More than 1 million people filled out applications for health insurance using the federal Healthcare.gov portal during the first week of enrollment in mid-November, according to data released by the Health and Human Services Department.
Another 462,000 people selected plans with nearly half coming from people who have never applied for a plan on Healthcare.gov before, according to HHS. Overall there were 3.7 million registered users on Healthcare.gov.
The strong start this year for Healthcare.gov is a sharp contrast to the first few weeks of October, 2013, when the launch of Healthcare.gov featured an unstable website, long wait times and almost no applicants.
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The average call center wait time for Healthcare.gov visitors was about three minutes, according to HHS. The agency received more than 1 million calls, about 10 percent seeking a Spanish-speaking representative.
Sylvia Burwell, the secretary at HHS, said the first week of activity on Healthcare.gov and its related services were off to a “solid start” but that there is still a lot of work the agency needs to do.
“People are ready to get covered, and visitors to Healthcare.gov are seeing more competition, affordable options and an improved consumer experience,” Burwell said in a press release.
She said the agency will be releasing weekly reports on the number of people enrolled and other metrics such as applications filled out and visitors to the website.
