via the New Jersey Dept. of Banking & Insurance (via email; no link yet):
NJDOBI Announces Nearly 300K Have Signed Up for Health Insurance through Get Covered New Jersey
NJ residents must enroll by Dec. 31 for coverage starting Jan. 1
9 in 10 People Who Enroll Qualify for Savings; Many Pay $10 a Month or Less for Health Coverage
TRENTON – New Jersey Department of Banking and Insurance Commissioner Marlene Caride today announced that nearly 300,000 New Jersey residents signed up for a 2023 health insurance plan through the state’s official health insurance marketplace, Get Covered New Jersey, in the first five weeks of the Open Enrollment Period that started on November 1, 2022. Total signups have increased compared to the same timeframe last year, as residents continue to take advantage of record levels of financial help available from the State of New Jersey and the federal government.
Open Enrollment for 2023 health insurance ends January 31st, 2023, but residents must enroll in a plan by December 31st, 2022 for coverage to take effect on January 1st, 2023.
HealthCare.gov Sign Ups Outpace Previous Years At Key Milestone
The Biden-Harris Administration announced today that Affordable Care Act (ACA) Marketplace enrollment continues to outpace previous years, with nearly 11.5 million people selecting a health plan nationwide as of December 15, 2022 – a key milestone marking the deadline for coverage starting January 1, 2023. About 1.8 million more people have signed up for health insurance, or an 18% increase, from this time last year.
This report provides a summary of information for week one of the beWellnm health insurance individual Marketplace Open Enrollment Period for plan year 2023 (OEP 2023). The report contains data from the beWellnm eligibility and enrollment platform for OEP 2023, and includes an overview of the following:
plan selections
new enrollees
enrollees renewing coverage
Customer Engagement Center call volumes
website traffic
Enrollment
This section contains enrollment data through December 20, 2022.
1. Total Plan Selections (net): Count of unique individuals who have selected a Plan Year (PY) 2023 Marketplace medical plan. Count includes all new and re-enrolling consumers (defined in Indicators 2 and 3), regardless of whether the consumer has paid the first month premium. Count does not include plans that were canceled or terminated.: 37,056
Yesterday I noted that the big year-end federal omnibus spending bill includes provisions which allow states to start kicking people off of Medicaid who are only eligible thanks to the COVID-19 public health emergency bills passed in 2020 & 2021..but it at least does so in a fairly responsible way by phasing out the extra federal matching funds gradually over a 9-month period, to prevent states from dumping everyone all at once.
The omnibus bill also includes other important positive Medicaid provisions such as letting children who are eligible for the program stay on it for at least 12 months regardless of household income changes, and letting states offer 12 months of postpartum Medicaid/CHIP coverage to newborn children & their mothers on a permanent basis instead of the current 5-year limit.
A week and a half ago, on a Saturday Night, my friend Jenny Chumbley Hogue, a Texas-based health insurance broker, gave me a heads up about a rather concerning and suspiciously-timed notice regarding Oscar Health of Florida:
Hello agent, please view the below information in reference to Oscar. We have received this information from Oscar and are passing it along to you.
Beginning at midnight Monday, 12/12/2022, (00:00 am Tuesday morning), Oscar in Florida will cease all new sales for IFP. All previously enrolled members and auto-enrolled members can keep their current plan by paying for January coverage. If members need to make a plan change, they need to do so by this time, midnight Monday.
As I (and many others) have been noting for over a year now, the official end of the federal Public Health Emergency (PHE), whenever it happens, will presumably bring with it reason to celebrate...but will also likely create a new disaster at the same time:
What goes up usually goes back down eventually, and that's likely to be the case with Medicaid enrollment as soon as the public health crisis formally ends...whenever that may be.
Well, yesterday Ryan Levi and Dan Gorenstein of of the Tradeoffs healthcare policy podcast posted a new episode which attempts to dig into just when that might be, how many people could be kicked off of the program once that time comes and how to mitigate the fallout (I should note that they actually reference my own estimate in the program notes):
Enhanced direct enrollment (EDE) is a new pathway for consumers to enroll in health insurance coverage through the Federally-facilitated Exchange. This pathway allows CMS to partner with the private sector to provide a more user-friendly and seamless enrollment experience for consumers by allowing them to apply for and enroll in an Exchange plan directly through an approved issuer or web-broker without the need to be redirected to HealthCare.gov or contact the Exchange Call Center.
Back in May, I first wrote about news that two additional states, Oregon and Kentucky, had decided to join New York and Minnesota in launching a Basic Health Plan (BHP) program under a provision allowing them to do so in the Affordable Care Act:
The Basic Health Program (BHP) – section 1331 of the ACA — was envisioned as a solution, although most states did not establish a BHP. Under the ACA (aka Obamacare), states have the option to create a Basic Health Program for people with incomes a little above the upper limit for Medicaid eligibility, and for legal immigrants who aren’t eligible for Medicaid because of the five-year waiting period.
ST. PAUL, Minn. — Today, MNsure reports that over 119,500 Minnesotans signed up for 2023 health insurance through MNsure, where Minnesotans choose medical and dental coverage, between November 1 and December 15, 2022.
Now in its tenth open enrollment period, Minnesota’s health insurance marketplace continues to see strong enrollment and to provide tax credits that reduce the cost of monthly premiums for nearly 60% of enrollees who sign up for private health plans.
“In the first six weeks of MNsure’s open enrollment period, over 119,500 Minnesotans signed up for comprehensive health coverage,” said MNsure CEO Nate Clark. “Thanks to tax credits that are available only through MNsure, these families will save an average $560 per month.”
Minnesotans who missed the December 15 deadline still have an opportunity to enroll in coverage for 2023 — but they must act now. Consumers must sign up by January 15, 2023, for coverage that begins February 1, 2023.
