Report: 739 Arizonans sign up for ‘Obamacare’ coverage

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According to the federal government, fewer than 750 Arizonans have signed up for health insurance under the federal marketplace created by the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare.

A report released today by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services showed that 17,220 applications from Arizona have been completed on healthcare.gov, the federal website that has been plagued with problems since its Oct. 1 launch. Those applications cover 32,897 people.

Of those, only 739 Arizonans have selected a marketplace insurance plan. Nearly 21,000 of the applicants are eligible to enroll, and about a third of them – roughly 7,200 – qualify for subsidies to defray the cost. Another 11,339 of the applicants were directed to the state’s AHCCCS program because their income was too low to participate in the marketplace.

Arizona is one of 35 states that opted not to run its own marketplace, and instead ceded that job to the federal government. Nationwide, 846,000 applications were completed on the state- and federally run marketplaces for slightly more than 1.5 million people. Only 106,000 have chosen a private insurance plan from the marketplaces.