Record Calls on Final Day of Healthcare Enrollment, Total Over 7 Million

Healthcare.gov suffered an extreme onrush of last-minute attempts to enroll on Monday, March 31, the final day for enrollment. We now have official numbers on how many people waited till the last minute. "We can now confirm that we had 4.8 million visits to the healthcare.gov site yesterday; and about 2 million calls to the 1-800 number (previous record was 646,000)," said Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) Spokesman Michael Fierberg.

That previous record of 646,000 is from 2006 on the final day of enrollment for Medicare part D.

We also have new numbers from White House spokesman Jay Carney on total number of federal exchange enrolless nationwide, below is a transcript of his statements that was cent to CMS:

But, with the remarkable surge in enrollment 7,041,000 people signed up for health insurance before the midnight deadline yesterday - and that doesn't count the last day surge in sign-ups in more than a dozen states that run their own Marketplaces.

We surpassed the 7 million mark with the over 200,000 people who enrolled yesterday in states run by the federal government alone.

We can now confirm that we had 4.8 million visits to the healthcare.gov site yesterday; and about 2 million calls to the 1-800 number (previous record was 646,000).

It is still unclear how many Montanans were able to enroll, Fierberg said those numbers have not been released yet and may not be available for weeks. There are also many questions about what the 7 million number means, is it those who have paid? Does it include dependents? Is it only those that made an account? Etc.

Although the enrollment period is over, those that tried to enroll before the deadline can still do so. If they have a username and password they can go through the healthcare.gov website, if not, they will need to call CMS at 1-800-318-2596.

Even CMS does not know how long the extra enrollment time will last as no final date has been established.

"We haven't announced a cutoff date, that said, I wouldn't wait a long time to finish this process," Fierberg said. "Do it in the next few days."