The administration also says it won’t be doing special enrollment periods for people who are shocked into wanting to sign up after they see their penalty at tax time for not having insurance, something they offered this year.
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Roughly 9,500 New Hampshire residents have enrolled in a plan for 2016, since open enrollment began on November 1, according to the federal Department of Health and Human Services. Those without insurance in 2016 will have to pay a penalty equal to 2.5 percent of their yearly household income or $695 per person ($347 per child under 18), whichever is greater.
“People may do a cost-benefit analysis and figure out that they’re willing to take the risk and just pay the penalty and not have insurance”, said Cynthia Cox, associate director of health care reform and private insurance at the Kaiser Family Foundation.
People who were insured by WINhealth must sign up for new coverage because the company pulled out of the federal marketplace.
A full 13 of the nonprofit cooperatives spawned by the Affordable Care Act have now shut their doors, leaving hundreds of employees out of work and insurance agents working to help find new coverage for their myriad policyholders.
Researchers from the Urban Institute found that the number of people going without health insurance at some time during the year has dropped significantly, based on data from the Health Reform Monitoring Survey.
With the holidays upon us, the last thing that many of us are thinking about is purchasing health insurance.
For 2016, the focus of much of the ACA discontent is less about increases in premium costs and more about reduction of available insurers.
About 1 million enrollees were new customers, as opposed to existing customers of HealthCare.gov, which serves people in 38 states that are not operating their own Obamacare marketplaces. So while 3 million people now have insurance, about 2.5 million people have trouble keeping a roof.
Another 1.8 million current customers have contacted HealthCare.gov to switch plans or renew their coverage after reviewing their options, officials said Wednesday in a weekly update.
“[This] report reminds us that we must remain vigilant in focusing on delivering better health care outcomes, which leads to smarter spending, particularly as costs increase in key care areas, like prescription drugs costs”, Slavitt said. “They are using the hospital as their primary care doctor”, Wallace, a navigator at the Lawton Community Health Center, said. “In the past, (people) tended to complain about having to have insurance at all”.
“Every month without coverage counts”, Counihan added.
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“We have reps on site who are able to enroll folks through the marketplace healthcare.gov and answer any questions that they may have”, Foutch said. Those that do not have insurance coverage are likely to face tax penalties from the federal government.
