Officials with Access Health CT said they are happy with the progress made so far, just over a month into open enrollment.
Jim Wadleigh, acting CEO of Access Health, said he’s "cautiously optimistic" that the state will reach its goal of enrolling 70,000 uninsured people on the state's health care exchange.
"We’re getting a lot of customers who are transferring over into the individual market but right now we’ve made a decision that we want to put the pedal to the metal here and go after all of the uninsured and we’re going to start going after that in the month of January,” Wadleigh said.
So far, more than 86,000 residents have signed up for private health insurance plans through Access Health CT and more than 46,000 have obtained coverage through Medicaid since open enrollment began, roughly 19,000 of whom are new customers. More than 60,000 of the private plans were reauthorized through automatic renewals.
Lt. Gov. Nancy Wyman, who chairs the Access Health CT board of directors, said the enrollment results show the marketplace has successfully reach uninsured Connecticut residents.
“People are coming and we’re seeing inquiring on the computers, calling in to our call centers, going into our stores, so I’m assuming the word is getting out,” she said.
As the year comes to a close, Access Health CT also finds itself without a permanent leader.
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Wadleigh was named acting CEO in September following the departure of Kevin Counihan, whom the Obama administration has tapped to run the federal exchange used in 37 states.
Wyman said there will be an official search process to find a permanent CEO.
“We will have somebody go out and do a search,” said Wyman. “That’s what we promised. Jim knows that and the search will start by the beginning of the year.”
Wadleigh said he’s enjoying the job and says he will be in the running to remove the word “acting” from his title.
“I will be pursuing this on a permanent basis,” Wadleigh said.
