Obama administration pushes enrollment before first deadline

President Barack Obama is making one last big push to encourage Americans to sign up for health insurance on HealthCare.gov. Young people continue to be the administration's main target, based on his public appearances.

On Friday, Obama spoke on ESPN Radio's “The Herd” with Colin Cowherd. He also taped a show for Ryan Seacrest's “On Air” that will air Monday and was scheduled to be on a Raleigh, N.C., radio show.

Aside from talking sports and pop culture, the president is primarily using the air time to pitch Obamacare. It's the second straight year he's appeared on Cowherd's and Seacrest's shows to discuss the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act ahead of a deadline.

Uninsured Americans have until Dec. 15—next Monday—to sign up for coverage on the federal exchange in order for it to go into effect by Jan. 1. Those who don't have coverage by the beginning of the year face tax penalties under the individual mandate provision of the ACA.

However, some state-based exchanges have different deadlines for Jan. 1 coverage. Maryland is giving consumers until Dec. 18 to select a health plan. Four other states—Idaho, Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Washington—have a Dec. 23 deadline.

Obama's radio cameos come days after he appeared on Comedy Central's “The Colbert Report,” a satirical news program hosted by Stephen Colbert. The president took over for Colbert and hosted his own segment in which he plugged Obamacare and poked fun at some of the law's lapses.

“Remember the original HealthCare.gov website? I think that is where Disney got the idea for Frozen,” Obama said. “Now, the new website works. And most young people can get covered for less than 100 bucks.”

It wasn't Obama's first attempt to mix comedy with the ACA. Last year, he appeared on “Between Two Ferns,” an online spoof show hosted by Zach Galifianakis. The show, like Colbert's and the radio programs, is popular among the millennial crowd. Many in the industry view young people as key to the healthcare law's success, since they are generally healthier and would balance out the broader risk pool.

Almost 1.4 million people chose a health plan for 2015 on the federal exchange in the first three weeks of open enrollment, according to the latest numbers from HHS. Those numbers represent Americans living in the 37 states that use HealthCare.gov to some degree, but they do not factor in whether someone has paid the first month's premium, which is required for coverage to start.

Enrollment data in the remaining state-based exchanges is sporadic. Some states, like Massachusetts, have provided routine updates, while New York waited until Friday to provide its first open-enrollment update.

The federal government has predicted 9.1 million people will pay for Obamacare coverage in 2015, either through HealthCare.gov or a state exchange. The Congressional Budget Office thought that total would reach 13 million, and many in the industry believe HHS and the CMS may be low-balling their projections.

Charles Gaba, a website developer in Michigan who has tracked ACA enrollment since 2013 at ACASignups.net, said he estimates about 7.4 million people will have health plans that take effect in January. That number could reach 12.5 million by Feb. 15, when open enrollment ends, Gaba said. And assuming that the same proportion of people actually pay for that coverage (about 88% last year), that would put 2015 enrollment around 11 million.

Of course, higher enrollment figures depend on automatic renewals, as well as another big surge of consumers rushing to buy health insurance in mid-February. The government seems determined on the marketing front. “They are certainly doing better than people are expecting,” Gaba said.

Katherine Hempstead, a director at the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation who oversees health insurance research, agrees that the current pace of enrollment could likely surpass the government's estimates. She said she's surprised by how many people are manually shopping for or renewing their coverage—an effort spurred in part by health insurers that want to reach their customers more directly.

“Carriers are much more in the mix,” Hempstead said. “I think they are an important part of the information stream this year.”

Follow Bob Herman on Twitter: @MHbherman