvia Burwell called “unprecedented demand.”
About 3.6 million users visited the website in the sixth week of enrollment, compared to 2.8 million a week earlier. Of these, 1,604,633 submitted applications for coverage, up more than 50% from the 1,065,877 in the prior week.
The Spanish-language CuidadoDeSalud.gov site had nearly 209,000 visitors, compared to 95,000 the week before. More than 1.3 million used the “window shopping” feature on Healthcare.gov, along with more than 21,000 on CuidadoDeSalud.gov.
The comparable figures for the prior week were 1 million for Healthcare.gov and 15,700 for CuidadoDeSalud.gov.
Phone calls to the HHS call center totaled over 1.5 million, with an average wait time of 22 minutes and 44 seconds, for English-speaking consumers. This compares to nearly 1.1 million calls, with a wait time of 12 minutes and 14 seconds, the prior week.
Calls to Spanish-speaking representatives totaled more than 89,000, up from the prior week’s approximately 67,000, with average wait times of 19 seconds, up from 16 seconds in Week 6.
The Health Insurance Marketplace report includes the 38 states that use the HealthCare.gov platform. Later in the Open Enrollment period, HHS will produce more detailed reports that look at plan selections on Healthcare.gov and State-based Marketplaces.