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About 1.2 million people who bought coverage on HealthCare.gov in 2014 dropped their health plan and picked a new one through the site for 2015, the Obama administration said Wednesday. The extent of people’s willingness to consider shifting to a different insurance carrier came as a surprise to federal officials, said Andy Slavitt, a former top executive at UnitedHealth Group who is now principal deputy administrator at Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services and will become acting administrator on Monday. (Radnofsky, 2/25)

Some 8.84 million people selected or were automatically enrolled as of Feb. 22 in an individual health insurance plan on the HealthCare.gov website created under the national healthcare reform law, the U.S. government health agency said on Wednesday. (2/25)

More than 8.8 million consumers selected a plan or were automatically re-enrolled through HealthCare.gov from Nov. 15, 2014, to Feb. 22, Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia Burwell said Wedneday. HHS extended the deadline from Feb. 15 to Feb. 22 to accommodate people who couldn't get through to the federal call center or on the website by midnight on Feb. 15. (O'Donnell and Unger, 2/25)