Obamacare Enrollment Allowed After March 31

The Obama ad­min­is­tra­tion an­nounced late Tues­day that con­sumers who say they tried to sign up for health in­sur­ance on the fed­er­al ex­change be­fore March 31 will be able to get cov­er­age past the dead­line.

The new guidelines were first re­por­ted by The Wash­ing­ton Post, which ad­ded that con­sumers will have un­til mid-April to sign up for new cov­er­age. Ad­min­is­tra­tion of­fi­cials would not con­firm that de­tail, say­ing only that more in­form­a­tion would be com­ing soon.

Con­sumers will have to at­test to their cir­cum­stances as part of the late ap­plic­a­tion pro­cess, an ad­min­is­tra­tion of­fi­cial said. De­tails on who will qual­i­fy for the ex­tra time to en­roll have yet to be re­leased.

“We are ex­per­i­en­cing a surge in de­mand and are mak­ing sure that we will be ready to help con­sumers who may be in line by the dead­line to com­plete en­roll­ment,” said Aaron Al­bright, a spokes­man at the Cen­ters for Medi­care and Medi­caid Ser­vices, the Health and Hu­man Ser­vices agency in charge of the fed­er­al ex­change.