Nearly 54,000 more New Yorkers enroll in O-Care

Nearly 54,000 more New Yorkers enrolled in the state’s health insurance exchange in the last week, state officials said Monday, bringing the total to more than 188,000. 

At least 188,546 people have enrolled in the New York marketplace, and at least 421,949 people completed applications. 

{mosads}“We are continuing to see very high enrollment activity as we approach the Dec. 23 deadline for coverage beginning January 1, 2014,” Donna Frescatore, executive director of NY State of Health, said in a statement.

It’s unclear how many New Yorkers enrolled through a qualified health plan versus qualifying for Medicaid. In the update state officials provided a week ago, however, about 70 percent of the enrollees chose an ObamaCare plan, while the remaining 30 percent qualified for Medicaid.

New Yorkers had until Monday to sign up and enroll in the exchange in order to begin receiving health coverage Jan. 1. Officials from the Department of Health and Human Services extended the deadline for people to enroll in the federal exchange to Tuesday. 

State officials say they’re confident New York is on track to reach their enrollment goal of 1.1 million people by the end of 2016.

New York is one of 14 states running their own exchange instead of opting into the federal portal, HealthCare.gov.

California officials tweeted Monday that preliminary numbers showed more than 400,000 people enrolled in that state exchange. Over the weekend, in fact, 77,000 of that total enrolled in plans, said Executive Director Peter Lee.

The Obama administration spent October and November highlighting states’ enrollment numbers as they revamped and fixed HealthCare.gov.