where Counihan was the CEO. In the last week, more than 25000 people had enrolled in Connecticut's Medicaid program or in qualified health plans (QHPs) offered by private insurers on accesshealthct.com, the state's online insurance exchange. this final surge brought the total number of enrollments to over 200,000 since the beginning of open enrollment on October 1,2013, which was double the goal that the federal government had set for the state. Local and national media outlets were pointing to AHCT as an important success story in the nationwide push to increase insurance coverage through the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA). Relatively affluent, Connection had about 345,000 uninsured individuals before open enrollment began, or 9.4% of its population of 3.6 million, well below the national average of 15% uninsured. Counihan thought that achieving twice the goal in a state with already high insurance penetration and the fourth highest insurance premiums in the country was particularly gratifying.