Despite open enrollment in the federal healthcare exchanges closing in April, nearly 1 million Americans have acquired coverage or modified their plans since.
The Affordable Care Act allows for americans to gain or modify coverage despite the closed enrollment period if they incur certain life events, like a job change, a move, a birth, marriage, or divorce. ProPublica requested the number of daily enrollment transactions over the course of the entire enrollment period. And perhaps the most interesting thing it found is how many accessed the exchanges after it closed: 960,000.
“That does seem like a lot,” says Christine Sinatra, spokeswoman for the Texas branch of Enroll America. “I think (the provision) affects a surprisingly high number of people who have these life events and the fact that they’re getting word about it is fabulous.”
Disclaimer: That doesn’t mean nearly 1 million people have signed up for coverage, it means that they’ve accessed the exchange. The numbers don’t break out how many outright bought coverage versus how many simply changed their plan.
“We don’t really know how many newly insured are among that group, but I think it’s still really positive because it shows there’s this ongoing interest in the marketplace and good levels of engagement,” she said.
Enroll America is the Washington D.C.-based nonpartisan organization that serves as an intermediary between the uninsured and the navigators who can register them under the federal marketplaces. D Healthcare Daily profiled the North Texas branch last month ahead of its one year anniversary.
One of the first things Daniel Clayton, head of its Dallas outpost, said was that its volunteers are focusing on informing residents that, yes, they can still enroll with the small catch of having one of those qualifiers occur. Sinatra says this isn’t a widely known fact, which is why that 1 million number is surprising.
“They are not aware,” she said. “I think our findings were that the vast majority of uninsured people, and even people who got covered in the ACA marketplace, are not aware of the special enrollment period and how it works.”
The numbers ProPublica received in its open records request are not broken down by state, so the total specific to Texas aren’t available. However, Sinatra said Enroll is studying how many Texans the special enrollment period could potentially affect. She estimated that 1 out of every 4 eligible Texans are eligible for insurance currently, whether that be through the special period or Medicaid or CHIP, the name for children’s Medicaid.
“The majority of folks who can get enrolled in the marketplace will need to wait until November, but there are a lot of folks who are impacted by special enrollment or CHIP and Medicaid,” she said. “It’s a good idea to look at their options.”
Also in ACA news: The New England Journal of Medicine estimates that 10.3 million previously uninsured Americans gained coverage through the Affordable Care Act. The uninsured rate for adults ages 18 to 64 fell from 21 percent in Sept. 2013 to 16.3 percent in April.
“Coverage gains were concentrated among low-income adults in states expanding Medicaid and among individuals in the income range eligible for Marketplace subsidies,” the study found.
Meanwhile, the 36 states that chose to let the federal government run their marketplaces are waiting to hear whether the law allows the feds to provide subsidies to residents who gained coverage through the exchange. If you missed it, here’s a breakdown of what the dueling U.S. appellate court rulings that triggered this concern mean for Texas. The Lone Star State could lose more than $5 billion in subsidies, according to the Robert Wood Johnson foundation.
