With less than two weeks remaining in the open enrollment period and members of President Barack Obama's administration promoting the Affordable Care Act, hoping to reach its 7 million enrollment goal, a strategic advisory services firm believes that the benchmark will likely not be reached by the end of the month.
An estimated 5.4 million people will likely be the final number of signups through the federal and state-based exchanges by March 31, Avalere Health recently forecast. In October, Kathleen Sebelius, secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, told NBC News that "success would look like" at least 7 million people enrolling by the end of March.
"The administration is conducting aggressive outreach in March in an effort to boost enrollment," said Caroline Pearson, vice president of Avalere Health.
Avalere also made a prediction about how many people will sign up in March alone. Should the flow of enrollments continue at their present pace, about 1.2 million will have enrolled by the end of the month, it hypothesized.
Dan Mendelson, Avalere CEO, indicated that what's helped to increase the number of enrollees are the marketplaces run by the government.
"In recent months, enrollment in federally run exchanges has caught-up to the initial enrollment surge in many state-based exchanges," said Mendelson. "The federal marketplaces have been fixed and now surpass some states in terms of ease of consumer access, eligibility and functionality."
Obama appears to be increasing his efforts at promoting the ACA. On the popular daytime talk program "The Ellen DeGeneres Show," the commander-in-chief recently spoke with DeGeneres about the healthcare law via satellite, urging viewers who don't already have employee benefits to sign up before the deadline.
