Obamacare signups slow in smaller counties
AUSTIN — Nearly 750,000 Texans signed up for medical insurance under the federal Affordable Care Act during the six-month period that ended March 31, the Department of Health and Human Services announced.
“The fact that more people enrolled after March 1 than in the first five months of open enrollment shows Texans were motivated by the deadline,” said Mimi Garcia, Texas state director at Get Covered America, the nation’s leading enrollment coalition in the ACA.
“And many of them wanted the assurance of good health coverage this year, and they didn’t want to wait until 2015 to be insured,” Garcia said in reference to the 733,757 Texans who signed up for medical coverage under the healthcare law popularly known as Obamacare.
The last-minute rush to sign up is credited for the higher-than-expected number of enrollees in the nation. In Austin, Dallas, Houston, San Antonio and other cities across the nation people waited in line — many of them for hours — to buy insurance.
But in rural West Texas, which has one of the highest percentage rates of uninsured in the Lone Star State, it was a different story. Not many people signed up for coverage.
More at http://amarillo.com/news/latest-news/2014-05-03/obamacare-signups-slow-smaller-counties .
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