February 3, 2021 – The Massachusetts Health Connector announced today a further extension of its Open Enrollment through May 23, providing residents impacted by COVID-19 the opportunity to get access to affordable, comprehensive health insurance.
The Health Connector previously announced an extension of Open Enrollment through March 23, two additional months beyond the original Jan. 23 deadline. Open Enrollment started Nov. 1, and the new deadline of May 23 aligns the Massachusetts health insurance exchange with the new open enrollment period for the federal exchange platform, healthcare.gov, which reopens Feb. 15 and remains open through May 15, and will be accompanied by a national marketing and awareness campaign.
January 22, 2021 – The Massachusetts Health Connector announced today it is continuing Open Enrollment until March 23, providing additional time for state residents to access affordable, quality health insurance, particularly those hurt by the economic impacts of COVID-19.
With Massachusetts just having become the 3rd state where COVID-19 has killed more than 1 out of 500 residents, this isn't surprising (New York announced an Open Enrollment extension thru the end of March yesterday; New Jersey is still set to end theirs as of January 31st as of this writing Maryland, where COVID has "only" killed 1 out of 900, is extending theirs thru March 15th).
With Open Enrollment ongoing, Massachusetts residents who do not have health insurance have a new opportunity to get coverage through the Health Connector. This includes commercial plans through the ConnectorCare program, which provides help paying monthly premiums, and also offers low co-pays and no deductibles.
As a reminder, "effectuations" have paid the first month premium and are good to go. Plan selections still need payment to start.
As I noted at the time, MA is one of just two states (the other is Rhode Island) which handles premium payments internally, which means they can easily track not just how many people have enrolled but how many have actually made their payments.
Yesterday I requested and received an update six weeks later, and was surprised to see the total number drop slightly:
It's turned into an annual tradition: The official annual ACA Open Enrollment Period (OEP) runs from November 1st - December 15th, but most of the state-based ACA exchanges have later deadlines. hThen, right around the 12/15 point, it begins: One by one, some of the state-based exchanges announce further extensions of their deadlines to #GetCovered for the upcoming year.
In some cases they simply bump out the deadline for coverage starting in January, with the final "hard" deadline for February or March coverage staying where it is. In other cases they were never allowing Open Enrollment start dates past January to begin with, so it's the hard deadline which is being extended.
In any event, here's this year's batch of announcements; note that this list could grow longer over the next week or two:
The Massachusetts Health Connector (MA's ACA exchange) doesn't generally post official enrollment data reports via press releases, but I have a contact there who sends me their latest numbers from time to time during Open Enrollment:
Here's where we are at, currently:
January effectuations: 275,003
Feb. and March effectuations: 5
Plan Selections: 9,143
Total enrollments: 284,151
As a reminder, "effectuations" have paid the first month premium and are good to go. Plan selections still need payment to start.
Massachusetts is a bit unique among the ACA exchanges--they, along with Rhode Island, are the only ones which handle premium payments as well as policy enrollments. This means that they don't just track how many people select policies, they also know how many of those who enroll have actually paid their monthly premiums.
Massachusetts, which is arguably the original birthplace of the ACA depending on your point of view (the general "3-legged stool" structure originated here, but the ACA itself also has a lot of other provisions which are quite different), has ten different carriers participating in the individual market. MA (along with Vermont) has merged their Individual and Small Group risk pools for premium setting purposes, so I'm not bothering breaking out the small group market in this case.
Getting a weighted average is tricky. On the one hand, only one or two of the rate filings included actual enrollment data. On the other hand, the Massachusetts Health Connector puts out monthly enrollment reports which do break out the on-exchange numbers by carrier. This allowed me to run a rough breakout of on-exchange MA enrollment. I don't know whether the off-exchange portion has a similar ratio, but I have to assume it does for the moment.
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Health Connector extends enrollment an additional month to July 23rd for uninsured individuals
On June 22, 2020, the Health Connector announced in an Administrative Bulletin an extension to the special enrollment period in response to the coronavirus (COVID-19) emergency through July 23, 2020 to assist uninsured Massachusetts residents seeking health coverage. (The extended enrollment period was previously set to end June 23.)
Massachusetts Health Connector continues extended enrollment as nearly 45,000 people enroll in new plans, update current coverage
April 28, 2020 – The Massachusetts Health Connector continues to help people who need health insurance after losing coverage or income due to the coronavirus, with a May 23 deadline ahead for June 1 coverage.
On May 21, 2020, the Health Connector announced in an Administrative Bulletin an extension to the extended enrollment period in response to the coronavirus (COVID-19) emergency through June 23, 2020 to assist uninsured Massachusetts residents seeking health coverage. (The extended enrollment period was previously set to end May 25.)
If you apply coverage under this special enrollment, the deadlines to complete enrollment are as follows:
Coverage Start DateEnrollment Deadline
Coverage Start Date: June 1st: Enrollment Deadline: May 23rd
Coverage Start Date: July 1st: Enrollment Deadline: June 23rd
Please note that if you are eligible to enroll due to normal special enrollment period rules, you can select the one that applies when you complete your application.
