As we wait for the latest statistics on the number of Americans who have signed up on government exchanges for healthcare insurance coverage for 2018, experts are predicting that the shortened 45-day window for open enrollment will succeed in preventing some people for signing up for insurance under the Affordable Care Act (ACA).
The latest information from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) was that about 4.7 million people had signed up for insurance on the federal exchange, healthcare.gov, used by 39 states, through December 9. The deadline for signups to obtain 2018 insurance on healthcare.gov was December 15. By comparison, that is well behind the roughly 9.2 million people signed up for insurance through HealthCare.gov for 2017 by last year’s deadline of January 31.
It’s doubtful that enough people signed up in the last week to eclipse last year’s total, despite the pace of people signing up during the 45-day period exceeding the pace for 2017 enrollment.
Senators Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and Patty Murray (D-Wash.) sent a letter to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and CMS urging the deadline for open enrollment be extended to January 31, 2018 to give consumers more time to purchase health insurance on the federal exchange. The Trump administration, late on December 15, decided not to extend deadline.
However, some Americans do have the opportunity to purchase insurance from state exchanges which have established deadlines that extend beyond December 15.
According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, state-based Marketplaces (SBMs) have flexibility to set their own dates for open enrollment. California, Colorado, Connecticut, District of Columbia, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New York, Rhode Island, and Washington established deadlines for their state residents that range from December 22 for Connecticut and Maryland to January 31 for California, New York and the District of Columbia.
The ACA deadline was extended to December 31 for the states of Florida, South Carolina, Georgia, and Alabama and parts of Texas(53 counties), Louisiana (20 parishes), and Mississippi, (7 counties), as well as all of Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands ,,because they were designated eligible for individual or public assistance benefits from the Federal Emergency Management Administration (FEMA). Maine residents also were granted an extension because many were unable to enroll because of the impacts of severe storms and power outages.
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