It’s open enrollment time for coverage under the Affordable Care Act, now until December 15 in most states. This isn’t just an opportunity for the uninsured to find coverage, but for people with individual plans—whether through Obamacare or not—to shop around and discover what other options are available.
Here are some good reasons to do so, according to various industry experts.
1. Lower prices: “an eHealth analysis of plans available to 45 year olds in 38 metropolitan areas through the federal health insurance marketplace, the premium for the lowest-cost bronze plan has decreased an average of 3 percent compared with last year's open enrollment period.”
2. More plans to choose from: That same analysis found that “there are 31 percent more plans to choose from across all states served by the federal health insurance marketplace.”
3. Verify your provider network: Insurers routinely change their provider networks, so you want to make sure your preferred doctors and hospitals are still in the network.
4. Prescription drug coverage changes: If you’ve got specific prescription drug needs, make sure they’re still covered and that they’ll provide the savings you need.
There are plenty of great tools to help you or people you are helping figure out what options are available all across the country. Now that all the election is done and the holiday rush hasn’t begun, it’s a good time to get enrolled or re-enrolled and to also help get people signed up for Obamacare. It’s also another opportunity to make Trump and the Republicans hurt. The better Obamacare does, the more angst they’ll have.
You know where to go, right? Healthcare.gov, because even Trump hasn’t been able to blow it up.