Healthcare.gov in 2013.

Healthcare.gov in 2013. txking / Shutterstock.com

Obamacare Enrollment Is About to Open Again, and Not Many Know It

Latest Kaiser poll shows obstacle to getting more Americans on health exchanges.

Only about 15 per­cent of un­in­sured Amer­ic­ans—and 17 per­cent of the gen­er­al pub­lic—know when open en­roll­ment be­gins, des­pite health in­sur­ance mar­ket­places kick­ing off the third open sea­son this Sunday, ac­cord­ing to the Oc­to­ber Kais­er Health Track­ing Poll.

Earli­er this month, the Health and Hu­man Ser­vices De­part­ment an­nounced that it an­ti­cip­ated 10 mil­lion Amer­ic­ans will likely have cov­er­age and pay their premi­ums by the end of 2016—a mod­est es­tim­ate that in­cluded 2.8 to 3.9 mil­lion un­in­sured in­di­vidu­als. HHS noted those without in­sur­ancemay be harder to reach since it’s the third go-around for open en­roll­ment, and the Kais­er Fam­ily Found­a­tion poll sheds light on just how dif­fi­cult the task may be.

Out of those who are un­in­sured, roughly 2 in 10 have been con­tac­ted about the Af­ford­able Care Act in the past six months. About 51 per­cent of those without health in­sur­ance haven’t had cov­er­age for at least two years. Yet those sur­veyed in­dic­ated a will­ing­ness to sign up for cov­er­age; al­most half, when asked if they plan to get in­sur­ance in the next few months, said yes, ac­cord­ing to the poll, which in­ter­viewed 1,203 adults from Oct. 14-20.

HHS has broken down the demo­graph­ics of the 10.5 mil­lion who are un­in­sured yet could likely be eli­gible to hop on a health ex­change. Al­most 8 in 10 could qual­i­fy for fin­an­cial as­sist­ance. Al­most half are the “young in­vin­cibles” ages 18 to 34. About 19 per­cent are His­pan­ic, 14 per­cent are black, and 2 per­cent are Asi­an. And nearly 40 per­cent live on in­comes between $30,000 to $60,000 for a fam­ily of four.

In mid-Oc­to­ber, HHS out­lined its game plan to tar­get en­rollees us­ing loc­al­ized and di­git­al cam­paigns in both Eng­lish and Span­ish while also work­ing with non­profits, health care pro­viders, busi­nesses and more.

Health­Care.gov, the fed­er­al ex­change ser­vi­cing 38 states, opened for win­dow-shop­ping Sunday, al­low­ing po­ten­tial con­sumers to com­pare the fin­an­cial de­tails of vari­ous health plans. But when the mar­ket­places first opened for en­roll­ment in 2013, Health­Care.gov and some state ex­changes came un­der fire for tech­no­lo­gic­al glitches and a bumbled rol­lout that was frus­trat­ing for health in­sur­ance shop­pers.

In a brief­ing with re­port­ers Fri­day, Kev­in Couni­han—the Health­Care.gov CEO—said the sys­tem is stable and the fo­cus now is on per­son­al­iz­ing the con­sumer ex­per­i­ence and provid­ing more tools to help en­rollees choose the right plan. Tools al­low­ing con­sumers to search health plans for a spe­cif­ic doc­tor and for a spe­cif­ic drug are “com­ing soon,” and Cen­ters for Medi­care and Medi­caid Ser­vices of­fi­cials wouldn’t give a con­crete timetable for their launch.

“Are we go­ing to have bumps in this open en­roll­ment? You bet,” Couni­han said. “Are they go­ing to be per­man­ent and long-last­ing? No. Are we go­ing to be able to identi­fy them quickly? You bet. Are we go­ing to be able to fix them fast? Ab­so­lutely.”

(Image via txking / Shutterstock.com )

X
This website uses cookies to enhance user experience and to analyze performance and traffic on our website. We also share information about your use of our site with our social media, advertising and analytics partners. Learn More / Do Not Sell My Personal Information
Accept Cookies
X
Cookie Preferences Cookie List

Do Not Sell My Personal Information

When you visit our website, we store cookies on your browser to collect information. The information collected might relate to you, your preferences or your device, and is mostly used to make the site work as you expect it to and to provide a more personalized web experience. However, you can choose not to allow certain types of cookies, which may impact your experience of the site and the services we are able to offer. Click on the different category headings to find out more and change our default settings according to your preference. You cannot opt-out of our First Party Strictly Necessary Cookies as they are deployed in order to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting the cookie banner and remembering your settings, to log into your account, to redirect you when you log out, etc.). For more information about the First and Third Party Cookies used please follow this link.

Allow All Cookies

Manage Consent Preferences

Strictly Necessary Cookies - Always Active

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Sale of Personal Data, Targeting & Social Media Cookies

Under the California Consumer Privacy Act, you have the right to opt-out of the sale of your personal information to third parties. These cookies collect information for analytics and to personalize your experience with targeted ads. You may exercise your right to opt out of the sale of personal information by using this toggle switch. If you opt out we will not be able to offer you personalised ads and will not hand over your personal information to any third parties. Additionally, you may contact our legal department for further clarification about your rights as a California consumer by using this Exercise My Rights link

If you have enabled privacy controls on your browser (such as a plugin), we have to take that as a valid request to opt-out. Therefore we would not be able to track your activity through the web. This may affect our ability to personalize ads according to your preferences.

Targeting cookies may be set through our site by our advertising partners. They may be used by those companies to build a profile of your interests and show you relevant adverts on other sites. They do not store directly personal information, but are based on uniquely identifying your browser and internet device. If you do not allow these cookies, you will experience less targeted advertising.

Social media cookies are set by a range of social media services that we have added to the site to enable you to share our content with your friends and networks. They are capable of tracking your browser across other sites and building up a profile of your interests. This may impact the content and messages you see on other websites you visit. If you do not allow these cookies you may not be able to use or see these sharing tools.

If you want to opt out of all of our lead reports and lists, please submit a privacy request at our Do Not Sell page.

Save Settings
Cookie Preferences Cookie List

Cookie List

A cookie is a small piece of data (text file) that a website – when visited by a user – asks your browser to store on your device in order to remember information about you, such as your language preference or login information. Those cookies are set by us and called first-party cookies. We also use third-party cookies – which are cookies from a domain different than the domain of the website you are visiting – for our advertising and marketing efforts. More specifically, we use cookies and other tracking technologies for the following purposes:

Strictly Necessary Cookies

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Functional Cookies

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Performance Cookies

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Sale of Personal Data

We also use cookies to personalize your experience on our websites, including by determining the most relevant content and advertisements to show you, and to monitor site traffic and performance, so that we may improve our websites and your experience. You may opt out of our use of such cookies (and the associated “sale” of your Personal Information) by using this toggle switch. You will still see some advertising, regardless of your selection. Because we do not track you across different devices, browsers and GEMG properties, your selection will take effect only on this browser, this device and this website.

Social Media Cookies

We also use cookies to personalize your experience on our websites, including by determining the most relevant content and advertisements to show you, and to monitor site traffic and performance, so that we may improve our websites and your experience. You may opt out of our use of such cookies (and the associated “sale” of your Personal Information) by using this toggle switch. You will still see some advertising, regardless of your selection. Because we do not track you across different devices, browsers and GEMG properties, your selection will take effect only on this browser, this device and this website.

Targeting Cookies

We also use cookies to personalize your experience on our websites, including by determining the most relevant content and advertisements to show you, and to monitor site traffic and performance, so that we may improve our websites and your experience. You may opt out of our use of such cookies (and the associated “sale” of your Personal Information) by using this toggle switch. You will still see some advertising, regardless of your selection. Because we do not track you across different devices, browsers and GEMG properties, your selection will take effect only on this browser, this device and this website.