Sometimes you just have to let things play out for awhile:
More than 15 million people have signed up for health insurance plans offered on the Affordable Care Act’s federal marketplace, a 33 percent increase compared to the same time last year, according to preliminary data released by the Biden administration on Wednesday.
Federal health officials project that more than 19 million people will enroll in 2024 coverage by the end of the current enrollment period next month. That total would include those who gain coverage through state marketplaces, continuing the record-setting pace.
Despite a recent warning from former President Donald J. Trump, the front-runner in the race for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, that he was “seriously looking at alternatives” to the Affordable Care Act, the latest surge in marketplace enrollment is a testament to the law’s enduring power.
Legislation passed earlier in the Covid-19 pandemic increased federal subsidies for people buying plans, lowering the costs for many Americans. The Biden administration also lengthened the sign-up period and increased advertising for the program and funding for so-called navigators who help people enroll.
[…]
On Dec. 15 — the deadline to sign up for coverage that begins on Jan. 1 — nearly 750,000 people opted for a marketplace plan on HealthCare.gov. It was the largest single-day total yet.
Dr. Benjamin Sommers, a health economist at Harvard who served in the Biden administration, said that improved outreach helped explain the record sign-ups. “I’m pleasantly surprised,” he said.
With years of increased subsidies, he added, “it might be this is the natural growth rate over a few years in a new policy environment.”
Kody Kinsley, the top health official in North Carolina, said that his state had gotten creative by using its efforts expanding Medicaid to also sign people up for marketplace plans.
“We’ve had a very broad educational and outreach campaign — with civic organizations, churches, navigators — built around expansion to educate folks about eligibility,” he said in a text message.
He added: “As part of that, we support folks to get coverage on the marketplace, if they’re not eligible” for Medicaid.
The open-enrollment period on Healthcare.gov runs through mid-January, ending at 5 a.m. Eastern time on Jan. 17. People who enroll by then will have coverage beginning in February.
Biden administration officials said that they were encouraging enrollees who were already covered through HealthCare.gov to continue shopping for plans, in case a new option turns out to be better and more affordable.
The Affordable Care Act’s marketplaces have become particularly valuable to the people losing Medicaid coverage this year after a federal policy that guaranteed coverage earlier in the pandemic lapsed in April.
The millions of people dropping off Medicaid rolls has contributed to the uptick in marketplace enrollment, Ms. Cox said, and to surges during normally sleepier periods outside open enrollment. (Certain life events, such as the sudden loss of other health coverage, allow some Americans to get new plans outside the open enrollment period.)
According to federal health officials, from March to September enrollment in marketplace plans increased by 1.6 million people, or 1.5 million more than during the same period last year.
This is really fantastic news. If all those monstrous red state governments would agree to accept the money to expand Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program, we might actually be getting close to some kind of universal coverage.
Trump will keep saying what he says because other than terrorizing his political enemies and coddling dictators, his only agenda is reversing all progress of the past century, most particularly anything with Obama’s name on it. And it’s going to hurt him. There are just too many people who have benefited from the program. That’s great!
Happy Hollandaise!