Humana says young people signing up for Obamacare

Humana Inc said on Wednesday that it received 202,000 applications for Obamacare health insurance plans, many of them from young people, but still gave a wide forecast for 2014 profit as it waits to see the demographics of future customers. President Barack Obama’s national healthcare reform law, often called Obamacare, set up state-based insurance exchanges to let individuals buy policies with income-based subsidies. Humana, which previously cut its outlook for sign-ups by at least half because of the technology failures, said it saw that more customers than usual were extending their old health plans. Still, Chief Executive Officer Bruce Broussard said that its first look at enrollees so far shows that they are “scaling a bit more to the younger side.” Young people, typically defined as adults under age 35, have fewer medical problems and are less expensive to insure, making them an important element to ensure the long-term viability of the exchanges.