Thousands of Georgians eligible for ACA enrollment

ATLANTA — Starting Feb. 15, the enrollment window is reopening for the Affordable Care Act exchange, and more than 100,000 Georgians may benefit.

Open enrollment for these plans, also known as Obamacare, usually happens in the fall. But as a result of the pandemic, with many people losing insurance coverage, President Joe Biden this week called for another enrollment window.

The ACA allows the federal government to open special enrollment periods as a result of life-changing events, though the Trump administration had rebuffed calls to do so for the pandemic.

The new open enrollment window will run from Feb. 15 to May 15, and coverage will start immediately with 2021 insurance plans.

On the ACA exchange, insurance plans are subsidized to be affordable for people who expect in 2021 to make less than 400% of the poverty level — as long as they make at least poverty level. According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, most of the Americans who currently are eligible for a free “bronze” level plan on the ACA exchange after subsidies are applied reside in Georgia, Florida, North Carolina and Texas. Georgia has one of the highest uninsured rates in the nation.

There is no assistance for Georgians who make less than 100% of the poverty level and who don’t meet the Georgia Medicaid criteria because the state has not expanded insurance to cover most poor adults.

For those adults making less than 400% of the federal poverty level that the Kaiser Family Foundation was referring to, those bronze plans would be free to purchase, but they could have steep deductibles. The foundation says, however, that two-thirds of those people could also buy a “silver” plan with more affordable out-of-pocket costs.

The federal poverty level this year is $12,760 for an individual. For a family of four, 400% of the federal poverty level is $104,000.

Finance experts expect the new open enrollment period will have impact, that people will enroll, and that patients who’ve avoided medical care they need that isn’t coronavirus-related will start getting care.

An analyst at Moody’s Investors Service, Jennifer Barr, said in a statement Friday that the order “will benefit non-profit hospitals by facilitating health insurance coverage, reducing the number of uninsured or underinsured patients, and promote patient volume recovery which remains below pre-pandemic levels.”

Healthcare.gov is the main federal website for enrolling on the ACA. If you don’t have internet you can enroll on the phone, at 1-800-318-2596 (TTY: 1-855889-4325). The website asks you for your income level for 2021, and then presents all the plans you’re eligible for at once. That way you can compare the cost and benefits to you of each, after subsidies are applied.

While the Kemp and Trump administrations signed plans to block Georgians’ access to Healthcare.gov, those plans will not go into effect this year, and this website is still the most common way that Georgians enroll.

Healthcare.gov also contains contact information for private insurance agents and brokers that help people buy ACA insurance plans from the exchange. You can find those in your area by searching on your ZIP code. Those agents are paid when insurance companies offer them a commission for selling their plans.