About 86,000 people are slated to receive private insurance coverage through Connecticut’s health insurance exchange, Access Health CT, as of Jan. 1, acting CEO Jim Wadleigh said Wednesday.
Of those, 65,473 are people who currently have coverage through the exchange and had their policies automatically renewed. The other 19,402 are people signing up for plans through the exchange for the first time.
Another 6,000 people could get coverage starting Jan. 1 if they complete their applications by Friday.
About 1,300 people who are currently covered by private plans sold through the exchange won’t get coverage through Access Health at the start of next year because they didn’t re-enroll, Wadleigh said. Many now qualify for Medicare, meaning they no longer qualify for insurance through the exchange.
The sign-up period for private insurance under Obamacare began Nov. 15. People had until Monday to sign up for coverage that would take effect Jan. 1, but the exchange is allowing people who began applications and selected plans until Friday to submit all the needed information. About 6,000 people fall into that category.
The open enrollment period runs through Feb. 15. Those who sign up before Jan. 15 will receive coverage starting Feb. 1, while those who sign up between Jan. 16 and Feb. 15 will receive coverage beginning March 1.
People who qualify for Medicaid can sign up for that program at any point during the year. Wadleigh said the exchange has enrolled about 46,071 new Medicaid customers since Nov. 15, although it’s not clear if all of them are new to Medicaid or if some are renewing their coverage.
As of September, 74,334 people had private insurance coverage purchased through the exchange. Wadleigh said Wednesday that between 1,000 and 2,000 customers per week have been dropping out of their plans.
The exchange’s goals this year included signing up 70,000 new members and reducing the number of uninsured state residents by about 35,000. It’s not clear how many of the new customers were uninsured, since many people who bought private plans on their own last year had policies that are being discontinued at the end of the year.
On Tuesday, federal officials said that as of Dec. 12, 2.46 million people had selected health plans through HealthCare.gov, the federally run exchange that serves 35 states. Of those, 48 percent were new customers and 52 percent were existing customers renewing their coverage.
Separately, Access Health pushed back plans to discontinue coverage or subsidies for customers who hadn’t submitted information needed to verify their eligibility. That was slated to happen Dec. 1 to as many as 30,000 customers who had not provided proof of legal residency or income. But Wadleigh said system issues made that a problem.
In addition, the exchange learned that some customers had not received all the notices they were supposed to get about submitting information. As a result, nobody will lose coverage or subsidies until January.
An earlier version of this story misstated the number of uninsured residents Access Health aimed to sign up this year.