Living Well notebook: Florida leads in Obamacare signups

Florida’s dominant political leaders may have no love for the Affordable Care Act, but the state’s residents are flocking to sign-up for health insurance through the federal marketplace, according to federal data released last week.

Between Nov. 15 and Dec. 15, the first month of this season’s sign-up period, 673,255 people had enrolled in a plan through healthcare.gov. That’s the highest number, by far, of any of the 37 states using the federal system. Texas came in at No. 2, with nearly 380,000 Obamacare customers.

Nearly half of Florida enrollees this year are new customers, while 51 percent were re-enrolling in marketplace plans, the report said. About 94 percent of them qualify for some level of tax credit to lower their monthly premiums.

Open enrollment continues through Feb. 15.

“Interest in the Marketplace has been strong during the first month of open enrollment,” said Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia Burwell in a press release on Florida’s numbers. “We still have a ways to go and a lot of work to do ... but this is an encouraging start.”

Nationally, more than 4 million people signed up for health plans using healthcare.gov or through a state-run exchange during the first enrollment month, the government said.

Local figures are not yet available. But a Health and Human Services report in September said that 70,000 residents of a 10-county Southwest Florida region enrolled through the marketplace during last year’s inaugural enrollment period. About 40,000 of them lived in Lee, Collier and Charlotte counties.

Profiled ALS dad dies on 41st birthday

Ben Westerhouse loved his 7-year-old son, Benny. It was practically all he wanted to talk about when photographer Andrew West and I made visits to his south Fort Myers home this fall to learn about his struggles with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, also known as ALS.

Westerhouse knew he was living on borrowed time — doctors had given him six months to live in January 2014 — and wanted to dedicate his remaining days making sure the boy remembered their close bond long after he was gone.

Sadly, his primary caregiver and good friend Claudia Carrington told us this week that Westerhouse died Thursday night, on his 41st birthday. As of this writing, no funeral arrangements had been made.

You can read more about Westerhouse and his son here.

Westerhouse and his friends set up a bank account to benefit Benny. If you’d like to contribute, you can do so through SunTrust Banks at 11340 Summerlin Square Drive in Fort Myers Beach. The account is in the name of Benjamin Westerhouse II.

Connect with this reporter: @FrankGluck (Twitter)