A record number of Americans have signed up for a health insurance plan under the Affordable Care Act (ACA), the White House announced on Wednesday.
About 24 million people picked a plan within the ACA marketplace for 2025, with another week still remaining in the open enrollment period. The record enrollment numbers include nearly 3.2 million new consumers and more than 20.4 million returning ones.
President Joe Biden in a statement touted the record enrollment numbers.
“That means that enrollment has nearly doubled since I took office. That’s no coincidence,” Biden wrote. “When I took office, I made a promise to the American people that I would bring down the cost of health care and prescription drugs, make signing up for coverage easier, and strengthen the Affordable Care Act, Medicare, and Medicaid.”
The ACA was former President Barack Obama’s signature health legislation and became known as “Obamacare.” Biden has pushed to expand the program and signed into law billions of dollars in tax credits for qualified individuals, which ultimately lowered the cost of coverage.
Biden also said that his administration delivered on the promise of continuing to give millions of Americans access to health care by making the “largest ever investment in outreach and enrollment assistance.”
Tax credits that made health care coverage more affordable for millions are set to expire at the end of the year. Biden urged Congress to continue the progress his administration has made and to extend the ACA premium tax credit this year.
But the future of the program remains unclear a Republican-controlled Congress and a second Trump presidency.
Enrollment for the program dropped during Trump’s first term. In 2017, Trump signed a multi-part executive order designed to repeal and replace Obamacare.
“Obamacare has been a complete nightmare for the many Americans who have been devastated by its skyrocketing healthcare premiums and deductibles,” Trump said in 2017.
During the 2024 presidential election, Trump dismissed Democrats’ claims that he would terminate the program.
“Lyin’ Kamala is giving a News Conference now, saying that I want to end the Affordable Care Act. I never mentioned doing that, never even thought about such a thing,” Trump wrote in an October 2024 post on X.
During an interview with NBC’s “Meet the Press” last month, Trump said that “a better plan” is in the works.
The open enrollment period for health insurance under the ACA ends on Jan. 15.
Obamacare remains popular among Americans, garnering the approval of 54 percent of U.S. adults, according to a Gallup poll released last month. The same poll showed that 64 percent of Americans believe it is the federal government’s responsibility to ensure all Americans have health care coverage, the highest percentage in more than a decade.