CBO Projects 40 Percent Drop in Obamacare Signups

Obamacare will enroll significantly fewer people than expected in 2016, ending the year with only about 13 million customers, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) said this week.

The health insurance exchanges created under the Affordable Care Act were projected to have 20 million enrollees last year, but the latest CBO estimates show a 40 percent drop in those figures for the current year, The Hill reports.

The latest projections confirm the Obama administration’s previous assessment that fewer people are signing up in the third enrollment season — underscoring the challenges facing healthcare reform efforts.

While the healthcare law has led to a historic low in the uninsured population, officials have struggled to further reduce that figure this year. Experts say rising premiums and out-of-pocket costs for health plans offered on the exchanges are partly to blame. In addition, many plans offer more limited networks of covered doctors, hospitals, and healthcare providers than policies provided by employers and private plans.

Many of the uninsured people who opt out of coverage on the exchanges are now expected to purchase insurance “directly from an insurer instead,” the CBO said. Many others will simply opt to be uninsured and pay the fine assessed by Obamacare on Americans who do not have insurance.

Although the CBO predicts fewer enrollees, budget projections indicate the number of people receiving subsidies will be higher than expected — 11 million people this year, compared to 8 million people in 2015.

Spending on the healthcare marketplace is projected to rise to $56 billion next year, up from $38 billion this year. Within a decade, that total is expected to double to $109 billion.