The final Obamacare enrollment total dipped slightly after a small number of people canceled their plans, The Washington Examiner reports.
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services announced this Thursday the final number of sign-ups dropped from 8.8 million to 8.7 million. Last year, enrollment was 9.2 million last year.
A CMS official told the Examiner this recent decline came from a number of customers who canceled their plans only hours before the deadline last week, and others who canceled plans they were enrolled in automatically, which a few million people each year are if they do not select a new plan for themselves.
However, this year millions were automatically re-enrolled in plans after the deadline had passed, meaning some people might have cancelled their plan entirely once they realized the deadline to change plans had passed.
"If they find out after Dec. 15 they've been auto-enrolled, there is a real danger people will not be able to pay the premiums — or will drop out," Cheryl Fish-Parcham, Private Insurance Program Director at Families USA, told The Washington Post.
"This type of adjustment happens every year," former Obama administration official Lori Lodes told The Hill. "Because of the shortened enrollment period, cancellations could be larger this year because most consumers who were auto-enrolled can't come back and select a new plan."
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