ACA sign-ups swell as feds offer more aid

Premiums on Georgia exchange among lowest in U.S.

More good news came this week for shoppers on Georgia’s Affordable Care Act health insurance exchange marketplace, as a personal finance website ranked the state’s premiums among the lowest in the nation.

Open enrollment for ACA plans in Georgia is happening now, and lower prices are one of the factors making the marketplace popular this year. As policy options multiply and consumers swell the market, some agents have advice for people interested in signing up: Shop now.

While plans can be selected any time until Jan. 15, the coming days are the best time to avoid the crowds and more easily reach phone bank advisers.

There are always crunch periods during open enrollment, said Melissa Camp, who works with Maconbased Insurega to help people across Georgia sign up. A big rush usually comes at the last minute.

“Last year on the date open enrollment ended I was enrolling somebody that called at 11:30 at night,” Camp said, noting that enrollment technically closed at midnight. “But we got them in.”

Camp said her pace of sign-ups so far is running about the same as last year, even though the enrollment period will be stretched out from 45 days last year to 2 1/2 months this year. “We have a bunch of new companies in Georgia, so it takes a little longer to look at the plans this year,” she said.

Options for Georgia buyers have ballooned to 11 plans statewide, though the metro areas have the most options. Still, every area of the state has plans available.

And they are cheaper this year, with premiums among the lowest in the nation.

There are many ways to crunch the numbers, and the only way to know a person’s final price after subsidies are included is to take income and family situation into account. For millions across the nation, subsidies can lower premiums enough to make their health coverage free. High-income shoppers are a smaller percentage of ACA clients, but they often have hefty deductibles and high premiums.

That said, the personal finance company Valuepenguin on Wednesday ranked Georgia’s prices the lowest of all states’. Valuepenguin is a website that provides comparisons for consumers shopping for products such as insurance. It’s owned by Lendingtree, which makes money from banks as it helps consumers compare mortgage offers.

Rankings at the Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonprofit with years of experience focusing on ACA research, found Georgia’s plans 16th lowest among states, or in the bottom 10, depending on which level of plans they looked at.

The expanded insurance choices and more affordable plans add to improvements in shopping that the Biden administration already made this year. The federal government has funded more enrollment assistance and opened up new windows to buy insurance throughout the past year because of the ongoing pandemic. That’s especially important when it comes to explaining plan attributes like networks: Each plan only insures coverage with a specific list of doctors and hospitals, called a network.

For the coming year, the Biden administration has expanded the enrollment period for 2022 insurance plans to Nov. 1-Jan. 15. For insurance that begins Jan. 1, the shopper must select a plan by Dec. 15. But if they miss that deadline, the shopper can still select a plan by Jan. 15, 2022, and the coverage will begin Feb. 1.

The administration has also poured more money into assistance resources, such as “navigators” who help shoppers understand the plans available to them.