More than 23,000 NH residents signed up for health care in first month of open enrollment Jan. 02--More than 23,000 New Hampshire residents signed up for health insurance through the Marketplace in the first month of open enrollment, but with two months to go before the final deadline, its too early to tell how enrollment will compare with the programs first year. According to a report released by the Department of Health and Human Services, 23,210 people in New Hampshire selected plans through the Health Insurance Marketplace leading up to the Dec. 15 deadline, for coverage beginning Jan. 1, 2015. Of those people, 59 percent re-enrolled in a New Hampshire Marketplace plan, while 41 percent signed up for the first time. However, its not clear whether the latter group, about 9,500 people, were previously uninsured or whether they shifted over from some other, non-Marketplace insurance. Theres a little bit of churn, and its slightly more complicated story to parse it out than it was last time, said Karen Hicks, project manager for Covering New Hampshire, a statewide outreach program for the new health insurance law. We have a marketplace that is really shifting around more than a lot of the other states. Last year, the first year of the Affordable Care Act, only one company offered health insurance under the federal program; this year, five companies are offering options. Hicks said she was confident were continuing to make a big dent in the number of uninsured residents in the state. The final deadline for obtaining health insurance in 2015 will be Feb. 15. The Dec. 15 deadline was for people who wanted to keep their existing plans without higher costs. We are a deadline-driven society, said Hicks. We saw more than half of the enrollment last time come in the last month ... I expect to see a similar rush to sign up by the (Feb. 15) deadline. There is more incentive to sign up with some health insurance, because the penalty goes up as part of the federal Affordable Care Act. People without any health insurance in 2015 will face a stiffer penalty on their tax returns the following year: 2 percent of their yearly household income, or $325 per person for the year ($162.50 per child under 18, maximum per family of $975) -- whichever is higher. insurancenewsnet/oarticle/2015/01/02/more-than-23000-nh-residents-signed-up-for-health-care-in-first-month-of-open-e-a582541.html#.VKgNoktl8ds Because the automatic reenrollment process for the 37 states using the HealthCare.gov platform, including New Hampshire, began on December 16 and was completed for the vast majority of consumers on December 18, the report with data through December 15 does not fully capture the number of people who selected plans before the Jan. 1, 2015, deadline. When the federal Marketplace launched in New Hampshire, officials estimated that 150,000 state residents lacked health insurance. Slightly more than 40,000 signed up through marketplace in 2014, about 60 percent of whom, or 24,000, were uninsured. Last year also saw the start of Medicaid expansion in New Hampshire, which drew about 30,000 more people to sign up and get health insurance -- although some of those might have switched over from Marketplace insurance plans. All that makes it difficult to pin down exactly how many uninsured people have been helped by the changes in the health insurance scene in New Hampshire. Hicks said the estimate is that about 100,000 people remain in New Hampshire without health insurance, not counting the results from the first month of sign-ups this time around. The DHHS report also said that about 69 percent of the New Hampshire residents who signed up for health insurance are eligible for financial assistance to lower their monthly premiums. Open Enrollment in the Marketplace runs from Nov. 15, 2014, through Feb. 15, 2015. Consumers should visit HealthCare.gov to review and compare health plan options. Consumers shopping for health insurance coverage should sign up by Jan. 15, 2015, in order to have coverage effective on Feb. 1, 2015. If consumers who were automatically reenrolled decide in the coming weeks that a better plan exists for their families, they can make that change at any time before the end of open enrollment on Feb. 15. Nationwide, more than 4 million people signed up for the first time or reenrolled in coverage for 2015 during the first month of open enrollment. That includes more than 3.4 million people who selected a plan in the 37 states that are using the HealthCare.gov platform for 2015, including New Hampshire, and more than 600,000 consumers who selected plans in the 14 states that are operating their own Marketplace platform for 2015.
Posted on: Sat, 03 Jan 2015 15:43:36 +0000
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