The healthcare.gov opened enrollment in 36 states in the US that use the federal exchange. Americans are flooding to sign up for 2021 health coverage on the Affordable Care Act exchanges because the window will end on Tuesday 15th December. The most recent federal data shows there were at least 3.8 million people who selected plans through Dec. 5, despite a looming Supreme Court challenge. The average number of consumers signing up daily is running about 14% ahead of last year’s pace. But, it won’t be known until early next year that how many people ultimately choose coverage on the Obamacare exchanges. Some of the 14 states (plus the District of Columbia) that run their own exchanges have opened longer enrollment periods and stretched into January 2021.
Point to be noted that this is the first time the Obamacare exchanges’ role as a health insurance safety net during an economic downturn is being tested. There are various health policy experts expecting that some Americans are shifting to Affordable Care Act policies who lost their job-based coverage as a result of the coronavirus pandemic. A recent Kaiser Family Foundation report says the decrease in employer-sponsored insurance is far less than the overall decrease in employment. The report estimates that roughly 2 to 3 million people lost work-based insurance between March and September 2020 and the Obamacare enrollment remained surging during this period. Moreover, the Medicaid enrollment rose by 4.3 million people from February through July.
It is noteworthy that Medicaid is a key provision of the Affordable Care Act and 38 states including the District of Columbia have expanded Medicaid to low-income adults. The current Affordable Care Act enrollees are renewing coverage at a faster pace than in recent years. They made the bulk of those who’ve selected policies at 2.9 million. At least 83,000 returning consumers signed up each day since enrollment started on 1st November, on average, compared to 70,400 last year. People who don’t select plans will be automatically enrolled in the same policy or a comparable one. More than 916,000 new people have signed up so far, but the majority of new consumers pick plans in the final days of open enrollment.