Consumer Advisory: Former Individual Market Bright Health & Oscar Health Enrollees Have Until March 1 to Choose New Coverage
Special Enrollment Period allows them to still get insurance for 2023.
DENVER - People who had individual health insurance plans (insurance not from an employer) from Bright Health and Oscar Health in 2022 are reminded that they have until the end of February to choose a health plan from another company for 2023 insurance.
Even though the regular open enrollment for individual health insurance plans concluded on January 15, consumers who had their Bright or Oscar coverage finish at the end of December are allowed a 60-day special enrollment period (SEP) because those companies did not offer plans for 2023. This 60-day SEP started on January 1 and will continue until March 1, 2023.
Special enrollment remains open for those who qualify for, but are not enrolled in, Cascade Care Savings
More than 60% of Washington Healthplanfinder customers are in a Cascade Care plan
Washington Health Benefit Exchange (Exchange) released its 2023 Enrollment Preview Report today. Nearly 231,000 customers signed-up for a 2023 qualified health plan through Washington Healthplanfinder, including 37,000 new customers.
“We had our highest net enrollment gain and launched the new Cascade Care Savings during open-enrollment for 2023, resulting in our highest percentage of subsidized customers and highest percentage of plan switching,” Exchange interim CEO Jim Crawford said.
The exact QHP total, according to the preview report, was 230,800, down 3.7% from the 2022 Open Enrollment Period.
Georgia GOP leaders have proposed a bill that they hope will lead to a state takeover of the health insurance exchange marketplace for Affordable Care Act plans.
...Traditionally a majority of Georgians shop for ACA plans on the federally run marketplace website, healthcare.gov. Eighteen states use their own marketplace website, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation. The key feature of these sites is they allow shoppers to objectively compare their options for price and coverage.
It’s unclear exactly what the state’s replacement would be.
As I noted this morning, while the 2023 ACA Open Enrollment Period has now officially ended in all states, there's still a lot of Special Enrollment Period (SEP) exceptions for people who have Qualified Life Experiences (QLEs) such as losing their current coverage, turning 26, moving, getting married/divorced, giving birth and so forth.
There's also year-round enrollment available for members of Native American tribes, as well as those eligible for Medicaid and the Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP).
Finally, in most states, residents are eligible to enroll year-round as long as their income is below a certain threshold--usually 150% of the Federal Poverty Level (FPL), somewhat higher in some states, including New York, where residents earning. up to 200% FPL can enroll in the Essential Plan year-round.
Last month I noted that the partisan COVID death rate gap, which had been significantly higher in the reddest U.S. counties than the bluest counties every month since July 2020, appeared to be on the verge of finally disappearing entirely:
The initial COVID wave in March - May 2020, of course, devastated Blue America, primarily densely populated (and heavily Democratic) New York and New Jersey, while leaving Red America (mostly sparsely populated, rural Republican counties) relatively unscathed.
This situation quickly began to reverse itself only a few months later. Starting in July 2020--the same month the Vanity Fair expose was published, as it happens--the situation had already reversed itself: The reddest fifth of the U.S. was already experiencing a higher COVID death rate than the bluest fifth...and it has stayed that way ever since.
However, as I keep noting, there's still plenty of people who are eligible to enroll in ACA healthcare coverage during the off-season (thanks to Louise Norris for providing some of the links below):
via the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), by email:
Today, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) released the latest enrollment figures for Medicare, Medicaid, and the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP). These programs serve as key connectors to care for more millions of Americans.
H.R. 382 – A bill to terminate the public health emergency declared with respect to COVID-19 (Rep. Guthrie, R-KY, and 19 cosponsors)
H.J. Res. 7 – A joint resolution relating to a national emergency declared by the President on March 13, 2020 (Rep. Gosar, R-AZ, and 51 cosponsors)
The COVID-19 national emergency and public health emergency (PHE) were declared by the Trump Administration in 2020. They are currently set to expire on March 1 and April 11, respectively. At present, the Administration’s plan is to extend the emergency declarations to May 11, and then end both emergencies on that date. This wind-down would align with the Administration’s previous commitments to give at least 60 days’ notice prior to termination of the PHE.
With time running out, Covered California announced new enrollment data and encouraged consumers to sign up for coverage before this year’s open-enrollment period ends.
As of Jan. 29, more than 240,000 consumers had newly signed up for health insurance through Covered California during the current open-enrollment period. In addition, more than 1.5 million Californians have renewed their coverage for another year.
That's a grand total of at least 1,740,000 people...or around 21,000 higher than CMS had reported California being at as of January 15th. Note the "more than" clarifier re. the 1.5M figure; this suggests that the actual total could be as much as ~40K or so higher.
The press release talks about "more than 35 million" being enrolled, but when you look at the actual data, it's almost certainly over 36 million as of today. Here's how they break it out:
Effectuated ACA exchange enrollment as of March 2022: 13,640,412
Medicaid Expansion (newly eligible) as of October 2021: 16,781,800
Medicaid Expansion (previously eligible) as of October 2021: 4,261,277
Basic Health Plan enrollment as of March 2022: 1,135,190
TOTAL: 35,818,679
Notice that even without delving further, the total is already over 35.8 million.
However, there's two important dates to look at here: First, the Medicaid Expansion totals are only up to date as of last October, a good 6 months ago.
