I've done my best to label every state/territory, which obviously isn't easy to do for most of them given how tangled it gets in the middle. For cases per capita, the most obvious point is that New York and New Jersey, which towered over every other state last spring, are now dwarfed by North & South Dakota, although things are pretty horrible nearly everywhere now.
1 out of every 8 residents of North & South Dakota's entire populations have tested positive for COVID-19 over the past year.
Rhode Island is up to over 1 out of every 9 residents.
Utah, Iowa, Tennessee, Arizona, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Nebraska, Kansas, Alabama and South Carolina are up to 1 out of every 10 residents.
42 states have seen at least 1 out of every 15 residents test positive.
EVERY state except Washington, Oregon, Maine, Vermont & Hawaii, along with the territories of Guam, U.S. Virgin Islands, the Northern Mariana Islands and American Samoa have now surpassed 1 out of every 20 residents having tested positive.
OK, Covered California hasn't actually released an official press release or Open Enrollment Report, but I have acquired a single slide which was delivered at a university presentation by Covered CA head Peter Lee the other day. It doesn't provide tons of detail but give the most important toplines (the way the graph breaks out the numbers is a little confusing but I figured it out:
Total QHP selections from 11/01/20 - 1/31/21: 1.63 million, a record high for the state
This is a 5.9% increase year over year from the 2020 OEP's 1.54 million (it says 1.57 million on the graph but the official CMS tally is 1,538,819).
The data below comes from the GitHub data repositories of Johns Hopkins University, except for Utah, which comes from the GitHub data of the New York Times due to JHU not breaking the state out by county but by "region" for some reason.
I've made some more changes:
Every county except those in Alaska lists the 2020 Biden/Trump partisan lean; Alaska still uses the 2016 Clinton/Trump results. I define a "Swing District" as one where the difference between Biden & Trump was less than 6.0%. FWIW, there's just 187 swing districts (out of over 3,100 total), with around 33.7 million Americans out of 332 million total, or roughly 10.2% of the U.S. population.
For the U.S. territories, Puerto Rico only includes the case breakout, not deaths, which are unavailable by county equivalent for some reason.
With these updates in mind, here's the top 100 counties ranked by per capita COVID-19 cases as of Thursday, February 25th, 2021 (click image for high-res version).
Blue = Joe Biden won by more than 6 points; Orange = Donald Trumpwon by more than 6 points; Yellow = Swing District
Special Enrollment Period for Health Coverage Now Available
Currently uninsured or those seeking new coverage can enroll today on Washington HealthplanfinderOLYMPIA, Wash.
Washington Healthplanfinder is now offering a special enrollment period for Washingtonians who are currently uninsured or seeking new coverage. This special enrollment period, in response to the current public health emergency, opened Feb. 15 and runs for 90 days, ending May 15, 2021.
Last Chance for March 1 Coverage Through MNsure; Special Enrollment Period Continues Through May 17
February 24, 2021
ST. PAUL, Minn.—Minnesotans looking for private health insurance coverage through MNsure that begins on March 1 need to enroll by 11:59 p.m. on Sunday, February 28. Plans selected in March will have an effective date of April 1. MNsure's special enrollment period continues through Monday, May 17, and is available to any Minnesotan who is uninsured or who is not currently enrolled in a qualified health plan through MNsure.
“If you’re looking for health insurance coverage, be sure to check out your options at MNsure.org and get access to comprehensive coverage as soon as possible or prevent a gap in current coverage,” said MNsure CEO Nate Clark. “MNsure's special enrollment period continues through May 17, but Sunday, February 28, is your last chance to get coverage starting in March. Don’t miss out."
Instructions to enroll and frequently asked questions about this special enrollment period can be found here.
Disclosure: Health Sherpa is a paid sponsor of this site.
Back in January, before the ongoing COVID Enrollment Period was officially announced, I ran some back-of-the-envelope math to try and project just how many additional ACA exchange enrollees might sign up nationally due to the addition of a "no questions asked" Special Enrollment Period (SEP) being formally launched across every state, as opposed to the patchwork of COVID SEPs we saw across a dozen states last spring/summer.
I extrapolated those numbers out nationally and estimated that total on-exchange enrollment might increase by perhaps 400,000 more people thanks to a 60-day COVID SEP...that is, 400K more than the "normal" number who typically enroll during that same time period for traditional SEP reasons (losing employer coverage, turning 26, getting married/divorced, moving, giving birth/adopting, etc).
Much has been written by myself and others (especially the Kaiser Family Foundation) about the fact that millions of uninsured Americans are eligible for ZERO PREMIUM Bronze ACA healthcare policies.
I say "Zero Premium" instead of "Free" because there's still deductibles and co-pays involved, although all ACA plans also include a long list of free preventative services from physicals and blood screenings to mammograms and immunizations with no deductible or co-pay involved.
If you have a fairly healthy year, you really could go the entire year without paying a dime in healthcare costs while still taking advantage of many of these free services, and also having the peace of mind that in a worst-case scenario, at least you wouldn't go bankrupt. Not perfect, but a lot better than going bare especially since you wouldn't pay a dime in premiums.
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) announced today that efforts are underway to support Texas in response to severe winter storms that have affected the state over the past several days. On February 17, 2021, Health and Human Services Acting Secretary Norris Cochran declared a public health emergency (PHE) for Texas retroactive to February 11, 2021. CMS is working to ensure hospitals and other facilities can continue operations and provide access to care despite the effects of the storm.
Below are key administrative actions CMS is taking in response to the PHE declared in Texas:
Waivers and Flexibilities for Hospitals and other Healthcare Facilities: CMS has already waived many Medicare, Medicaid and CHIP requirements for facilities because of the pandemic.
Millions of Americans are nervously awaiting the official ruling on the fate of the Affordable Care Act in response to the CA v. TX lawsuit (previously Texas vs. U.S. or Texas vs. Azar, though I've given it the hashtag #TexasFoldEm due to the Trump Administration's Justice Department deciding to not only throw the fight but to actively support the plaintiffs against the law of the land).
The data below comes from the GitHub data repositories of Johns Hopkins University, except for Utah, which comes from the GitHub data of the New York Times due to JHU not breaking the state out by county but by "region" for some reason.
I've made some more changes:
Every county except those in Alaska lists the 2020 Biden/Trump partisan lean; Alaska still uses the 2016 Clinton/Trump results. I define a "Swing District" as one where the difference between Biden & Trump was less than 6.0%. FWIW, there's just 187 swing districts (out of over 3,100 total), with around 33.7 million Americans out of 332 million total, or roughly 10.2% of the U.S. population.
For the U.S. territories, Puerto Rico only includes the case breakout, not deaths, which are unavailable by county equivalent for some reason.
With these updates in mind, here's the top 100 counties ranked by per capita COVID-19 cases as of Friday, February 19th, 2021 (click image for high-res version).
Blue = Joe Biden won by more than 6 points; Orange = Donald Trumpwon by more than 6 points; Yellow = Swing District
I've done my best to label every state/territory, which obviously isn't easy to do for most of them given how tangled it gets in the middle. For cases per capita, the most obvious point is that New York and New Jersey, which towered over every other state last spring, are now utterly dwarfed by North & South Dakota, although things are getting pretty horrible everywhere now.
1 out of every 8 residents of North & South Dakota's entire populations have tested positive for COVID-19 over the past year.
Rhode Island is up to over 1 out of every 9 residents.
Utah, Tennessee, Arizona,Iowa, Oklahoma and Arkansas,Nebraska and Kansas are up to 1 out of every 10 residents.
41 states have seen at least 1 out of every 15 residents test positive.
EVERY state except Washington, Oregon, Maine, Hawaii & Vermont (along with 4 U.S. territories) have now surpassed 1 out of every 20 residents having tested positive.
President Biden's nominee to run the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) has been a hotly-debated topic among healthcare wonks for a couple of months now. He announced that he was picking California Attorney General Xavier Becerra as his HHS Secretary back in early December, but who would be running CMS (basically the 2nd most-powerful position within the HHS Dept.) has been a big unknown until a few days ago, when Dan Diamond and Amy Goldstein of the Washington Post scooped the story.
I admit to never having heard of her until her name was mentioned as a possible contender in a few articles last month, but if confirmed, I'll probably be mentioning her name fairly often over the next few years (likely even more frequently than Becerras), so I figured I should post a quick profile of her today.
In 2019, CMS (2020b) began publishing its Quality Rating System (QRS) for incumbent insurers who sell qualified health plans in the individual market. This information includes scores for medical care, member experience, and plan administration which are then rolled up into an overall, global quality rating (GQR). Recent research has shown notable variation by plan characteristics for behavioral health quality (Abraham, et al., 2021) and plan administration scores (Anderson, et al., 2020). CMS hopes this information is used by consumers to make enrollment decisions.
While all 50 states & DC have now re-launched (or are about to) a new, special 2021 COVID Enrollment Period, the official 2021 Open Enrollment Period ended in every state as of January 31st.
A few of the state-based exchanges have already released their 2021 OEP summary reports, and today Access Health CT posted theirs...and it's chock full of juicy data nuggets. Let's dive in!
Note: I haven't included every single slide, but most of them are shown. Use the link above if you want to view the rest of them. Click the images for a high-res version of each:
Pennie Opens a COVID-19 Enrollment Period Which Will Run Until May 15
Uninsured Pennsylvanians or those affected by COVID-19 can visit pennie.comand enroll in a plan through May 15.
Harrisburg, PA – February 17, 2021 – Uninsured Pennsylvanians can act now and enroll in 2021 coverage during Pennie’s COVID-19 Enrollment Period. Pennie, Pennsylvania’s state-based health insurance marketplace, is proud to provide individuals across the Commonwealth additional time to enroll in health insurance to protect them and their families from the cost of the COVID-19 virus. This enrollment period is in-line with President Biden’s recent Executive Order and is open for all Pennsylvanians who have been impacted by COVID-19. Anyone otherwise eligible to enroll in coverage through Pennie™ can do so from now until May 15.
This afternoon, the Congressional Budget Office released their 10-year "score" report of the largest single chunk of the House Democrats version of the American Rescue Plan from the Ways & Means Committee:
Legislation Summary
S. Con. Res. 5, the Concurrent Resolution on the Budget for Fiscal Year 2021, instructed several committees of the House of Representatives to recommend legislative changes that would increase deficits up to a specified amount over the 2021-2030 period. As part of this reconciliation process, the House Committee on Ways and Means approved legislation on February 10 and 11, 2021, with a number of provisions that would increase deficits. The legislation would extend unemployment benefits, establish a pandemic emergency fund, increase subsidies for health insurance, provide cash payments to eligible people, expand several tax credits, and modify rules for pensions, among other provisions designed to mitigate the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic caused by the coronavirus.
Health Insurer Aetna Inc on Wednesday said it plans to continue its Obamacare health insurance business next year in the 15 states where it now participates, and may expand to a few additional states.
"We have submitted rates in all 15 states where we are participating and have no plans at this point to withdraw from any of them," said company spokesman Walt Cherniak. But he noted that a final determination would hinge on binding agreements being signed with the states in September.
Aetna sells the individual coverage on exchanges created by the Affordable Care Act, also called Obamacare. By also filing proposed rates in several other states, Aetna said it had preserved its options to participate in them as well next year. It declined to identify the potential new markets.
The 15 states where it currently participates are Arizona, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Iowa, Kentucky, Missouri, Nebraska, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Texas and Virginia.
Special Enrollment Period through Nevada Health Link begins February 15
Uninsured Nevadans will have 90 more days to enroll in a qualified health plan for 2021 coverage
Nevada Health Link, the online health insurance marketplace operated by the state agency, the Silver State Health Insurance Exchange (Exchange), begins its 90-day Special Enrollment Period (SEP) for uninsured Nevadans, starting February 15 through May 15, 2021. The SEP is in accordance with the Executive Order issued by President Biden last month, in response to the ongoing national health emergency presented by COVID-19.
Those who've only started visiting my blog or following me on Twitter recently may be under the impression that I know everything there is to know about the Patient Protection & Affordable Care Act, simply because I never shut up about it.
Those who've been following my work since I launched the site know the truth: Until October 2013, I didn't know that much more about the ACA than the average person.
Don't get me wrong: I had been following the ACA saga since the 2008 Democratic primary battle between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, and was watching the legislative progress grind along throughout 2009 - 2010...but I was doing so mostly from a distance. I didn't have a deep understanding of the details of either the legislation or the political process happening behind the scenes.
(sigh) After seven years of doing this, you'd think I'd know better: I double-checked the Your Health Idaho website as recently as this morning and saw no announcement of a COVID-19 Special Enrollment Period...and yet look what just showed up in my inbox an hour ago...
Your Health Idaho Announces Special Enrollment Period for Uninsured Idahoans
Idaho’s Health Insurance Marketplace will Reopen March 1
BOISE, Idaho – Your Health Idaho announced today that a Special Enrollment Period will be established from March 1 to March 31. During this time, any eligible uninsured Idahoan can sign up for health insurance coverage.
“As we approach the one-year mark of COVID-19 in Idaho, too many Idahoans are still uninsured and in need of coverage,” said Your Health Idaho Executive Director, Pat Kelly. “Reopening the marketplace and providing Idahoans with a path to comprehensive health insurance is simply the right thing to do.”
With this announcement, Your Health Idaho joins all state-based marketplaces and the federal marketplace in offering a Special Enrollment Period as the effects of the pandemic continue to be felt across the country.
When President Biden announced that HealthCare.Gov would be re-launching an extended Special Enrollment Period in light of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, I wasn't surprised at all; in fact, I would have been shocked if he hadn't ordered the HHS Dept. to do so. I was surprised by how long the new COVID Enrollment Period would be: A full 3 months (I had been expecting either 30, 45 or perhaps 60 days at the outside).
I've done my best to label every state/territory, which obviously isn't easy to do for most of them given how tangled it gets in the middle. For cases per capita, the most obvious point is that New York and New Jersey, which towered over every other state last spring, are now utterly dwarfed by North & South Dakota, although things are getting pretty horrible everywhere now.
1 out of every 8 residents of North & South Dakota's entire populations have tested positive for COVID-19 over the past year.
Rhode Island is up to over 1 out of every 9 residents.
Utah, Tennessee, Arizona,Iowa, Oklahoma and Arkansas and Nebraska are up to 1 out of every 10 residents.
41 states have seen at least 1 out of every 15 residents test positive.
EVERY state except Washington, Oregon, Maine, Hawaii & Vermont (along with 4 U.S. territories) have now surpassed 1 out of every 20 residents having tested positive.
The data below comes from the GitHub data repositories of Johns Hopkins University, except for Utah, which comes from the GitHub data of the New York Times due to JHU not breaking the state out by county but by "region" for some reason.
I've made some more changes:
Every county except those in Alaska lists the 2020 Biden/Trump partisan lean; Alaska still uses the 2016 Clinton/Trump results. I define a "Swing District" as one where the difference between Biden & Trump was less than 6.0%. FWIW, there's just 188 swing districts (out of over 3,100 total), with around 33.8 million Americans out of 332 million total, or roughly 10.2% of the U.S. population.
For the U.S. territories, Puerto Rico only includes the case breakout, not deaths, which are unavailable by county equivalent for some reason.
With these updates in mind, here's the top 100 counties ranked by per capita COVID-19 cases as of Friday, February 12th, 2021 (click image for high-res version).
Blue = Joe Biden won by more than 6 points; Orange = Donald Trumpwon by more than 6 points; Yellow = Swing District
MNsure three-month special enrollment period begins Tuesday
Interested Minnesotans should visit MNsure.org to learn more
ST. PAUL, Minn.—Starting Tuesday, MNsure, Minnesota's health insurance marketplace, will open a three-month special enrollment period. During this time, any Minnesotan who is not currently enrolled in a plan through MNsure, including those who are uninsured, can take advantage of this enrollment opportunity. MNsure's special enrollment period runs from Tuesday, February 16, to Monday, May 17. Those who enroll in a plan during the special enrollment period will have coverage that begins on the first of the following month. For example, Minnesotans who select a plan and enroll in February will have a March 1 start date.
2021 Special Enrollment Period for Marketplace Coverage Starts on HealthCare.gov Monday, February 15
SEP allows consumers to enroll in affordable health coverage during the COVID-19 Public Health Emergency
Today, in accordance with the Executive Order signed by President Biden, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) is announcing that the Special Enrollment Period (SEP) for the Health Insurance Marketplace® will officially be available to consumers in the 36 states that use the HealthCare.gov platform on Monday, February 15, and will continue through Saturday, May 15. At least 13 States plus the District of Columbia, which operate their own Marketplace platforms, have decided to offer a similar opportunity.
When the Biden Administration announced a few weeks later that the federal ACA exchange, HealthCare.Gov, was planning on re-opening enrollment across 36 states for a full 3 months (from Februay 15th - May 15th), however, I was pretty sure that it would only be a matter of time before most of the state-based exchanges matched up with that time window...and sure enough, via the MD Health Connection:
GOV. HOGAN ANNOUNCES EXTENSION OF STATE HEALTH INSURANCE SPECIAL ENROLLMENT PERIOD UNTIL MAY 15
A couple of weeks ago I reported that the Washington Healthplan Finder was the one of the first state-based ACA exchanges to announce their own COVID19 Special Enrollment Period to coincide with the federal one being launched via HealthCare.Gov.
At the time, I wrote:
Washington State's appears to be for anyone who'd otherwise be eligible during Open Enrollment, which amounts to the same thing as full Open Enrollment. That means even those who are already enrolled in an ACA exchange plan will be able to switch to a different plan mid-year.
Well, so much for that; the Washington Health Benefit Exchange has issued a new press release ahead of the February 15th COVID SEP launch clarifying who's eligible and who isn't:
New Special Enrollment Period for Health Coverage Opens February 15
In other words, only about 10% (at most) of those still in the Medicaid Gap could remotely match the GOP's cliche of a "lazy, good-for-nothing layabout" type who's able-bodied, has no serious extenuating circumstances and so forth. The "get off your ass and work!" requirements appear to be nearly as big a waste of time and resources as the infamous "drug testing for welfare recipients" bandwagon which a bunch of states jumped on board over the past few years.
I just received confirmation from Vermont Health Connect that they're joining nearly every other state in offering an official COVID-19 Special Enrollment Period...with a few caveats:
Special Enrollment Period for Uninsured Vermonters Opens February 16, 2021
Waterbury, VT— In alignment with the Federal initiative, the State of Vermont is re-opening a special enrollment period on February 16, 2021 to offer Vermonters who do not currently have health insurance an opportunity to enroll in a qualified health plan and receive premium and cost-sharing assistance, if eligible. Intended to facilitate access to health insurance, the special enrollment period is being implemented in partnership with qualified health plan issuers, Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Vermont, MVP Health Care, and Northeast Delta Dental. To enroll, Vermonters should call the Customer Support Center at 1-855-899- 9600 Monday through Friday, 8:00AM – 4:30PM.
An unsurprising but still very welcome development in the Endgame of the ongoing #TexasFoldEm #ACA lawsuit:
NEW: Biden admin tells Supreme Court that ObamaCare remains constitutional even without a tax penalty to enforce the individual mandate—a reversal from Trump admin's position
Here's the full text of the letter sent to the clerk of the U.S. Supreme Court by Deputy Solicitor General Edwin S. Kneedler. It's actually pretty cut & dry for this sort of legal document:
(updated 2/12/21 w/final approximate data from DC & VT)
With a 3-month COVID Enrollment Period about to launch in most states (and already ongoing in a few), this is another good point to take a look at how the official 2021 Open Enrollment Period went on a state-by-state basis.
Note that the table below still, frustratingly, only includes partial data for California and no data at all for New York or Rhode Island. I hope to have final data for several of these soon, but in the meantime this is the best I can do:
Governor Murphy Announces Health Insurance Signups In New Jersey Surpass Previous Two Years
Urges Residents to Get Covered During New COVID-19 Special Enrollment Period
9.4% Increase in Plan Selections from 2020, Enrollment Remains Open Until May 15
TRENTON – Governor Phil Murphy today announced that health insurance signups through New Jersey’s new state-based marketplace surpassed the Open Enrollment Period for the previous two years in New Jersey. Plan selections for 2021 coverage increased 9.4 percent over last year’s Affordable Care Act Open Enrollment Period, as the state successfully expanded access to health coverage through its new state-based marketplace, Get Covered New Jersey, during its first open enrollment period.
The Ways and Means’ proposals comprise half of the $1.9 trillion Democratic COVID-19 relief package
SPRINGFIELD, MA – Today, House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Richard E. Neal (D-MA) announced the Committee will consider nine legislative proposals under the budget reconciliation instructions this week as the next step in delivering COVID-19 relief to the American people. Beginning on Wednesday, February 10, 2021 at 10:00 a.m. through Friday, February 12, 2021, the Committee will markup proposals spanning from extending unemployment insurance to expanding the child tax credit to delivering another round of direct assistance to struggling Americans.
Just over a month ago, I noticed that the Washington Healthplanfinder was touting the fairly impressive launch of their new "Cascade Care" healthcare plans overall (40% of new enrollees were choosing them!)...but that completely missing from all the praise was any breakout of how many were selecting the Public Option version of "Cascade Care"...likely for a very good reason:
Let's step back a moment: There's actually up to three types of policies being offered depending on the carrier:
Qualified Health Plans (QHPs)...these are the normal policies which comply with ACA regulations offered by most carriers.
Cascade (Standard)...these are QHPs which also follow another state law passed last year (see below), and
Cascade (Select)...these are Standardized QHPs which are also public option plans.
Here's the distinction between Cascade "standard" and Cascade "select":
The data below comes from the GitHub data repositories of Johns Hopkins University, except for Utah, which comes from the GitHub data of the New York Times due to JHU not breaking the state out by county but by "region" for some reason.
I've made some more changes:
Every county except those in Alaska lists the 2020 Biden/Trump partisan lean; Alaska still uses the 2016 Clinton/Trump results. I define a "Swing District" as one where the difference between Biden & Trump was less than 6.0%. FWIW, there's just 188 swing districts (out of over 3,100 total), with around 33.8 million Americans out of 332 million total, or roughly 10.2% of the U.S. population.
For the U.S. territories, Puerto Rico only includes the case breakout, not deaths, which are unavailable by county equivalent for some reason.
With these updates in mind, here's the top 100 counties ranked by per capita COVID-19 cases as of Friday, February 5th, 2021 (click image for high-res version).
Blue = Joe Biden won by more than 6 points; Orange = Donald Trumpwon by more than 6 points; Yellow = Swing District
I've done my best to label every state/territory, which obviously isn't easy to do for most of them given how tangled it gets in the middle. For cases per capita, the most obvious point is that New York and New Jersey, which towered over every other state last spring, are now utterly dwarfed by North & South Dakota, although things are getting pretty horrible everywhere now.
1 out of every 8 residents of North & South Dakota's entire populations have tested positive for COVID-19 over the past year.
Rhode Island is up to 1 out of every 9 residents.
Utah, Tennessee, Arizona,Iowa, Oklahoma and Arkansas are up to 1 out of every 10 residents.
41 states have seen at least 1 out of every 15 residents test positive.
EVERY state except New Hampshire, Washington, Oregon, Maine, Hawaii & Vermont (along with 4 U.S. territories) have now surpassed 1 out of every 20 residents having tested positive.
The "final" OEP numbers are gonna be a little fuzzy in some state-based exchanges this year, of course. Several states had OEP deadlines which extended past the federal one as usual, including some which didn't end until January 31st. Due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, however, several of those states went gone ahead and bumped their deadlines out further yet, through as late as March for Maryland and New York.
Then last week, of course, the Biden Administration announced that HealthCare.Gov is re-opening enrollment for a full three months starting on February 15th, and a bunch of state exchanges scrambled to announce their own additional re-openings or extensions...some of which already overlapped with those 1/31 deadlines.
Huh...this is interesting. I noted a few weeks back that the Massachusetts Health Connector reported 11% fewer people had enrolled in Qualifying Health Plans (QHPs) for 2021 as of mid-January than they had during the 2020 Open Enrollment Period. At the time, they were running about 6% behind year over year, and attributed the enrollment drop (the first in the MA Health Connector's history since the first Open Enrollment Period back in 2013-2014) primarily to Medicaid enrollment:
Lower membership is primarily the result of decreased new enrollments rather than termination of existing members, likely due to Medicaid protections associated with the federal public health emergency.
As a state-based marketplace, Pennie increases new enrollment by 9.7% and raises total enrollment to nearly 338,000. Now, Pennie is offering more time to enroll in plans for those affected by COVID-19.
Pennsylvanians who have recently lost health coverage or have been affected by COVID-19 can visit pennie.com and enroll in a plan from February 15 through May 15.
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.
DC Residents Without Health Insurance Can Get Covered Now Through DC Health Link
Annual Open Enrollment is over, but DC Health Link’s COVID-19 Special Enrollment Period continues through the duration of DC’s public health emergency
(Washington, DC) – Uninsured District of Columbia residents have more time to enroll in health coverage for 2021. From now through the end of the COVID-19 pandemic, residents can enroll using DC Health Link’s Special Enrollment Period (SEP) for COVID-19. All DC Health Link plans cover diagnosis, treatment, testing, and vaccination for COVID-19 for free.
UPDATE: Everything below refers to HR 369, but the American Rescue Plan, HR 1319, contains a virtually identical expansion of ACA subsidies...if only for two years.
Note that under HR 1319 (AmRescuePlan), the first year would be retroactive, meaning that current ACA enrollees should receive additional subsidies dating back to January 2021, though I don't know what form that will take...rebate checks, credit towards future premiums or an extra tax refund next spring.
Over the past couple of years, one of the things I've become known for is my obsessive fixation on visually displaying how much various households would save on healthcare premiums if various ACA subsidy-boosting bills were passed compared with the current ACA subsidy structure.
HealthSource RI Joins President Biden and Announces New Health Coverage Enrollment Period
EAST PROVIDENCE, Rhode Island (February 1, 2021) — Following President Biden’s announcement on Thursday January 28, HealthSource RI has established a new enrollment period to give Rhode Islanders additional time to sign up for health coverage. Uninsured Rhode Islanders can enroll for coverage effective as early as March 1. HealthSource RI’s enrollment period will continue through May 15, 2021.
This enrollment period is open to all eligible uninsured Rhode Islanders, with no requirement to have a qualifying life event to enroll in health coverage. Coverage starts the first of the month following a complete enrollment.
