Covered California, the largest state-based ACA exchange for the largest state in the country, actually launched their 2019 ACA Open Enrollment Period over three weeks ago, on October 15th.
They still haven't posted any 2019 enrollment numbers, which I find rather irritating, but they did just send out the following press release regarding a promotional bus tour they're doing which highlights a couple of interesting data points:
Covered California Launches Iconic Bus Tour to Promote Enrollment and Show How “Life Can Change in an Instant”
Yes, that's right...while the 2019 Open Enrollment Period doesn't start for the rest of the country until November 1st, the Golden State has decided to kick things off two weeks early (16 days early, technically): Covered California, the largest state-based ACA exchange, is officially open for business for 2019 enrollment as of today!
In addition, while you can't actually enroll for 2019 coverage in any other state until November 1st, in several states you can window shop to find out what your 2019 policy options and pricing will be, along with estimates about what sort of financial assistance you'll qualify for once you actually do go through the enrollment process.
The states which are already open for window shopping already include:
The official annual ACA Open Enrollment Period (OEP) starting and ending dates have jumped around a lot since the exchanges kicked off back on October 1, 2013.
For the first OEP, people were given 6 months since the technology and the process were brand new to everyone...and thank God they were given the technical mess that the federal exchange (HealthCare.Gov) as well as many of the state-based exchanges experienced at launch. Things were eventually worked out, but not only was that extra time in spring 2014 vitally important, many people still needed some extra time beyond that as well. The official deadline to enroll for 2014 coverage was March 31, but the HHS Dept. gave people who had started their application by then an extra 15-day "overtime" period to complete the process.
For the 2015 OEP, the official dates were from November 15 - February 15th, cutting the time period down to three months. This time there was a one-week "overtime" period tacked onto the end.
For 2016 and 2017, HHS settled on November 1st - January 31st, which seemed to make sense since it was easier to remember: November, December, January.
BREAKING: Governor @JerryBrownGov today signed several #Care4AllCA bills that protects patients and places greater accountability on health insurers now on Gov's desk:#SB910 & #SB1375 to ban/limit "junk" insurance;#AB2499 on MLR; and#AB2472 on a public option study.
Open enrollment for 2019 coverage will begin October 15, 2018 in California, and continue until January 15, 2019
Nationwide, open enrollment for 2019 coverage is scheduled to run from November 1, 2018 to December 15, 2018 — the same schedule that was followed in late 2017 for 2018 coverage. But Covered California was one of only three state-run exchanges that opted in 2017 to keep open enrollment at three months in duration for 2018 coverage (the others were New York and DC).
And the state enacted legislation (A.B.156) in late 2017 that codifies a three-month open enrollment period going forward — California will not be switching to the November 1 – December 15 open enrollment window that other states will be using.
Ensure that young adults can continue to remain on their parents’ health insurance plans until age 26
Prohibit insurers from using applicants’ gender to set premiums
Prohibit insurers from rejecting an application based on an applicant’s medical history, or imposing coverage exclusions based on pre-existing conditions.
Today, however, there were major developments regarding #ShortAssPlan restrictions (and a few other important patient protection bills) in three states: Two positive, one negative.
Over the past few weeks I've noted that a half-dozen states or so (Maryland, New Jersey, Vermont, Hawaii, California and Illinois) have been pushing through a long list of bills/laws at the state level to either protect the ACA from sabotage or even strengthen it. Meanwhile, other states have either expanded Medicaid under the ACA (Virginia, of course) or have locked in ballot measures to do so this fall (Utah, Idaho). Finally, several states have announced they're joining dozens of others to take advantage of "Silver Loading" or full-on "Silver Switching".
A couple of months ago Louise Norris of healthinsurance.org gave me a heads up about a half-dozen or so healthcare bills, mostly ACA-related, pending in the California state legislature. Some were in the state Senate, some in the state Assembly; some were more along the lines of protecting the ACA from sabotage efforts while others were about expanding upon the law.
Well, today a whole bunch of those bills (as well as a few I didn't even know about earlier) made it a major step further along the line to becoming law. Courtesy of the Health Access CA Twitter feed:
California is exploring a bold and controversial new plan to rein in health care spending by letting the state government set medical prices.
...Still, California’s new proposal is worth examining as one that steps closer to single-payer — but doesn’t go quite all the way. It’s one plausible step a state could take without any assistance from the Trump administration, as we see more blue states looking for ways to shape the future of their own health care systems.
”I think we have appreciated how much we’ve been able to do with transparency and data, and how much we’ve been able to collect, but we reached the point where we felt like we had to tackle the issue of prices head on,” says Sara Flocks, policy coordinator for the California Labor Federation, which is backing the proposal.
