It’s sign-up time for federal health insurance

The annual open enrollment for Affordable Care Act health insurance plans is underway, and consumers not only have more time to sign up, they are also likely to see more plan options and lower premiums for next year.

Coverage is available through Healthcare.gov., the federal health insurance marketplace, for people who lack affordable job-based insurance but don’t qualify for government plans such as Medicare for older Americans or Medicaid for low-income people.

About two-thirds of plan enrollees will be able to find health coverage for $10 or less per month thanks to extra financial help provided through 2022 under the American Rescue Plan Act, part of the pandemic relief program, according to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. The agency oversees Healthcare.gov.

Millions of people got extra help paying for health coverage this year, and the expanded financial assistance will continue next year. But it’s still wise to actively reenroll and update your information, health care experts say, to make sure you’re getting the best coverage at the best price.

And if you lack coverage but haven’t shopped on the marketplace before because you didn’t think you could afford it, you may be surprised to find that you now qualify for plans at much lower costs because of the expanded pandemic subsidies.

“It’s especially important for folks to come back and look again,” said Katie Keith, a consultant and an adjunct professor at Georgetown University Law School, where she teaches courses on health law and policy. “This is a whole new ballgame.”

Back in the spring, the Affordable Care Act survived a legal challenge before the Supreme Court. That effort, the latest in a series of Republican attempts to dismantle the program also known as Obamacare, had cast uncertainty over the act’s future. But the law now appears to be here to stay.

Marketplace enrollment reached a “record high” of 12.2 million people after a special pandemic enrollment period ended in August, the Kaiser Family Foundation found.

This time around, the millions of marketplace shoppers can generally expect lower premiums, more choice in health plans and more robust subsidies that will reduce costs — at least for next year, said Karen Pollitz, a senior fellow at the Kaiser Family Foundation who studies health care reform.

In some state-based marketplaces (Colorado has one), premiums may increase “modestly,” Kaiser said. Seventeen states — including Kentucky, Maine and New Mexico, which added exchanges this year — and the District of Columbia run their own marketplaces.