Obamacare Enrollment Grace Period Will Extend to April 15

The big Obamacare deadline was supposed to be midnight this past Monday, but last week the White House announced an extension via an online “honor system” that would provide a grace period to those unable to enroll by the initial deadline. Today the White House let everyone know that the new, absolute, final deadline is April 15th.

The emphasis is on people who “didn’t finish in time” and who are “on line” to enroll by the deadline for a number of reasons, including the following:

• You couldn’t start or continue your application because of heavy traffic to HealthCare.gov or the Marketplace call center
• You were blocked by error screens or similar technical issues
• You sent in an application by mail and didn’t get an eligibility result before the deadline

So now everyone who still needs to get enrolled can do so, and anyone who enrolls by the new deadline will be covered starting May 1st.

[Correction: An earlier version of this post mistakenly said coverage would begin on March 1st, instead of May 1st.]

[h/t TIME]
[photo via Shutterstock]

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Follow Josh Feldman on Twitter: @feldmaniac

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