Open enrollment for ACA runs today through December 15
Florida residents will be able to sign up for health insurance on the Affordable Care Act marketplace, also known as Obamacare, starting Nov. 1 and running through Dec. 15.
Florida entered the novel coronavirus pandemic in a precarious position, with the fourth-worst rate of people without health insurance in the country and as one of a dozen states with a Legislature that has so far refused to expand Medicaid eligibility for low wage-earners.
Now, advocates for expanding health insurance access are watching closely as the state on Sunday begins the six-week window for open enrollment on the insurance marketplace supported by Obamacare, a law facing an existential challenge in the U.S.
Supreme Court — one that the state is signed onto as plaintiff seeking to overturn it.
About 13.2% of Florida’s population had no health insurance in 2019, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Of those people, some 1.9 million signed up on the marketplace during open enrollment that year, despite the state having fewer “navigators” to help consumers deal with what can often be an overwhelming experience selecting health insurance plans on the Affordable Care Act marketplace.
That’s because federal funding cuts and the law’s embattled status have left the navigators with packed phone schedules and few opportunities to do in-person consults. That’s a trend that has held true again this year, even as the pandemic has brought new waves of people who need health insurance because they were laid off.
Jodi Ray, project director of Florida Covering Kids & Families, an ACA navigator group, said she’s seeing a lot more people who have moved in with family or friends in Florida after they lost their jobs in other states.
“People have been sitting on furloughed jobs and now all the sudden they’re getting layoffs and losing health insurance,” Ray said. “Whole families are losing the ability to be dependent on employment-sponsored insurance. It’s been really a complicated time.”
The pandemic has exposed a glaring downside of the U.S. healthcare system, especially in the state of Florida, where there are few options for low-income people in need of healthcare, said Alison Yager, director of policy advocacy for the Miami-based Florida Health Justice Project.
“We have seen that relying on an employersponsored healthcare system is fragile at best,” Yager said.
While advocates deal with a surge of people needing help in finding affordable healthcare access, they are simultaneously making their case for state lawmakers to invest in healthcare reforms that don’t depend on employment, particularly Medicaid expansion, which Democrats continue to push in the Republican-controlled Florida Legislature without success.
Under the ACA, states have had the option to expand Medicaid to cover people under the age of 65 and under the income cut-off of about $17,600 — or 138% of the federal poverty level.
In the midst of the pandemic, likely voters in Florida overwhelmingly favor expanding Medicaid, according to a new poll by the nonprofit Commonwealth Fund, which advocates for health insurance coverage expansion.
The Commonwealth Fund noted in a press release that “support for expansion was noticeably high in Florida (73%) and Texas (67%).”