More than 1,400 people signed up for health care coverage through the state’s health insurance exchange last month during a special enrollment period for those who paid a penalty on their taxes for not having coverage last year.

In all, 1,429 people signed up for private health plans through Access Health CT during the April enrollment period. The regular enrollment period for private coverage ended Feb. 15, but several exchanges, including Connecticut’s and the federal HealthCare.gov exchange, opened a second window for people who only learned about the financial penalty for not having coverage when they filed their 2014 taxes.

During the regular enrollment period, 110,095 people signed up for private insurance plans through Access Health.

Arielle Levin Becker covered health care for The Connecticut Mirror. She previously worked for The Hartford Courant, most recently as its health reporter, and has also covered small towns, courts and education in Connecticut and New Jersey. She was a finalist in 2009 for the prestigious Livingston Award for Young Journalists, a recipient of a Knight Science Journalism Fellowship and the third-place winner in 2013 for an in-depth piece on caregivers from the National Association of Health Journalists. She is a 2004 graduate of Yale University.

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