Nearly 6.5M People in HealthCare.Gov Plans

Nearly 6.5 million people either selected or were enrolled in a new individual insurance plan for 2015 on the HealthCare.gov website through Dec. 26, the U.S. government health agency said on Tuesday.

HealthCare.gov sells plans for 37 states while the remaining states sell individual insurance on their own online exchanges and have tallied the data. These states have enrolled more than 600,000 people, the government agency said, providing a first look at enrollment nationwide but one that still lacked reenrollment numbers for many states.

California and New York have had 161,752 new enrollees but did not provide data on any reenrollments, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services said. Another seven states reported that 153,011 people had selected a plan or actively reenrolled, but did not provide figures for automatically reenrolled consumers.

The exchanges, which were created under the national healthcare reform law, began selling coverage for 2014 last year. Enrollment for 2015 opened on Nov. 15 and runs through Feb. 15.

HealthCare.gov earlier this month automatically reenrolled consumers who had not actively chosen a new plan for next year.