Also yesterday, California’s exchange reported it has now enrolled almost 80,000 people in health plans. The most populous U.S. state also revealed it was joining New York, Washington, Minnesota, Vermont, Massachusetts and Rhode Island in refusing Obama’s call to ask insurers to extend canceled plans for a year. At least 12 states have agreed to the request, according to America’s Health Insurance Plans, an industry lobby group.

The Affordable Care Act has faced dozens of attempts by Republicans to defund or repeal it, and last month’s botched rollout of the insurance exchange by the government even tested the faith of some Democrats in Congress.

The one-month delay revealed yesterday is just long enough so “consumers will not see their 2015 premiums until after the midterm elections, instead of immediately before,” said Mike Tuffin, a former insurance industry lobbyist who is now managing director of consulting firm APCO Worldwide’s Washington office. “One doesn’t have to be a conspiracy theorist to divine the motive here.”

First Year

The first-year enrollment period that began Oct. 1 runs through March 31, 2014. Insurers would have then had until May to decide if they wanted to participate in the next round and determine what rates they would charge.

A spokeswoman for the Health and Human Services Department, Joanne Peters, and a spokeswoman for the White House, Jessica Santillo, didn’t respond late yesterday to e-mailed questions about any political motive behind giving insurers an extra month.

While 106,185 people were able to select private plans through the government exchanges last month, almost 1 million more abandoned the application process before choosing a plan, in some cases because they encountered website errors and long wait times. Hundreds of thousands of Americans meanwhile have received letters from their current insurers informing them that their existing coverage is being canceled because it doesn’t comply with the new health law rules.

Enrollment Extension

Pushing back the 2015 dates gives the state and federal governments more time to sort out technical issues with the exchanges, the HHS official said. It may also allow room for the government to extend the current enrollment period.

“If their implementation is not going to be improved in a meaningful way by the end of December, extending the enrollment period would be a wise decision,” Gupte said.