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Written By: Editorial Team | Published : April 2, 2014 12:00 PM IST
Over 7 million people across the US have signed up for medical insurance through exchanges set up by US President Barack Obama's new health care programme by Monday night's deadline, realising the target set for the six-month enrollment period, the White House said Tuesday. The 7, 041,000 signed up by midnight did not count those who enrolled Monday in the 14 states that run their own insurance exchanges, nor those who may yet sign up under an extension for those who tried but were unable to complete applications in time, Xinhua quoted Jay Carney, the White House press secretary, as saying.
'We surpassed the seven million mark with the over 200,000 people who enrolled yesterday in states-run by the federal government alone,' he said during a press briefing. 'When we get numbers in from the rest of the states, and people who were trying to sign up by the deadline and are finishing now, even more people will be covered.' 'It's fair to say we surpassed everyone's expectations, at least everyone in this room.' The sign-up system, overwhelmed by computer problems when launched last fall, has been working much better in recent months and the website figure indicates that it was operating at full capacity on deadline day -- March 31, 2014. (Read: Americans want Obamacare repealed)
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Last Thursday, people signed up for Obamacare surpassed 6 million, still 1 million less than the 7 million goal. On Monday, the network has become very busy since a flood of last-minute applicants rushed to sign up for the health insurance before the deadline, with thousands of people at a time using the fragile system, which was closed to new customers for two different periods of time due to technical problems. As a result, some experts predicted that only about 6 million Americans would sign up before the deadline, saying that the goal may not be reached because of frequent network technical problems. (Read: Obamacare popularity drops in US: Survey)
What is Obamacare?
The world's most celebrated democracy reached a spectacular logjam on Monday after a stand-off between Republicans and Democrats over President Obama's signature Affordable Care Act which has been dubbed Obamacare. The Republican-controlled House of Representatives would not pass spending measures for government operations unless the President made some changes to his healthcare reforms.
Understandably, the White House refused to give in to those demands with US Senate Democrats late on Monday rejecting a last-ditch proposal by the House of Representatives Republicans to establish a negotiation panel to work out a deal on the emergency spending bill. Basically, the Congress needed to agree on the budget by October 1 failing which a shutdown would be ordered. (Read: Obamacare what is all the hoopla about?)
With inputs from IANS
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