Enrollment in health insurance plans through the Affordable Care Act marketplace in Connecticut went up by 2.3 percent for 2018, according to numbers released by Access Health CT Monday.

State officials said 114,134 people signed up for health insurance from either Anthem or ConnectiCare through Access Health CT during the Nov. 1 to Dec. 22, 2017, enrollment period, which the Trump administration shortened to seven weeks while cutting funding to enrollment programs.

Access Health CT responded by making changes to its in-person enrollment locations, closing two storefronts in New Haven and New Britain and opening enrollment centers in 10 new places, including in the offices of the Thames Valley Council for Community Action in Norwich.

The physical changes were also part of the marketplace's attempts to make itself as accessible as possible to uninsured people after a months-long Republican effort to repeal the health care law failed but confused many.

This was the fifth open enrollment period for Access Health CT since the marketplace opened after the passage of the Affordable Care Act in 2010.

"Every year they get better, and every year they get more exciting," Access Health CT CEO Jim Wadleigh said at a news conference at the state Capitol in Hartford Monday. "Sort of."

About 3,000 more people than last year signed up for insurance through the marketplace, about a 2.3 percent increase. Enrollment numbers went up in six counties and decreased slightly in Hartford and Windham counties.

Two insurers, ConnectiCare and Anthem, participated on the exchange this year after the state insurance department ruled that they could sell policies at higher rates than last year. The decision was made in anticipation of Trump repealing cost sharing reductions, the payments to insurance companies that sell plans on Affordable Care Act exchanges and keep low-income enrollees' health care costs down.

ConnectiCare enrolled 83,000 customers for 2018 and Anthem enrolled 31,000 customers for 2018.

Wadleigh said 13,419 of the 2018 enrollees were new customers who had not used Access Health CT to sign up for insurance before. About 80,000 were returning customers and about 12,000 former enrollees didn't re-enroll. Another 22,000 customers signed up for Medicaid coverage through the exchange. 

"The numbers show just how valuable the ACA is to hundreds of thousands of residents in Connecticut,"  Lt. Gov. Nancy Wyman said at Monday's news conference.

Wyman said she planned to meet with state lawmakers Monday to discuss adapting Connecticut's health insurance market to the congressional Republicans' decision to repeal of the Affordable Care Act's individual mandate — a key provision of the law that requires people to buy health insurance or pay a tax penalty — late last year.

More than 70 percent of the 2018 Access Health CT enrollees used the marketplace's website to sign up, Wadleigh said. Historically about half of enrollees have signed up in person and half have used the www.accesshealthct.com website, according to Wadleigh.

Almost a quarter of the people who signed up for health insurance for 2018 were part of the so-called "young invincibles" age group between 18 and 24 who have higher rates of being uninsured.

Access Health CT targeted those Connecticut residents with television, radio and online ads, and social media posts that he said were seen a cumulative 2.5 million times.