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Obamacare sign-ups for 2017 coverage rose about 2.3 percent from the same time last year, as efforts to repeal President Barack Obama’s health care reform begin in Congress. About 8.8 million people enrolled in individual insurance plans through the HealthCare.gov website as of Dec. 31, compared with 8.6 million last year, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services said in an e-mailed statement. The figures are the first to include automatic re-enrollments, providing the most complete picture to date of participation. Sign-ups for Obamacare plans are a key measure of the program’s success, as Republicans in Congress have begun efforts to repeal at least parts of the 2010 health law. (Tracer, 1/4)

More than 230,000 Tennesseans are enrolled in a health insurance plan on the federally run exchange just as the new Republican-led Congress clamors to repeal the Affordable Care Act. Across the state, 234,222 people selected a plan or were re-enrolled as of Dec. 31, according to data from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. That's in line with the number of enrollees at the same time last year. There also are people shopping for individual plans that don't qualify for tax credits or alternative plans and risk paying a tax penalty. (Fletcher, 1/4)

People in [Columbia, S.C.] had their pick of four health insurers last year when they shopped for policies during the Affordable Care Act’s open enrollment. This time they have just one: Blue Cross Blue Shield of South Carolina, which had the most Obamacare consumers in Richland County in 2016 due to its low prices. It’s a change that’s been repeated around the country after big health insurers such as Aetna, Humana and United Healthcare pulled out of dozens of Obamacare marketplaces that they judged unprofitable. (Galewitz, 1/5)

As Republicans in Congress move to repeal the Affordable Care Act, supporters of the law mounted a campaign to salvage the federal law that has extended health-insurance coverage to more than 20 million Americans. Arizona Democrats and "Obamacare" allies held a rally at the state Capitol on Wednesday, defending the health-care law passed in 2010. (Alltucker, 1/4)

Federal auditors are recommending that Colorado be forced to repay nearly $9.7 million from grants used to set up Connect for Health Colorado, the state’s Obamacare exchange, after concluding that the money was misspent or not properly accounted for. The audit, released last week by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’s Office of Inspector General, found that Connect for Health Colorado didn’t sufficiently document how it spent roughly $4.4 million on contractors and consultants. The audit also accused the exchange of allocating $4.5 million from the grants to prepay for contracts that would run past the end of 2014, the time by which all grant money was supposed to be spent. (Ingold, 1/4)