Less Than Two Weeks Remain To Enroll In A Qualified Health Plan Through Nevada Health Link
Free enrollment assistance available; Weekend call center hours extended for duration of Open Enrollment
Las Vegas, NV - The clock is ticking with only 13 days left to enroll before the December 15th midnight deadline approaches. Nevadans can find coverage in a Qualified Health Plan (QHP) and Qualified Dental Plan (QDP) through Nevada Health Link, the online insurance marketplace operated by the state agency, Silver State Health Insurance Exchange – and the only place consumers can get financial assistance (subsidies) to help offset the cost of insurance.
To ensure consumers have as much access to help with the enrollment process, Nevada Health Link's call center has extended its weekend hours through the end of Open Enrollment on December 15. The call center will be open 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. PST on Saturday, Dec. 7, Sunday, Dec. 8, and Saturday, Dec. 14 and will remain open until 11:59 p.m. PST on Sunday, Dec. 15.
Maryland Health Connection will hold nearly 20 “Last Chance” events throughout the state during the final week of open enrollment Dec. 7-15 to provide free help enrolling in health coverage. Marylanders can enroll in health and dental coverage until Dec. 15 through Maryland Health Connection, the state’s health insurance marketplace.
At the free “Last Chance” events, certified health insurance navigators will help Marylanders sign up for a health plan and understand their coverage options and financial help available. Assistance also is available in Spanish.
Visit MarylandHealthConnection.gov or the Enroll MHC mobile app to browse plans, compare coverage and costs, and enroll.
The fall open enrollment is for private health and dental plans only. People who have coverage through Medicaid will receive a notice when it’s time to renew; enrollment for Medicaid is all year for eligible Marylanders.
ALBANY, N.Y. (December 3, 2019) – NY State of Health, the state’s official health plan Marketplace, today announced its continued partnership with NYS Department of Agriculture and Markets in an effort to educate shoppers at farmers markets throughout New York State about low-cost, high-quality health coverage during the Open Enrollment Period.
Consumers must enroll by December 15, 2019 for coverage beginning January 1, 2020. Certified Enrollment Assistors will be available leading up to the December 15 deadline at select markets to answer any questions about enrolling in a health plan through the Marketplace and to set up enrollment appointments. In addition, NY State of Health educational materials will be available at select farmers’ markets across the state. This is the fourth year of the NY State of Health-NYS Department of Agriculture and Markets partnership.
This isn't the biggest development in the world, but exactly a year ago today I made a big fuss about how New Jersey (and DC) had reinstated their own health insurance individual mandate penalties after the federal version was zeroed out by Congressional Republicans...but didn't seem to be going through much effort to let people know about the penalty.
While Massachusetts had launched a massive multi-media awareness/education blitz statewide to make sure people knew that they had dusted off their pre-ACA coverage mandate requirement, New Jersey and DC didn't appear to be doing much, if anything, to let people know that they'd face a stiff tax penalty if they didn't either #GetCovered or qualify for an exemption.
As I noted at the time, just like the Doomsday Device in Dr. Strangelove, it completely defeats the whole point of having a penalty if no one knows it exists.
A couple of weeks ago, BeWell NM, the name of the New Mexico ACA health exchange, held their latest board meeting. There's two key things to keep in mind about New Mexico:
First, they've been officially operating as a state-based exchange while "piggybacking" off of HealthCare.Gov since the very first Open Enrollment Period in 2013-2014...but they announced over a year ago that they're following Nevada's (and Idaho's) lead in splitting off onto their own full exchange, starting in 2021.
Over the past few years, more and more of the state-based exchanges have shifted from waiting until the end of Open Enrollment to officially report auto-renewals of existing enrollees...to going ahead and auto-renewing everyone up front, and then subtracting those current enrollees who actively cancel their renewals.
This has caused a bit of confusion, since the exchanges don't always make it clear who's being counted and when.
Case in point: Access Health CT, Connecticut's ACA exchange. Last year they reported 12,777 enrollees during the first two weeks of Open Enrollment...and also noted that there were another 85,000 existing enrollees who hadn't yet actively renewed their policies as of 11/18.
For the past two weeks, along with other noteworthy Open Enrollment data numbers, I've been scratching my head over what the deal is in Mississippi:
Once again, Maine remains the worst-performer year over year, mostly due to their expansion of Medicaid. Idaho isn't listed because they're a state-based exchange and haven't reported any data yet. Mississippi, on the other hand, continues to be the top out-performer vs. last year, which is interesting because there doesn't seem to be any particular reason for it.
Unlike some states, Mississippi hasn't implemented any additional subsidies, a mandate penalty or a reinsurance program of any sort. They haven't had any new carriers join the ACA market, nor have any of them left. I don't think either of the carriers on the exchange have significantly expanded their territory or changed their offerings that much either...in fact, average premiums are essentially flat year over year.
In other words, by all rights, Mississippi should be performing almost exactly as they did last year...but enrollments are up 15.5% to date. Huh.
I just received the following 2020 Open Enrollment report from the Massachusetts Health Connector (via email, no link):
It looks like we’ve pretty much wrapped up auto-renewal, how about an update on 2020 enrollment:
As of Nov. 29, we had a total of 286,640 people enrolled in Jan. 1 coverage, 6 with February or March enrollments, and 10,852 who had selected plans and had not yet paid to enroll. So, by the CMS definition, we are at 297,498. That includes about 17,000 new enrollments from people who did not have coverage as of Nov. 4 with the Health Connector.
I wish every ACA exchange would break out their numbers this way. Simple and to the point, but also with relevant details...not only "renewals vs. new" but also how many are enrolled for Januar vs. Feb. or March coverage and even how many have/haven't paid yet! The last is a bit unfair since Massachusetts is one of only two states, I believe, which actually handle premium payments (Rhode Island does as well...Washington State used to but doesn't anymore).
I'm just putting this out there today because I know there's gonna be a bunch of eye-rolling stories completely misunderstanding the data later on this week.
Last Wednesday, the Week 4 HealthCare.Gov Snapshot Enrollment Report came out and showed a "mysterious" 41% increase in ACA exchange enrollments for the week vs. last year...jumping from 500,437 QHP selections to 703,556 QHP selections for the corresponding week this year.
This Wednesday, the Week 5 snapshot report will come out and will almost certainly show a "mysterious" large drop in ACA exchange enrollments vs. last year...from 772,250 down to perhaps 500,000 or so.
Around 7,000 or so of this drop will likely be due to Nevada splitting off onto their own ACA exchange. A small number will be due to Idaho expanding Medicaid. But the vast bulk of this seemingly disastrous ~35% drop will be for a far simpler reason...the same one which caused the seeming 41% spike last week: Thanksgiving.
The pace of Obamacare enrollment this year is up 9% so far in Georgia, a turnaround from declines since the beginning of the Trump administration. Nationwide, the pace of enrollment is up 2%.
Wait, what? Where on earth is she getting either of these numbers?
