Within a one-week period, HealthCare.gov, the federal health insurance exchange marketplace, doubled its plan selections.

The fifth week of the second open enrollment period, which occurred between Dec. 13 and Dec. 19, coincided with the first deadline for consumers seeking to receive health insurance by Jan. 1, 2015. The first initial deadline of Dec. 15 contributed to an influx of consumers renewing their health insurance coverage. During the fifth week, 83 percent of plans selected were renewals, compared to 17 percent that were from new consumers. The first four weeks of the second open enrollment period has been consistently split between new and returning consumers; for instance, week four's plan selections consisted of 53 percent renewals and 47 percent by new consumers.

The fifth week included 3,927,484 plan selections, which resulted in a cumulative 6,394,046 plan selections since open enrollment started on Nov. 15. On average, between Nov. 15 and Dec. 19, 70 percent of the plan selections were by returning consumers and 30 percent represented new consumers.

The data, provided by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), only includes services to HealthCare.gov and the Spanish-equivalent CuidadoDeSalud.gov. Data from the state-based health insurance marketplace exchanges were not included in week five's statistics.

Since the Dec. 15 deadline coincided with the fifth week, call volumes to HealthCare.gov and CuidadoDeSalud.gov's call centers increased.

Calls for an English-speaking representative reached a new peak at 2,179,933. Since Nov. 15, the English-speaking call center has received 6,279,077. With the increased call volume, however, the average call-waiting time significantly increased. During week four, the average wait time was 13 minutes and 12 seconds, but that figure increased in week five to 23 minutes and 25 seconds.

Calls for a Spanish-speaking representative also increased but not significant compared to the English service. Week five introduced 136,364 calls for a Spanish-speaking representative, an increase from week four's 124,422 calls. The average waiting time also increased significantly compared to its previous week. Week four's waiting time was approximately 18 seconds, but week five's average wait time was 1 minute and 33 seconds. Since the second open enrollment period, there has been 497,374 calls to the Spanish-speaking call center.

Website visits to HealthCare.gov and CuidadoDeSalud.gov increased. The English-language federal health insurance exchange website attracted 4,173,531 users during week five, which helped increased its overall figure to 14,054,904 users since enrollment restarted on Nov. 15. CuidadoDeSalud.gov's garnered 160,630 unique visitors to its website. Its cumulative website user rate still has not hit the half-million milestone, but attracted a total 490,191 users since Nov. 15.

"We still have a lot of work to do before the Feb. 15 enrollment deadline, but this is an encouraging start," said HHS Secretary Sylvia Burwell said. "People shopped for coverage and signed up -- finding more choices and greater competition."

Burwell commended the Affordable Care Act, also referred to as Obamacare, for nearly 6.4 million consumers applying for health insurance, including about 1.9 million new consumers, for 2015.

"This law is working, and families are better off as a result," Burwell added.

The federal HealthCare.gov and CuidadoDeSalud.gov are available for states without state-level health insurance marketplace exchanges. The HHS noted 37 states use the federal marketplace: Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Maine, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Nevada, New Mexico, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, West Virginia, Wisconsin and Wyoming.

The second open enrollment period concludes on Feb. 15.

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