California enrollment slips 3%

With the future of Obamacare looking bleak, Covered California saw enrollment drop 3 percent compared with last year.

The state Obamacare operation said 412,105 new consumers signed up for health coverage. About 425,000 signed up during open enrollment the previous year.

Covered California chief Peter Lee, left, said the health-care signups “met our projections” and were “driven by the nearly 50,000 consumers who signed up for health insurance in the last two days of open enrollment.”

“Covered California is continuing to enroll consumers in large numbers and with a good mix of younger and older, which helps keep rates down for everyone and keeps the entire individual market stable,” Lee said Feb. 6.

The agency said young adults in the key 18- to 34-year-old demographic accounted for an estimated 37 percent of this year’s plan selections. That’s about the same as in 2016 and better than the first two years under the Affordable Care Act.

California continues to outperform the federal insurance marketplace, which reported a falloff of about 5 percent late last week.

The state’s total enrollment is now more than 1.5 million people, most of whom receive government subsidies for their coverage.

Covered California said it would begin new marketing “focused on enrolling those who are eligible to sign up now due to changes in their life circumstances.”

President Trump, who has vowed to dismantle Obamacare, said last week that a replacement healthcare policy may not be in place until 2018.