More than 3 million new members joined the marketplace, also known as “Obamacare,” according to the Department of Health and Human Services.
The government works with non-profit groups and invests in program specialists that help to sign people up in low-income, immigrants, Black and Latino communities to register more people, said Chiquita Brooks-LaSure, administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.
“We made an unprecedented investment to expand the enrollment of our former organization to almost every district in the country and targeted the hardest to reach communities,” she said.
The increase in enrollment is due to the fact that the number of uninsured people is the lowest – only 8% of those in the United States remain without coverage.
President Joe Biden and the Democratic-led Congress have committed millions of dollars over the past two years to unlock low-cost insurance plans for more people and prohibit states from getting rid of Medicaid during the COVID-19 pandemic. The market itself has also evolved in recent years, with more insurance companies joining, giving the majority of Americans at least three plans to consider during enrollment.
The ban was extended to 2025 under major climate and health legislation championed by Democrats last year.
The low-cost plans, which offer zero-dollar premiums for some market entrants, have reversed the flat market of the Obama-era health law, said Massey Whorley, principal at health consulting firm Avalere.
“For this rate of increase to continue is very interesting,” Whorley said. “We were in a position a few years ago where overall exchange enrollment was flat and declined so many people thought the exchange was a stable environment but it was declining.”
However, significant progress in reducing the uninsured rate across the country is threatened this year. Millions of people are expected to lose Medicaid coverage starting this spring when the state will begin the process of removing people who are no longer eligible, in many cases because their current income is too high to qualify.
Some of those people are expected to transition from Medicaid to the marketplace, and the administration said it is spending $12 million to keep information specialists on the job in the coming months to help people enroll in the health law marketplace if they lose Medicaid coverage.
Some who have had Medicaid coverage for the past few years will decide they can set aside a few dollars a month to maintain coverage through the health law marketplace, Whorley said. Others may decide they cannot afford coverage that often has higher co-payments, deductibles and monthly premiums than Medicaid.
“They have to make real choices,” Whorley said. “If you’re already struggling to make your rent and pay your utilities, put gas in your car, put food on the table, you might not be in a position.”
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