Georgia: First Open Enrollment Period as a State-based Exchange Ends With Record-breaking Results

via Georgia Access, the Peach State's new state-based ACA exchange:

Insurance and Safety Fire Commissioner John F. King announced today that Georgia Access, the State’s health insurance marketplace, successfully concluded the 2025 Open Enrollment (OE) period, enrolling over 1.5 million consumers for Plan Year (PY) 2025, including 225,000 new consumers who were not previously enrolled in coverage through Healthcare.gov. The State’s OE 2025 period marks the success of its innovative approach and its first year as a State-based Exchange (SBE) as well as its highest enrollment year ever. Georgia Access is now the second-largest SBE in the country.

“We are extremely proud of the resounding success of this year’s Open Enrollment. Most importantly, we are thrilled to be helping more Georgians than ever before secure affordable health coverage,” said Commissioner King. “Our goal for OE 2025 was to reduce the number of uninsured Georgians and institute an innovative enrollment process by partnering with private sector entities, simplifying the enrollment process for consumers. As a result, Georgians are left with a true no-wrong door approach to getting health coverage.”

Georgia Access is the first State-based Exchange to implement an innovative model that offers consumers multiple ways to enroll in health coverage including through an extensive network of certified agents and Enhanced Direct Enrollment (EDE) partners, such as a web brokers and insurance companies. During OE 2025, more than 17,300 licensed and certified agents participated in the Exchange; almost 80% of Georgia consumers received assistance from an agent. Approximately 70% of all Georgia Access consumers or their agents used an Enhanced Direct Enrollment (EDE) partner to enroll in coverage.

EDEs are authorized 3rd-party web brokers such as Health Sherpa (disclosure: they're an advertiser on this site). They're basically private versions of the public exchanges (HealthCare.gov or, in this case, GA Access) which have been authorized to hook into the public system. A couple of years back Health Sherpa alone claimed to account for 60% of federal ACA enrollment, and judging by this press release from GA Access it sounds like that's in line with what they're seeing as well.

The success of GA Access is actually a stunning turnaround for the state given that just a few years ago Georgia GOP Governor Brian Kemp was openly hostile towards the ACA, to the point that he actually attempted (and came very close) to completely eliminating any public ACA exchange in the state whatsover...whether federal or state-based.

“The results of our extensive preparation to execute a successful Open Enrollment and provide free and easy access for uninsured Georgians to enroll in health coverage are impressive,” said Georgia Access Executive Director Cheryl Gardner.

“We are extremely grateful to our partners, the certified and licensed agents, and to consumers. We are aware that our work continues, and we are committed to improving our platforms and expanding our innovation and technology processes to further ensure that more Georgians can enroll and live with the peace of knowing that affordable, high quality health insurance is available.”

During OE2025, Georgia Access offered ten (10) health insurance and eight (8) dental insurance companies that provided consumer with multiple plan options. Consumers in 99% of Georgia’s 158 counties had three or more health insurance companies to choose from.

The marketplace was supported by the Georgia Access Contact Center which facilitated more than 300,000 calls since its launch. More than 95% of all consumer issues were resolved during the first call to the contact center. To round out the SBE’s outreach and community engagement efforts, Georgia Access participated in over 90 events around the State, including town halls, festivals and community events in preparation and throughout OE 2025.

To find out if you qualify for a Special Enrollment Period (SEP), or for more information about quality health coverage, visit https://georgiaaccess.gov/ or call the Georgia Access Contact Center 888-687-1503, TTY Line 711. The contact center is open Monday through Friday, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. EST (excluding holidays).