Thousands of Residents Have Used the Marketplace to Enroll in 2023 Health Insurance
DENVER— This Thursday, December 8, is Get Covered Colorado Day. This day of action encourages as many Coloradans as possible to enroll in 2023 health coverage during the annual Open Enrollment Period, which runs through January 15. In the first five weeks of this year’s Open Enrollment, approximately 145,000 residents enrolled in a plan through Colorado’s official health insurance marketplace, Connect for Health Colorado.
Seeing how Connect4HealthCO announced 57.5K enrollees just 6 days ago, it's pretty safe to assume that they didn't have over 87,000 more Coloradans suddenly enroll in less than a week. Presumably the 145K figure includes auto-renewals of the remaining current enrollees who haven't actively signed up for a 2023 policy yet.
Nevadans can enroll in plans on NevadaHealthLink.com through January 15, 2023
(CARSON CITY, Nev.) – The Open Enrollment Period (OEP) through NevadaHealthLink.com is the most convenient time for Nevadans to enroll or make changes to their qualified health and dental plans; this year 17,925 Nevadans have enrolled in plans in the first 30 days of open enrollment. The 2023 Plan Year OEP began on November 1 and runs through January 15, 2023.
There were several major takeaways, including an overall 18% year over year enrollment increase so far, with new enrollments up 28%, active renewals for current enrollees up 17% and so forth.
However, there's another important factor to look at when comparing 2023 ACA enrollment to date vs. the same point in 2022 (actually one day less): Medicaid expansion.
The table below breaks out every state's 2023 enrollment vs. the same point in 2022, including which type of exchange they use as well as their ACA Medicaid Expansion status as of this writing:
Today, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) released the latest enrollment figures for Medicare, Medicaid, and the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP). These programs serve as key connectors to care for more millions of Americans.
As of August 2022, 64,942,984 people are enrolled in Medicare. This is an increase of 111,278 since the last report.
34,939,872 are enrolled in Original Medicare.
30,003,112 are enrolled in Medicare Advantage or other health plans. This includes enrollment in Medicare Advantage plans with and without prescription drug coverage.
...As of August 2022, 90,550,412 people are enrolled in Medicaid and CHIP. This is an increase of 587,411 since the last report.
As part of the Biden-Harris Administration’s ongoing commitment to increasing health data exchange and investing in interoperability, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) issued a proposed rule that would improve patient and provider access to health information and streamline processes related to prior authorization for medical items and services. CMS proposes to modernize the health care system by requiring certain payers to implement an electronic prior authorization process, shorten the time frames for certain payers to respond to prior authorization requests, and establish policies to make the prior authorization process more efficient and transparent. The rule also proposes to require certain payers to implement standards that would enable data exchange from one payer to another payer when a patient changes payers or has concurrent coverage, which is expected to help ensure that complete patient records would be available throughout patient transitions between payers.
Covered California joined leading health officials in San Diego to encourage enrollment in a quality insurance plan and improve access to address an increased need for behavioral health care across the state.
“The pandemic took a toll on us in so many ways, including our behavioral and mental health, which are critical to our ability to live happy, healthy and productive lives,” said Jessica Altman, executive director of Covered California. “Getting the right behavioral health care starts with making sure people have health insurance with access to quality providers, and that can be done right now through Covered California’s open enrollment.”
Advocates To CMS: Fix Rate Misalignment In Next Exchange Reg
A coalition of patient advocates is urging HHS to address high out-of-pocket costs by demanding that insurers selling marketplace coverage strictly adhere to the Affordable Care Act’s rate-setting requirements. Insurers have strayed from the mandate in recent years by underpricing silver-tier plans and overpricing the more-generous gold-level products, the advocates say, highlighting an issue that experts have been raising for years and that some states are already addressing at the local level.
But health experts also say that HHS must fix misalignments in the risk adjustment program - and that exchanges must have strong consumer decision support tools -for a policy fix to be sustainable.
By clarifying and enforcing the ACA’s single risk pool requirement, HHS could significantly reduce consumers’ cost-sharing burdens while also discouraging gaming, the advocates say.
via MNsure, Minnesota's ACA exchange (via email for now):
More Minnesotans can access discounts and find less expensive plans through MNsure
ST. PAUL, Minn.—During MNsure’s open enrollment period happening now, thousands of Minnesotans who haven’t been able to access premium tax credits in the past are newly eligible for these discounts and can shop for more affordable 2023 health coverage through MNsure, where Minnesotans choose medical and dental insurance, thanks to the ‘family glitch’ fix.
In the past, a family’s eligibility for tax credits from MNsure depended on whether their job-based coverage was affordable for the employee, no matter how much it cost to cover the whole family. This meant some family members fell into the ‘family glitch’: that is, they were ineligible for Affordable Care Act subsidies even though they need them to afford quality coverage. Because they couldn’t access these important tax credits, many families in this situation have been paying more for coverage and some have been going without health insurance entirely.
