CHIP was originally funded as a 10-year program. When the original funding ran out in 2007, it was extended for two years (to 2009) under George W. Bush with little incident (he had previously vetoed an expanded version but later signed the extension of the existing version).
Under President Obama, CHIP was extended (and expanded) again through 2013. The Affordable Care Act added another 2 years to CHIP, extending funding through 2015. In 2015, CHIP funding was extended again, through September 30, 2017.
The completely GOP-controlled Congress allowed CHIP funding to expire. Most state still had a few months worth of money held in reserve for the program, but some started sending out termination notices to the parents of enrollees, letting them know that they'd be kicked off the program within the next month or two.
An analysis of potential premium changes in states across the nation shows increases of 16 to 30 percent likely in 2019 if federal steps are not taken.
While the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act’s subsidies would largely insulate subsidized consumers from these costs, millions of unsubsidized consumers would pay the full price of these increases. Many would likely be priced out of coverage.
Continued policy and premium uncertainty risks further carrier withdrawals, leaving more consumers with only one health plan and even the prospect of “bare counties.”
The analysis reviews three federal policy options that could stabilize markets and mitigate the impact of premium increases in many states.
Covered California’s open-enrollment period is still underway and consumers have through Jan. 31 to sign up for coverage.
The United States federal government shut down for the first 17 days of October 2013 because Ted Cruz and other Congressional Republicans, furious about the Affordable Care Act surviving everything they had thrown at it over the preceeding 3-4 years, thought that pulling the plug would torpedo the launch of the ACA's first Open Enrollment Period.
Rather, any defunding would be temporary, because of a government shutdown. On the day the exchanges were due to open, much of the federal government would go offline, including a big portion of the Health and Human Services Department that is running the coverage expansion. But legislative inaction cannot gut Obamacare in the way that legislative action could. During a shutdown, implementation would “substantially” continue.
That’s according to a Congressional Research Service report prepared for Senator Tom Coburn, an Oklahoma Republican. In no small part, the reason is that much of the Affordable Care Act’s financing comes from mandatory spending, rather than discretionary spending, and a continuing resolution concerns only the latter. Moreover, some of the law’s money comes from multiyear or “no-year” discretionary funds that do not get wrapped up in the continuing-resolution process either. The Health and Human Services Department says its reform implementation fund would not get touched by a lapse in appropriations.
A few days ago I reported that the Washington Health Benefit Exchange had enrolled 234,000 people in private policies for 2018 when they had just a couple of days left to go.
Today Hannah Recht provided a link to this WA state navigator meeting in which rough final numbers were included as part of the slideshow presentation, along with a bunch of other data points which should be of interest to other healthcare/navigator wonks. 242,800 is a rough number but assuming it doesn't get changed by much, it means the Apple State enrolled 7.6% more people in QHPs this year than last, with nearly 1/3 of them being new to the WA exchange.
Washington State was already beating their 2017 numbers anyway, so this update just pads their lead.
UPDATE 1/22/18: Covered California has just issued a major update to their enrollment data, adding another 122,000 QHP selections to the national tally. Everything below has been updated to include this.
UPDATE 1/28/18: The deadline for Massachusetts has passed and they've posted their final numbers. Everything below has been updated to reflect this update.
Last year, New York State of Health enrolled a total of 242,880 people in ACA exchange policies; this means they're slightly ahead of that number with two weeks left to go before the January 31st Open Enrollment deadline. This makes NY the fifteenth state to surpass last year's total...as well as the 7th State-based Marketplace (or the 10th if you include SBMs which are piggybacking on the federal exchange platform). I'll be writing something up about that later today.
LT. GOV. WYMAN: DEMAND FOR HEALTH INSURANCE ROSE, 2018 OPEN ENROLLMENT STRONGER THAN PREVIOUS YEARS
(HARTFORD, Conn.) – Lt. Governor Nancy Wyman and Access Health CT (AHCT) CEO Jim Wadleigh today provided the results of the Connecticut healthcare exchange’s fifth open enrollment period, which ran from November 1 to December 22, 2017. During this open enrollment cycle, 114,134 residents signed up for private health insurance coverage, reflecting a 2.3 percent increase compared to enrollment figures last year.
CMS Announces Additional Special Enrollment Periods to help Individuals Impacted by Hurricanes in Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands
Agency provides extended special enrollment periods for 2018 Medicare and Exchange coverage
