Obamacare enrollment for this year appears to have ended slightly down from last year, according to enrollment numbers released this afternoon by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. The agency said about 9.2 million people signed up in the 39 states that use the federal HealthCare.gov website by Jan. 31. While that's not a total enrollment figure, 9.6 million people signed up through that website at the end of last year's open enrollment.
It's the first indication that the Trump administration's opposition to the law, and its decision to pull TV advertising, may have had an impact, since the pace of enrollment had been ahead of last year's until mid-January. Just before the numbers were released, an HHS spokesman from the Trump team released a statement declaring that "Obamacare has failed the American people, with one broken promise after another."
For context:
New customers in 2017: 3 million
New customers in 2016: 4 million
Federal marketplace signups, Jan. 15-31, 2017: 376,260
Federal marketplace signups, Jan. 24-31, 2016: 686,708
