Updated 5:57p.m. ET, 12/20/2013
(CNN) – More than 1 million people have purchased new private health insurance on Obamacare exchanges at the state and federal level since the program launched in October, President Barack Obama said on Friday.
Obama told a news conference that more than 500,000 people selected plans through the federally run HealthCare.gov website in the first three weeks of December.
The remaining signed up over the nearly three-month period through online and other programs offered by 14 states.
"So all told, millions of Americans, despite problems with the website, are now poised to be covered by quality affordable health care," Obama said.
Monday is the government's deadline for consumers to purchase plans in order to get coverage at the start of the year. March 31 is the deadline to ensure coverage for the remainder of 2014.
Although enrollment figures are up, the administration still has a long way to go to reach its initial goal of attracting 7 million people to Obamacare by the end of March.
HealthCare.gov was down for several hours on Friday.
The White House announced on Thursday that individual policy holders who received termination notices could qualify for a hardship exemption and buy catastrophic plans.
The health care reforms he championed also include expanded Medicaid coverage in many states.
CNN's Kevin Liptak and Jim Acosta contributed to this report.
From CNN Politics
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I can't believe that Fox and the Kochs were lying to us by saying that there were tens of million who they said lost their worthless junk policies. Look out wingnuts, you are about to get run over by the Obamacare Express! What does the Fox say?
That's because Obamacare sucks you dry with higher cost and less coverage.
Who could believe anything from the lips of the liar in chief?
They will .
Americans hate paperwork , thats why we wanted our independence from England .
Teen claims he's a victim of his wealth ?
"President Barack Obama had repeatedly promised that people could keep their plans if they liked them under the reforms he championed." - Another lie by President Obama and CNN (Clinton News Network)?
Just more ductape...Nice planning Democrats!
But wait..i thought that the premise was to get them off of their off of their crap policies....isn't this a step back to the present???? I'm confused. – why can't we put them onto newer Obama-compliant policies that increase their premiums and wildly increase their deductibles thereby nearly negating any coverage at all???? I'm confused.
The administration Thursday offered stopgap options so people whose existing plans got canceled aren't penalized. It appears Obamacare was not ready to be rolled out. Who knew Ted Cruz and Sarah Palin would be right in the end.
The American people will be pleased when this dictatorial party is ousted from office. If you like your Senator, you can keep your Senator, or not.
This story is the lead in many news websites where it reads: delay of Obamacare mandate for some. Why is CNN burying this story?
You'd have to be crazy to buy into this scam! It's like a ponzi scheme!