3,471 Floridians sign up for health care

Officials: 106,185 Americans signed up for coverage in first month

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – Statistics released Thursday show that 67,366 Floridians completed applications in the Affordable Health Care marketplace in the first month, and about 5 percent of those actually enrolled.

The numbers, released by Americans United for Change, showed that 93,456 of Floridians who inquired about coverage through HealthCare.gov were eligible to enroll.

These numbers were released one day after the federal government showed 106,185 people had signed up nationwide since the exchanges opened Oct. 1.

They're the numbers politicians on both sides of the political aisle have been waiting for.

"It's a great program for those people so they don't need to consider the epic fail of the website, as an epic fail of everything else," said Dr. Carolyn McClanahan.

McClanahan told Channel 4 that she's not surprised by the low enrollment numbers. She said the low numbers are related to two things, the Healthcare.gov website not working and people waiting and really doing their research before that initial Dec. 15 deadline.

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McClanahan said, "106,000 got enrolled in a month. To me, that's fabulous considering the first two weeks I don't think anything got done. We're hoping for millions eventually, and I think between now and the end of November we still won't see an improvement in the numbers until after the site gets going. We should see better improvement."

According to the Department of Health and Human Services:

  • 106,185 Americans signed up for coverage between Oct. 1 and Nov. 2.
  • 27,000 signed up through the federal marketplace while 79,000 opted to enroll through a state marketplace.


That's only 20 percent of the 500,000 people the administration has projected to sign up.

"The program is not a fail. I mean, it's still guaranteed issued coverage," said McClanahan. "You can have any medical problem in the world and get coverage."