Connecticut Post

‘Obamacare’ enrollment rising as pandemic deepens

- A S S O C I AT E D P R E S S

WASHINGTON — Sign-ups for “Obamacare” health insurance plans are trending more than 6% higher amid surging coronavir us cases and deepening economic miser y, according to preliminar y figures released Friday by the government.

The Centers for Medicaid and Medicaid Ser vices, or CMS, said more than 8.2 million people had signed up through the close of open enrollment Dec. 15 in the 36 states ser ved by the federal HealthCare.gov websit e.

An apples-to- apples comparison with last year ’s sign-ups translates to a 6.6% gain, the agency said. Unlike last year, two populous states that had used the federal website are now r unning their own. Numbers from New Jersey and Pennsylvan­ia were not counted in Friday’s tally from HealthCare.gov states. They’ll be reported in coming weeks, along with those from other remaining states.

Created by former President Barack Obama’s health law, the insurance markets offer taxpayer subsidized private plans to more than 11 million people who don’t have job-based coverage. Insurers cannot turn away customers with pre-existing medical conditions. Medicaid expansion, another component of the Affordable Care Act, covers about 12 million people.

President Donald Trump f ailed to repeal “Obamacare“his f i rst year in office, an early defeat he never forgot. Although Tr ump has been tr ying to convince a skeptical Supreme Court to overturn the law in it s entirety, his administra­tion took credit Friday what officials called a successful enrollment season.

“We’ve opened more pathways to enroll by taking advantage of private sector and people are clearly finding the coverage they need at this criti cal time,“CMS Administra­tor Seema Verma said in a statement. Nonethel ess, the Tr ump administra­tion ignored calls to provide a special sign-up period related to the pandemic, something President-elect Joe Biden has said he will do.

Former Obama administra­tion officials who for

keep a close eye on the health law celebrated.

“This is the largest increase in HealthCare.gov enrollment since 2016 and it ’s the only increase during the Tr ump administra­tion,” said Joshua Peck, who once ser ved as marketing chief for the program. It ’s “a testament to the role the ACA is playing in creating a strong safety net.”

Some states that r un their own enrollment campaigns are also reporting stronger numbers. Maryland said this week it signed up more than 166,000 people, a record.

Final numbers for HealthCare.gov, expected soon, will include people who started their applicatio­ns before the Dec. 15 deadline but weren’t able to finish. Those usually track close to the preliminar y results reported Friday. The official na

tional enrollment report will be released sometime early next year, counting big states like California and New York that r un their own sign-up efforts.

Of some 28 million uninsured Americans before the pandemic, the nonpartisa­n Kaiser Family Foundation estimates more than 16 million were eligible for some form of subsidized coverage through the health law.

With coronavir us shutdowns leaving even more people uninsured, Biden has pledged to build on the ACA to provide coverage to all Americans. His path for ward doesn’t look that easy, since he will come into office with a closely divided Congress and most Republican­s still opposed to “Obamacare.”

ACA coverage starts Jan. 1 for those who signed up this year.

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