The Obama administration announced that 2015 enrollment for Obamacare will be delayed from October 15, 2014 to November 15, 2014. That puts the enrollment date right behind the congressional elections. However, White House spokesman Jay Carney is denying that the midterm elections are the reason for the delay. Instead, he says that the extra time will be beneficial to insurers as they look over their customer pool, and set rates accordingly.
Carney also pointed out that the administration expects a greater number of people to sign-up before the end of this first enrollment period, and so by setting a later start date for the next period, insurers have time to evaluate the results and standings from the first go around. “What was already going to be a back-loaded process is going to be more back-loaded, and that’s going to leave insurers a lot of data to sort through in a short period of time,” he said.
The new deadline for 2015 is now January 15, which is a one-week extension from the original deadline. That will make the enrollment period only two months long, as opposed to the 2014 enrollment length of six months. One extension already had to be made due to the many problems with the healthcare website, but Carney stated that the Obama administration believes there is now adequate time for everyone to sign-up.
