Obamacare hits major enrollment milestone on 'Summer Sprint' to August 15 deadline
By the end of last week, more than 2 million people had newly enrolled in Affordable Care Act federal and state marketplaces, pushing Obamacare enrollments to a record level. “That’s two million more Americans who can sleep soundly at night, no longer having to worry whether their family would lose everything due to a heart attack, a cancer diagnosis, or an accident,” President Joe Biden said in a statement both celebrating the milestone and announcing a new “summer sprint” to get people signed up in the next month of the special open enrollment period which lasts until Aug. 15.
The administration, he said, is going all out to drive those enrollments even higher. Biden announced the “final 30-day ‘Summer Sprint to Coverage’ campaign to help people and communities across America who still need health insurance sign up for it.” The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) describes the campaign as “an all-hands effort including integrated paid media placements, increased community outreach, and more to encourage Americans who need coverage to sign up at HealthCare.gov by August 15 for zero-cost or low-cost, quality health insurance.”
That outreach includes some well-produced ads in the form of testimonials from a handful of people who have enrolled and saved a lot of money in the process. Like Dorothy, a hair stylist in Charlotte, North Carolina, who is paying nothing for her new coverage. Yes. Zero dollars.
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There’s also Jeremy in Houston, Texas. He’s a small-business owner, operating a café and he is paying less than $10 a month for coverage.
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The administration will run these ads as well as Spanish-language ads on broadcast television during prime-time and during the Olympics, as well as placing them online, “with increased outreach directed to underserved and minority populations.”
Here’s the deal. Uninsured people can enroll through Aug. 15 and probably find a plan for $10 or less a month. What’s more, already enrolled customers—people who have Obamacare plans already—can update or change their current plan selection and quite possibly save a lot of money. CMS says that 1.2 million of the people who’ve either enrolled for the first time or found new plans since April are in plans with $10 or less in monthly costs. This is thanks to the expansion of subsidies for coverage included in the COVID-19 relief bill. Even those existing customers who haven’t enrolled in new plans will receive savings, CMS says. The system will automatically update their information and apply the savings, effective Sept. 1, 2021—but anyone with a change in financial circumstances since they first enrolled should make sure their information is current.
What a difference an administration makes. Biden opened enrollment for most of the year, resulting in millions fewer being uninsured in plans where they’re saving a lot of money or finding out they’re qualified for Medicaid or the Children’s Health Insurance Program (nearly 400,000 people), after Trump had refused to do so, even during the pandemic. The administration is actually putting funding into both advertising open enrollment and recruiting navigators throughout the country to help. They’ve even created a 30-day toolkit for the public to use to help people get signed up.