The latest figures from Access Health CT, the state's health care exchange, show 3,847 have signed up for plans. About half of those will be eligible for Medicaid under the state's Husky program.
Of those who signed up, 1,125 will receive a subsidy to sign up for private insurance. The remainder, about 772, will sign up for private plans with no government subsidy.
The exchange's early estimate, that about a third of enrollees would be under 35, turns out to have been optimistic. Chief Operating Officer Peter Van Loon told a Board of Directors meeting on Thursday that many older people are turning to the exchange for coverage.
Loon said, "It’s evident that we’ve had a lot of pent up demand from people, shall I say, of my age, who have not been able to ever get health care. They’ve jumped on this in a big way. That’s anecdotal. What we’re going to have to do as a staff, and as stewards of the consumers of the state, we’ll have to keep track of this one. We want a nice bell curve."
In the first two weeks of its operation, 10,768 people started applications with Access Health CT. Eventually, the goal for the exchange is to sign up 100,000 currently uninsured people in the state.
