State has until Dec. 31 to apply for ACA

Special extension provided for those affected by this year’s hurricanes

Want to know a secret? It’s not technically a secret, but it’s information that Affordable Care Act navigators would prefer not be broadcast just yet:

Florida residents who miss Friday’s deadline to sign up for 2018 individual health insurance plans won’t need to panic. They’ll still have until Dec. 31 to enroll, thanks to a special extension provided for enrollees affected by this year’s hurricanes.

Navigator groups, paid to help individuals and families sign up for so-called Obamacare, don’t want to talk about the extension until after the Dec. 15 open enrollment deadline.

Forced by the Trump administration to compress the traditional three-month enrollment period into 45 days this year, navigators are focusing on signing up as many consumers as they can by Dec. 15.

“Right now, we’re just focused on getting to the end of the week,” said Jodi Ray, who oversees statewide outreach at the University of Florida’s non-profit Florida Covering Kids & Families program. “We’re trying hard not to mix messages.”

An advisory published Sept. 28 by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, which administers ACA programs, states that the Dec. 16-31 special enrollment period will be available for consumers “residing in or moving from areas affected by a hurricane-related weather event in 2017.”

That’s anyone living in Florida because all 67 Florida counties were deemed eligible for public assistance by the Federal Emergency Management Agency after Hurricane Irma struck the state in September.

The only catch is that instead of simply logging onto Healthcare.gov and selecting a plan, late enrollees will have to call the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services’ Marketplace Call Center at 1-800-318-2596 “to request enrollment.” On Tuesday afternoon, a call to that line was greeted with a message stating that the estimated wait time to speak with an agent would be 15 minutes.

Extensions will be available for enrollees with other circumstances as well, including loss of employer-based coverage, getting married or giving birth, or a change in income affecting eligibility for premium tax credits or cost-sharing reduction subsidies

Sign-ups in Florida are so far running at a record pace during the abbreviated six-week open enrollment period. According to the most recent available federal statistics, 802,711 enrollments were tallied in Florida between Nov. 1 and Dec. 2, compared to 678,857 during the same period in 2016.

The record pace is likely due to awareness that the open enrollment period was cut roughly in half, Ray said. Consumers can still make appointments to get sign-up help at CoveringFlorida.org, she said.

Blue Cross Blue Shield of Florida, the only insurer offering coverage in all 67 Florida counties, “is right at our projected enrollment numbers for 2018,” spokesman Doug Bartel said.

With agents “very active engaging with new and returning members” and the company’s retail centers available to enrollees, “total sales traffic is up more than 20 percent over last year.”

Still, he said, “given the unstable nature of the current individual market, we would not be surprised if our numbers are slightly less than last year.”

Spokeswomen for Ambetter and Molina, the only other insur-

ers offering ACA plans in all three South Florida counties, did not respond to emails requesting comment Tuesday.

Last year in Florida, 1.2 million people signed up through Dec. 17 and an additional 500,000 were added by the end of the open enrollment period that ended Jan. 31. Of that 500,000, about 236,000 were members who did not actively shop for a new plan and were automatically reenrolled.

Even with the extension and thousands of automatic renewals, enrollment in Florida is likely to fall short of last year’s total, said Allan Baumgarten, an independent analyst who produces annual health market reviews for several states, including Florida.

The shorter enrollment period, combined with steep increases in premiums this year, will likely result in fewer enrollments by the young, healthy people insurers count on to broaden the risk pool and fund medical care for the sick, Baumgarten said.

“When you shorten enrollment periods, people who don’t particularly need insurance usually wait until the last minute [to enroll],” he said. This year, “they might not notice that the last minute has passed.”

He added, “those last 200,000 to 400,000 enrollees are people insurers really want in their risk pool.”