Record number of Americans sign up for ACA
A record number of Americans — 13.6 million — have signed up for health plans through the Affordable Care Act’s marketplaces for 2022, after Congress lowered the cost of so-called Obamacare insurance, the Biden administration boosted advertising and the pandemic disrupted many Americans’ employer-provided coverage.
The COVID-19 public health emergency helped usher in an era of greater generosity and expanded outreach to the uninsured that many of Obamacare’s original authors had long called for.
The increased enrollment, covering at least 2 million more Americans than in any previous year, was particularly pronounced in red states like Georgia and Texas that have high rates of uninsurance and declined to expand Medicaid to cover their poorest adults. The Biden administration has invested heavily in promoting the availability of insurance subsidies under the ACA. It also quadrupled the network of professionals available to help people enroll. But Chiquita Brooks-LaSure, administrator for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, which manages the marketplaces, said she thinks the main driver of the enrollment increase was the lower prices most Americans would pay.
A stimulus bill passed by Congress in March made many more Americans eligible for financial assistance in buying ACA plans. For most people with low incomes, comprehensive coverage is available for no premium. Middle-class people earning higher incomes became eligible for subsidies for the first time.
Taken together, the policies have represented an expansion and a reimagining of the ACA. The enrollment numbers suggest that these changes have substantially increased enrollment in the program.
The enhanced subsidies, however, are scheduled to expire at the end of 2022. Democrats in Congress hope to extend them as part of their large social spending and climate bill, but that legislation is stalled in the Senate. Enrollment remains open until Jan. 15 in most states for coverage that would begin in February.