Obamacare is now entering its third week of the open enrollment and observers are being stunned by the fast pace of enrollment.
The results had shown that while the Trump administration has slashed Obamacare’s advertising and outreach budget, people are still signing up in record numbers.
Approximately, 600,000 people had signed up for Obamacare plans in only the first four days of enrollment, the Trump administration had announced on Thursday. This is nearly double the amount of people who signed up this same time last year.
This makes it an average of 150,000 sign-ups per day for the first four days this year, compared to about a rough 84,000 per day for the first 12 days last year.
Of the 600,000 people who had signed up in the first four days, 130,000 were new customers, while the rest 460,000 were returning customers.
Health care watchers will also be focused on the Senate where the Republican lawmakers are still debating whether to include a repeal of Obamacare’s individual mandate in their upcoming tax reform bill.
While the bill Republicans released on Thursday did not contain any repeal proposal, some senators have said that the provision could be added down the line.
Senate Republican leaders have been doing a whip count on repealing the penalty for not having insurance to where support stands.
The Congressional Budget Office estimated in a score earlier this week that repealing the mandate would lead to a huge 13 million more uninsured Americans by the year 2027. But it would also save about a staggering $338 billion over the next 10 years, which could help pay for some of the tax cuts.
Meanwhile, the Trump administration indicated this week that it would approve state requests for the Medicaid work requirements.
Eight states — including Arizona, Arkansas, Indiana, Kentucky, New Hampshire, Maine, Utah and Wisconsin — have submitted their own requests to CMS seeking to require the non-disabled Medicaid enrollees to either work or provide with the community service, per the Kaiser Family Foundation.