The number of people enrolled for health insurance from the public exchange is up this year. About 175,000 of those are Hoosiers.
Secretary for Health and Human Services Sylvia Burwell says about 8 million more people are enrolled this year nationwide.This number is from 6.4 million last year.
Enrollment traffic jumped sharply last week. This lead to an extension for enrollment. Secretary Burwell says, "At our busiest period, we had 11 consumers enrolling every second."
Chris Schrader runs a human resources firm in Bloomington. He says the biggest concern right now is not how many people have signed up, but who is enrolled.
Schrader says, "If we do not have a pretty substantial percentage of young, healthy, non-health providing consumers in there, propping that up, then you are going to end up with a really adverse mix from an insurance standpoint."
Just over 2 million of those enrolled are under the age of 35. This is 1 million more than this time last year, and open enrollment ends on January 31.