WHEREAS, a primary goal of my administration is to ensure that every New Jerseyan has access to affordable health insurance and none of our residents are unable to see a doctor when they are sick; and
WHEREAS, the Affordable Care Act represented a huge step forward in ensuring that all Americans have access to affordable health insurance; and
WHEREAS, New Jersey turned down a substantial amount of federal funding when it declined to create a state-based exchange that would have been customized to the needs of New Jersey residents, and given the State greater flexibility in its enrollment period; and
WHEREAS, over 275,000 New Jerseyans currently receive health insurance coverage on the federal marketplace created under the Affordable Care Act; and
The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act’s requirement that consumers have health insurance remains in place, and consumers may face stiff tax penalties if they are not covered in 2018.
A recent study estimates 70 percent of consumers, who are uninsured and eligible for financial help, could purchase health insurance coverage for less than the price of the tax penalty.
Most consumers are paying less in monthly premiums than they did a year ago.
More than 342,000 consumers have newly enrolled during the current open-enrollment period, which remains ahead of last year’s pace, and continues in California through Jan. 31.
SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Covered California announced new enrollment figures as it approaches the final weeks of the annual open-enrollment period, and sought to quell consumer confusion by clarifying the federal penalty rules in place for 2018.
CHIP was originally funded as a 10-year program. When the original funding ran out in 2007, it was extended for two years (to 2009) under George W. Bush with little incident (he had previously vetoed an expanded version but later signed the extension of the existing version).
Under President Obama, CHIP was extended (and expanded) again through 2013. The Affordable Care Act added another 2 years to CHIP, extending funding through 2015. In 2015, CHIP funding was extended again, through September 30, 2017.
The completely GOP-controlled Congress allowed CHIP funding to expire. Most state still had a few months worth of money held in reserve for the program, but some started sending out termination notices to the parents of enrollees, letting them know that they'd be kicked off the program within the next month or two.
An analysis of potential premium changes in states across the nation shows increases of 16 to 30 percent likely in 2019 if federal steps are not taken.
While the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act’s subsidies would largely insulate subsidized consumers from these costs, millions of unsubsidized consumers would pay the full price of these increases. Many would likely be priced out of coverage.
Continued policy and premium uncertainty risks further carrier withdrawals, leaving more consumers with only one health plan and even the prospect of “bare counties.”
The analysis reviews three federal policy options that could stabilize markets and mitigate the impact of premium increases in many states.
Covered California’s open-enrollment period is still underway and consumers have through Jan. 31 to sign up for coverage.
The United States federal government shut down for the first 17 days of October 2013 because Ted Cruz and other Congressional Republicans, furious about the Affordable Care Act surviving everything they had thrown at it over the preceeding 3-4 years, thought that pulling the plug would torpedo the launch of the ACA's first Open Enrollment Period.
Rather, any defunding would be temporary, because of a government shutdown. On the day the exchanges were due to open, much of the federal government would go offline, including a big portion of the Health and Human Services Department that is running the coverage expansion. But legislative inaction cannot gut Obamacare in the way that legislative action could. During a shutdown, implementation would “substantially” continue.
That’s according to a Congressional Research Service report prepared for Senator Tom Coburn, an Oklahoma Republican. In no small part, the reason is that much of the Affordable Care Act’s financing comes from mandatory spending, rather than discretionary spending, and a continuing resolution concerns only the latter. Moreover, some of the law’s money comes from multiyear or “no-year” discretionary funds that do not get wrapped up in the continuing-resolution process either. The Health and Human Services Department says its reform implementation fund would not get touched by a lapse in appropriations.
A few days ago I reported that the Washington Health Benefit Exchange had enrolled 234,000 people in private policies for 2018 when they had just a couple of days left to go.
Today Hannah Recht provided a link to this WA state navigator meeting in which rough final numbers were included as part of the slideshow presentation, along with a bunch of other data points which should be of interest to other healthcare/navigator wonks. 242,800 is a rough number but assuming it doesn't get changed by much, it means the Apple State enrolled 7.6% more people in QHPs this year than last, with nearly 1/3 of them being new to the WA exchange.
Washington State was already beating their 2017 numbers anyway, so this update just pads their lead.
UPDATE 1/22/18: Covered California has just issued a major update to their enrollment data, adding another 122,000 QHP selections to the national tally. Everything below has been updated to include this.
UPDATE 1/28/18: The deadline for Massachusetts has passed and they've posted their final numbers. Everything below has been updated to reflect this update.
Last year, New York State of Health enrolled a total of 242,880 people in ACA exchange policies; this means they're slightly ahead of that number with two weeks left to go before the January 31st Open Enrollment deadline. This makes NY the fifteenth state to surpass last year's total...as well as the 7th State-based Marketplace (or the 10th if you include SBMs which are piggybacking on the federal exchange platform). I'll be writing something up about that later today.
