More than 160,000 Ohioans signed up for insurance coverage on the Affordable Care Act's marketplaces.
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services offered a snapshot on Tuesday of how many people are shopping for health insurance through Healthcare.gov, the official website for the federal government's Health Insurance Marketplace.
Due to heavy demand, the deadline to select a plan was extended to Monday, Dec. 19. The statistics included in the snapshot covered plan selections made through that date.
Here are some facts included in the department's press release:
** 6.4 million consumers are signed up for health insurance marketplace plans through Healthcare.gov. About 400,000 more people have submitted a plan compared to this time last year.
** Thursday, Dec. 15 was the biggest day for open enrollment in the federally facilitated exchange, with 670,000 plans selected. This surpassed last year's Dec. 15 record of 600,000. To meet the demand, the deadline was extended by two days to Dec. 19.
** More than 165,000 Ohioans selected plans through HealthCare.gov through Dec. 19. That compares to 1.3 million plans selected in Florida; 290,000 plans selected by residents of Pennsylvania; 215,000 plans selected in Michigan; and 776,000 selected in Texas.
Plan selection is defined as the total number of people who have submitted an application for the Health Insurance Marketplace and selected a plan. This includes people who were automatically re-enrolled in the plan at the end of December.
A July 2016 Plain Dealer story noted that more than 800,000 residents had gained health coverage through the exchanges, cutting the rate of people without health care by 40 percent.