It was meant to have the opposite effect.
The Trump administration’s decision to undermine the Affordable Care Act (ACA) by shortening the annual open enrollment period to 45-days and cutting funding to promote open enrollment was predicted to reduce the number of people who might seek insurance coverage for 2018 on HealthCare.gov.
Instead, more than 600,000 people signed up for health insurance under the ACA in the first four days of enrollment. According to Reuters: “The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, a division of the Department of Health and Human Services, said that during the period of Nov. 1 through Nov. 4, 601,462 people, including 137,322 new consumers, selected plans in the 39 states that use the federal website HealthCare.gov.”
Access to healthcare remains top of mind for Americans. For instance, exit polls in Virginia for state elections found healthcare to be the most pressing issue on the minds of voters who elected a Democratic governor in that state. And entrepreneurs and small businesses owners and employees are among those that benefit greatly from having access to healthcare insurance plans through the ACA.
For employers, all this, along with recent guidance from the IRS, points to the ACA continuing strong and the employer mandate being enforced. If you haven’t done so already, now is the time to assess your compliance with the ACA and what data you need to file ACA related forms with the IRS for the 2017 tax year.
