More Texans enroll in ACA plans
Texans are enrolling in health insurance plans on the Affordable Care Act exchange at significantly higher rates than last year.
The number of Texans choosing plans during the first three full weeks of the open enrollment period that began Nov. 1 jumped 17 percent to about 383,000 from 326,000 during approximately the same period last year, according to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. Open enrollment ends Dec. 15.
Two factors could be driving more people to enroll, said Stacey Pogue, a senior policy analyst at Every Texan, an Austin think tank.
First, people who in past years might have gone without coverage are worried about needing medical services during the pandemic and enrolling.
Next, Texans who have lost their jobs and employer-sponsored insurance during the recession are turning to the ACA exchange.
“Both are reasonable explanations, and they could both working here to spur enrollment,” Pogue said.
Enrollment should continue to increase through December. Historically, a large chunk of enrollees waits until the last minute to select their health insurance coverage for the coming year.
Affordable Care Act exchange plans might also seem more appealing now because a new carrier, Friday Health Plans, entered the Harris County market and Joe Biden won the presidential election, said Ken Janda, a former health insurance executive and adjunct professor of health policy management at Rice University.
The president-elect campaigned on strengthening and expanding the Affordable Care Act, which he helped pass as President Barack Obama’s vice president. For people considering enrolling, that should eliminate uncertainty about the future of the program, which was attacked by the outgoing Trump administration.
More than 1 million Texans could pick ACA plans by the end of open enrollment, analysts said. In Texas, the number of people opting to buy health insurance on the ACA exchange has increased incrementally in each of the last two years, with 1.1 million consumers purchasing plans last year.
“The combination of more carriers, little to no rate increases and the impact of job loss is what’s driving buying insurance,” Janda said.
Nationwide, more than 2.3 million people so far have enrolled in 2021 health insurance plans through the federal insurance marketplace, according to federal data.
Most of those enrollees are returning customers, though, and not new ones signing up for plans, said Daniel McDermott, a research associate at the Kaiser Family Foundation, a Washington think tank.
The state-level data does not show how many are enrolling for the first time.
“That suggests that there may be greater urgency among returning consumers to sign-up for coverage this year, perhaps because of the pandemic,” McDermott said.