Illinois residents are signing up for Obamacare at a faster rate than before, but the state has a lot of catching up to do if it wants to meet its initial projections.
More than 7,000 Illinoisans have registered for private insurance coverage through HealthCare.gov, the troubled federal healthcare registration site. That’s much better than the 1,370 residents who signed up the first month, but less than the target of 24,310 initially expected by the federal government.
Nationally, enrollment figures released Wednesday by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services reported 364,682 people signed up for private coverage under the Affordable Care Act. For Illinois, the tally was 7,043.
Illinois chose to register applicants through the federal governments web portal, but is expected to operate it’s own site in 2014. The report said 67,036 Illinois residents submitted applications through the federal marketplace since Oct. 1, applying for coverage on behalf of 124,252 people, such as themselves, their spouses and children.
Of those Illinois residents deemed eligible to buy insurance on the marketplace, about 40 percent qualified for financial assistance.
On Monday, an analysis by Crain’s Chicago Business showed consumers' average total cost of coverage on the Illinois exchange could be more than triple the monthly payments to carriers.
Outrage over the cancellation of cheaper, existing policies has forced Illinois to delay for one year some key requirements of the Affordable Care Act.
