The deadline for Obamacare insurance coverage in 2019 is Saturday and enrollment is lagging even as the Affordable Care Act (ACA) marketplace has stabilized and low-income families can obtain decent insurance for as low as $100 per month.
According to Crain’s Detroit Business, enrollments on Healthcare.gov were down 17 percent in Michigan as of a week ago.
Yet, the Michigan marketplace for ACA coverage features 17 private health insurers selling small business policies and nine companies offering coverage for individuals. Those participating include Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan, Health Alliance Plan of Michigan and Priority Health.
In addition, Michigan’s small-group rates increased for 2019 by an average of just 0.2 percent and individual rates went up 1.4 percent — the lowest increases in years. Meanwhile, the state maintains one of the nation’s lowest uninsured rates at 7.8 percent.
So, what’s going on here?
Critics say that the Trump administration has engaged in low-level “sabotage” of Obamacare participation after two years of trying to replace the ACA. The president was more upfront when he slashed advertising and outreach funds for the enrollment period by 90 percent.
Equally significant, major media outlets have largely ignored the sign-up period that began on Nov. 1.
Not only do substantial sign-ups reduce the number of uninsured, they create a robust customer base that keeps long-term healthcare rates low for Obamacare recipients. Yet, at the current rate, the 2019 percentage of uninsured in America will rise for the first time since 2010, and many of those without coverage will be children.
Last year, the number of U.S. children without health insurance jumped by 276,000 — to 3.9 million, up from a low of 3.6 million in 2016 — according to a report published by Georgetown University. It was the first increase in the number of uninsured kids in America since 2008.
“What was really disturbing was that the number went up even though the economy is doing so well. We would expect the number to go down,” one expert said. “Kids are falling off.”
Perhaps the most obvious reason fewer people signed up for health coverage so far this year is because they just don’t know open enrollment, which began in November, is ongoing. According to a Kaiser Family Foundation poll from late November, more than 70 percent of people who purchase their own insurance or are uninsured were unaware of or were misinformed about open enrollment dates.
To be clear, another potential reason for fewer reported signups is that people with Obamacare who do nothing and are automatically re-enrolled in the same plan aren’t reported to the federal database until the end of open enrollment.
In addition, enrollment estimates don’t include data from 11 states and the District of Columbia that run their own healthcare exchanges.
Still, the overall advances made by the Obamacare system – which is based on individual tax credits to supply insurance coverage — remain largely unknown to the American public.
A new study by the McKinsey Center for U.S. Health System Reform found that 25 new insurance carriers entered the ACA marketplace for 2019, while just one withdrew. Compare that with 2017, when 10 carriers entered but 90 withdrew.
Also, the number of U.S. counties with a single marketplace plan declined in 20 states between 2018 and 2019. While the current conditions are far from ideal, next year just five states will have a single plan in each county.
I find it strange how people focus so much on rate with the affordable care act.
while YES rates ARE lower, deductibles are a metric ton higher.
My girlfriend tried to apply but she didnt because her identity couldnt be verified and there was a 24 hr call waiting list that DIDNT give you an option for them to call you back. Luckily we found out insurance ELSEWHERE had higher rates but deductibles as low as $2,000 which is a lot better. if she had used obamacare, she would have to spend around 9,000 before the insurance would start picking up coverage in full swing.
The government shouldnt regulate healthcare at all. its proved its incompetence in the 1960’s when it restricted the market of doctors by requiring 5 year long licensing procedures that make it so that foreign doctors dont want to have to deal with it to get in especially since they only license over 110,000 doctors per year. During that time they also increased the demand for an already cheap healthcare market so that low income working class individuals could afford insurance, HOWEVER restricting the supply of doctors to the market every year and increasing the demand meant that many individuals now had to get insurance to pay for booming healthcare costs. with alot of the restrictions and regulations in the market, many cures and treatments get brushed under the rug or ignored for profit when lobbyists from big pharmaceutical companies during the AIDS epidemic of the 1980s, where people were given TOXIC doses of AZT to treat their condition. Many found out that if you treated the symptoms by taking vitamins and supplements and injections meant to help built up your bodies immunities AND taking a low dose of AZT meant that you could live longer than the 6month average during the Aids epidemic. the FDA made this treatment illegal and many people got arrested for getting it in the states. many “Buyers club’s” popped up around the country to offer a better alternative to the treatment but the FDA and federal government got in the way. by the 1990s a lawsuit against the government was won and that anyone could seek experimental and non approved treatment to treat an illness that may result in their death if untreated.
the FDA and federal government have constantly added regulation upon regulation that mainly benefits the wealthy at the top by keeping drug and treatment prices high due to the regulatory BS, and keeps out the small business owners; aside from pharmacies, from entering the market and providing treatment. heck you cant feed the homeless in some counties due to regulation. and prices went up due to the demand from the ACA due to the threat of a penalty if you are uninsured which is kinda BS as it seems like this part benefits ONLY the wealthy and is meant to keep the working class down.
Prices were better before the drafting of the medicaid/medicare legislation and they were over 3 times lower than they are today even when adjusted for inflation. every time the government throws more money towards an aspect of the market such as housing, food, gas, healthcare and education, the prices go up and up and up, while the market is able to make prices for everything else go down and down and down to the point where now everyone can afford atleast 3 television sets in their house… something that only a Rockefeller would be able to achieve during the 1950s/1960s. planned markets shouldnt exist and we should look back to the Chicago school of economics and adapt a more Friedman-esque form of economy where the government ONLY intervenes in times of environmental hazards, large scale economic collapse and to prevent monopolies by busting trust on companies like google or apple that the government always buddies up to as if its nothing.