Enrollment deadline for healthcare.gov extended through Monday

Enrollment for January health-care coverage through the healthcare.gov website has been extended through Monday nationwide due to demand, the director of the Silver State Health Insurance Exchange said late Thursday.

Exchange Director Heather Korbulic said users of the website experienced some delays Thursday as people nationwide attempted to enroll on what had been the deadline for January coverage through exchanges created by the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare as it’s commonly known.

In an email, the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services attributed the extension to “extraordinary demand at HealthCare.gov and the Marketplace Call Center.” It’s the second consecutive year there’s been a federal extension past the December deadline, according to The Washington Post.

“These additional days will give consumers a chance to come back and complete enrollment for coverage starting January 1,” the email said.

The overall deadline to enroll for 2017 Obamacare coverage is January 31. Nevada Health Link will hold an enrollment event Jan. 29.

At an event Thursday at Cashman Center, more than 250 Nevadans are believed to have sought enrollment help, Korbulic said.

She added that the wait time for assistance at the event, which began at noon, was about 30 minutes in the afternoon.

By the time the event ended at 7 p.m., the wait time was roughly 1½ hours, staffers said.

More than 4 million people across the country chose healthcare.gov plans between Nov. 1 and Dec. 10, according to the website’s most recent enrollment snapshot.

Contact Pashtana Usufzy at pusufzy@reviewjournal.com or 702-380-4563. Follow @pashtana_u on Twitter.