Congressional Budget Office lowers 2016 ObamaCare Enrollments after 40 percent decline in 2015’s figures

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) reported Monday that there will be significantly fewer people enrolling for the ObamaCare in 2016. Last year, it estimated only 13 million enrollees for the health care benefit, which is a 40 percent from the previous year's 20 million.

The Hill reported that this poses a major challenge for the incoming administration in curbing the number of uninsured people after 2017. The healthcare law may have decreased the uninsured rate to a historic low, but it has been hard for officials to bring this figure further down this year.  

Federal health officials have earlier warned that there will be fewer people signing up for health care this year. This has adversely affected the insurance companies that are anxious with the overall marketplace. According to CBO, a lot of uninsured people are now expected to buy insurance directly from insurers. However, the smaller enrolment rate doesn't mean costs are going down.

According to Forbes, CBO originally forecasted 21 million Obamacare enrollments this year. The latest enrollment rate nationwide was only 11.5 million. Some 2.7 million of that came from state exchanges. That figure is even lower than the 11.7 million people who have enrolled by the end of last year's open enrollment.

The Department of Health and Human Services had expected only 10 million sign ups through online insurance markets by the end of this year. Yahoo News wrote that this shows that it will take longer before the online insurance markets will hit its full potential. The federal and state markets provide subsidized private insurance to those who don't have job-based coverage. However, the budget office said, only few unsubsidized customers purchase through the exchanges.

These declining enrollment rates come as Obamacare's tax penalty for not securing coverage has reached record heights, at $695, or pay 2.5 percent of household income. This only shows that Americans simply are not interested in Obamacare's products, according to Forbes. 

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Congressional Budget Office, 40% decline, Obamacare, CBO, health care, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services

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