Youth participation low in early Obamacare enrollment

By David Morgan WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The new private health plans available under Obamacare drew in fewer young and healthy Americans than needed for the administration to make healthcare reform a market success in the first wave of enrollment, an official report showed on Monday. Twenty-four percent of the 2.2 million people who signed up for private coverage between October 1 and December 28 belonged to a target audience of 18- to 34-year-olds, according to an administration report, the first to provide a demographic breakdown on enrollment in the new plans offered under President Barack Obama's healthcare law. That compares with a target closer to 38 percent set before the program's botched October 1 rollout, when administration officials believed that about 2.7 million of a forecast 7 million potential enrollees for 2014 would be between 18 and 35 to help offset the cost of covering sicker consumers. Health policy experts say the administration may still get closer to that ratio by the time 2014 enrollment closes at the end of March, when more young Americans sign up to avoid the law's penalty for not being insured.