Health Insurance Coverage is More Important Than Ever – In Person Help Still Available during New Statewide Restrictions
The 2021 open enrollment period is underway, and Washingtonians are now signing up for health plans, including in new Cascade Care health plans. After months of a global pandemic – needs have changed due to job loss, or working from home, or family income changes. Individuals seeking health coverage can now shop more options this year, along with financial assistance, by visiting Washington Healthplanfinder to sign up for health and dental coverage.
“With infection rates climbing and economic uncertainty across Washington state, now is the time to sign up for health coverage,” said Chief Executive Officer Pam MacEwan. “There are many resources available to help individuals understand their options.”
It’s still 2020, so it only seems appropriate that we all have a lot on our plates. Despite the Texas v. California court case causing some news as it went before the Supreme Court this week, we continue to stay focused on our current Open Enrollment Period.
It is of note this year that individuals making up to $51,040 per year or a household of four making up to $104,800 annually may be eligible for financial help to lower their monthly premiums, healthcare discounts, or both. Nearly three quarters of all Connect for Health Colorado enrollments are financially assisted.
And, since plans and prices change every year, you can point people to our Quick Cost and Plan Finder Tool to see their options.
LANSING – Emergency orders Gov. Gretchen Whitmer has issued under the Emergency Powers of Governor Act are struck down, effective immediately, the Michigan Supreme Court said Monday in a 4-3 order that added an exclamation mark to an Oct. 2 ruling.
...Monday's Supreme Court ruling is in response to a lawsuit brought by the Michigan Legislature. The Oct. 2 ruling, which was a 4-3 decision striking down the Emergency Powers of Governor Act of 1945, was in response to questions sent to the court by a federal judge handling a lawsuit brought by medical service providers in western Michigan.
Monday's ruling means hundreds of thousands of Michiganders could lose their unemployment benefits "in a matter of days," Whitmer spokeswoman Tiffany Brown said. Among the orders struck down, and not replaced by a health department order, is one that extended Michigan unemployment benefits to 26 weeks, up from 20.
House Speaker Lee Chatfield, R-Levering, hailed the ruling.
The data below comes from the GitHub data repositories of Johns Hopkins University, except for Utah, which come from the GitHub data of the New York Times due to JHU not breaking the state out by county but by "region" for some reason.
Note that a few weeks ago I finally went through and separated out swing districts. I'm defining these as any county which where the difference between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton was less than 6 percentage points either way in 2016. There's a total of 198 Swing Counties using this criteria (out of over 3,200 total), containing around 38.5 million Americans out of over 330 million nationally, or roughly 11.6% of the U.S. population.
With these updates in mind, here's the top 100 counties ranked by per capita COVID-19 cases as of Saturday, November 14th (click image for high-res version). Blue = Hillary Clinton won by more than 6 points; Orange = Donald Trump won by more than 6 points; Yellow = Swing District
Way back in October 2013, I launched the ACA Signups project as a light, nerdy hobby thing which was only supposed to last around six months, through the end of the first ACA Open Enrollment Period (March 31, 2014). Instead...well, let's just say that it's more than seven years later and I'm still doing this.
The reality is that The Graph itself doesn't serve a whole lot of useful function anymore. The enrollment patterns were erratic the first couple of years but have since settled into a pretty predictable...if not downright boring pattern for both the federal and state exchanges. The main reason I keep doing it each year is mostly out of tradition these days; after all, without The Graph, there wouldn't be an ACA Signups and I wouldn't have become a healthcare policy wonk in the first place.
Access Health CT, Connecticut's ACA exchange, is posting updates to their Open Enrollment Period (OEP) numbers every Friday. Last week they reported 99,406 Qualified Health Plan (QHP) selections during the first 6 days of the 2021 OEP, which sounds more impressive than it is, since 98,127 of those are current enrollees having their auto-renewals front-loaded; only 1,279 of them are actually new enrollees. Nothing wrong with that, of course.
This week, they report that they have 99,952 total QHP selections, of which 2,696 are new. On the surface this sounds off...shouldn't it be 100,823 total? I'm pretty sure the reason for the discrepancy is that not every current enrollee actually renews/re-enrolls for the following year. The exchange plugs them in as renewing, but they can still go in and actively cancel their renewal, which reduces the total a bit. In this case, it sounds like 871 current enrollees have done so over the past week. This gives a net increase of 546 over the past week, or 78 per day.
The Washington ACA exchange has reported their initial numbers, and like Connecticut, the top figure is a bit misleading: 182,000 Washingtonians enrolled in the first four days!...except that, again, 99% of these are current exchange enrollees having their auto-renewals front-loaded:
Washington Healthplanfinder reminds Washingtonians that open enrollment has started, encouraging those seeking health coverage to visit WAhealthplanfinder.org to shop, choose, and save on health and dental coverage.
“Our focus remains on encouraging customers to review their options and sign up for coverage that meets their needs,” said Exchange Chief Executive Officer, Pam MacEwan. “The 2021 open enrollment period has begun, and residents should use this opportunity to access coverage that will last them all year.”
Every Open Enrollment Period (OEP) for for the past several years, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid (CMS) have issued a Weekly Snapshot Enrollment Report including the top-line Qualified Health Plan (QHP) enrollment data via HealthCare.Gov for that week along with the cumulative totals. They normally post these reports, which run Sunday - Saturday, on the following Wendesday...but yesterday came and went without one being released this year.
Given the insanity surrounding last week's Presidential election (along with the results) and the ongoing COVID19 pandemic, I was beginning to wonder whether they'd bother issuing those reports at all. Fortunately, they followed through late this afternoon:
Week 1, November 1-November 7, 2020
In week one of the 2021 Open Enrollment period, 818,365 people selected plans using the HealthCare.gov platform. As in past years, enrollment weeks are measured Sunday through Saturday.
Nevada Health Link connects consumers to VSP Individual Vision Plans, in time for Open Enrollment 2021
Carson City, Nev. – The Silver State Health Insurance Exchange (Exchange), the state agency that connects Nevadans to Qualified Health Plans (QHPs) through the online State Based Exchange (SBE), known as Nevada Health Link, announces a partnership with VSP® Individual Vision Plans, an offering of VSP Vision Care, the only national not-for-profit vision benefits company.
The Open Enrollment Period for 2021 insurance plans runs from Nov. 1, 2020 through Jan. 15, 2021. Health plans offered through Nevada Health Link are ideal for Nevadans who don’t qualify for Medicare or Medicaid but still need financial assistance; those who don’t have employee-sponsored health insurance, including independent contractors and gig workers; and anyone seeking comprehensive, quality and affordable plans.
Way back in October 2013, when the first ACA Open Enrollment Period (OEP) launched, there were infamously massive technical problems with the federal exchange (HealthCare.Gov) as well as some of the state-based exchanges (such as those in Massachusetts, Maryland, Oregon, Nevada and Hawaii).
Over the next few years, some of those exchange websites were replaced with brand-new ones (MA & MD). Some of the states scrapped theirs altogether and moved onto the mothership at HC.gov (OR, HI & NV, although Nevada has since split back off onto their own exchange again, and seems to have gotten it right this time).
