Obamacare's sign-ups drop amid Trump administration efforts, booming economy: report

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The number of people signing up for Obamacare for 2019 has declined significantly following President Trump’s two-year effort to curb the federal policy.

There has been a 13 percent drop in a number of sign-ups for Obamacare coverage between Nov. 1 and Nov. 24 – the halfway of the sign-up season for 2019 – according to data released Wednesday by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

The figures are surprising experts, according to Politico, who believed the number of people signing up on Obamacare marketplaces will remain steady, even as Republicans abolish the deeply unpopular individual mandate fines for being uninsured.

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The deadline for enrolling in Obamacare coverage for 2019 is Dec. 15, yet most people aren’t aware that it’s the enrollment season. Only 1 in 4 Americans are aware of the deadline, Politico reported, citing the latest polling data from the Kaiser Family Foundation.

Just a quarter of those who responded to the poll said they saw the ads and explainers how to enroll in the coverage. By comparison, over half of respondents to a similar survey said they saw such ads during the first Obamacare sign up in 2013.

The Trump administration is reportedly not focusing on increasing the sign-ups and devoted less money to other groups to promote it.

“This is affordable coverage that people need and want, but the reality is that the administration’s sabotaged open enrollment,” Leslie Dach, chair of Protect Our Care, a pro-Obamacare advocacy group, told the outlet.

"This is affordable coverage that people need and want, but the reality is that the administration’s sabotaged open enrollment."

— Leslie Dach, chair of Protect Our Care

He said the reductions in funding for outreach damaged the enrollment numbers, with the groups mostly focusing on re-enrolling people rather than finding new customers. “The American people simply don’t know about the deadline and they’re not fully aware of how affordable health care is for them,” he said.

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But some people may skip Obamacare markets thanks to the booming economy that led to more employers offering employer-provided coverage. The Trump administration has also pushed for scaled-down insurance plans that can be cheaper than the ones found on Obamacare exchanges.

Another group of people may pass on getting insurance altogether thanks to the 2017 tax cut package that removed the individual mandate penalty.

Yet some states may be able to buck the trend and provide coverage to as many people as previous years. The State of California is spending 10 times more than the whole federal government – $100 million – on enrolling people in state-based marketplace, according to Politico.