The Congressional Budget Office has dramatically lowered its projections for enrollment in health care plans on the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act marketplace.
The nonpartisan agency now estimates that enrollment in Obamacare plans will total 13 million at the end of 2016, down roughly 40 percent from its previous projection of 20 million enrollees.
The CBO estimate reaffirms what experts have been saying since at least last year, which is that attracting new members is getting more and more difficult. The low-hanging fruit — those who were the most enthusiastic about getting insurance — was largely taken care of during the first open enrollment period at the end of 2013.
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Those who remain uninsured are likely going to require more aggressive outreach, and perhaps tougher consequences, such as higher fines for not signing up. This year, adults will pay a fine of $695 for not having insurance, up from $325 last year.
However, the agency also noted that not all of those who are currently uninsured will either remain so or enroll in an Obamacare plan. Some, particularly those ineligible for tax credits, will join a plan directly through an insurer.
Of the 13 projected enrollees in PPACA plans, the CBO estimates that 11 million of them will be eligible for tax credits to offset the cost of buying insurance. It also projects that the total amount the federal government will spend on such credits will rise by $18 billion this year, up to a total of $56 billion annually.
The CBO also reported that, for the first time in history, federal spending on health programs, such as Medicaid, Medicare, the Children's Health Insurance Program and PPACA tax credits, exceeded the amount the government pays out annually in Social Security benefits. Total federal spending on health totaled $936 billion last year.
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