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ACA 2018 Open Enrollment off to a strong start, report says

Posted at 5:52 PM, Nov 13, 2017
and last updated 2017-11-13 18:52:17-05

KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- The first week's results are in for signups for healthcare coverage.

In week one of 2018 Open Enrollment, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services released a weekly Enrollment Snapshot. 

It showed 601,462 people selected plans on healthcare.gov

In the past, enrollment weeks were measured Sunday through Saturday. This year, it was only four days long: November 1 to November 4.

“Just with the first days from November 1 to the 4, there's already been over 600,000 people that have enrolled this year, for the first four days, so that's awesome,” Swope Health Services Outreach & Enrollment Lead Angela Rogers said. 

That’s part of the reason why Rogers said she’s been very busy this enrollment season.

“The phone is ringing constantly off-hook,” Rogers said. “I have 23 messages I have to return on a daily basis.”

So far, more than 137,000 new consumers have signed up for insurance as some wonder if the government will continue to offer coverage.

“They then worry about whether we were going to even have open enrollment period, and now that we're still enrolling people, they want to come in and get enrolled and we're here to help,” Rogers said. “We're going to keep enrolling people until we're told to stop.”

Rogers said she expects to have even more clients come in and sign up as open enrollment continues.

This open enrollment period is shorter compared to last year. The deadline is December 15.