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December 15 Deadline is Approaching

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With the December 15 deadline to get coverage that will be effective, January 1st, Healthcare.gov has been experiencing unprecedented traffic. As a result, today CMS issued the following statement which addresses how they are handling the increased traffic.

CMS Statement:

There are less than two days remaining for consumers to sign up for coverage that starts on January 1 through HealthCare.gov and we are seeing unprecedented demand. The energy is outpacing where we were last year ahead of the December 15 deadline. In fact, demand on HealthCare.gov and at the call center is running ahead of last December 14 and even ahead of where we were on December 15 last year.  More people are simultaneously shopping right now at HealthCare.gov than at any point this year or last year – and traffic continues to grow. As demand continues to increase, some HealthCare.gov consumers will be asked to wait a short time before they are able to create an account or login to their account.

In addition, because of the longer than normal wait times at the call center, some callers are being asked to leave their contact information so they do not have to stay on the line. We will call consumers back to make sure that they are able to sign-up for the plan that best fits their needs and have it start on January 1.

Any consumer who is trying to get covered ahead of the deadline for January 1 coverage – either at HealthCare.gov or the call center – will be able to do so. Consumers should not worry, we are ready to help any consumer who is in-line for coverage to complete their enrollment for January 1 coverage.

Background information:

  • Similar to last year, some people will be asked to leave their contact information with the call center and we’ll reach back out starting on December 16 to complete their applications and plan selections for coverage starting on January 1.
  • We are not extending the deadline but providing the same consumer support we did last year to make sure that any consumer who is trying to get coverage by the deadline, will be able to do so.
  • As of 12:30, we are over 140,000 users simultaneously shopping on HealthCare.gov. Our high on December 15, 2014 was just over 125,000.