Facing pressure from insurers to get more young people to enroll in the Affordable Care Act (ACA) insurance exchange, the Obama administration is going to pore over IRS tax records to identify uninsured young people.
The administration will contact the uninsured by email and urge them to sign up for coverage, including free Uber and Lyft rides to enrollment events.
Getting a big chunk of the 12.7 million uninsured millennials onto the exchange would go a long way toward preventing insurers from raising premiums or ditching the system all together, as a number of insurers have threatened to do.
This isn’t the administration’s first attempt to ratchet up the pressure on people who are avoiding the insurance mandate. In both 2015 and 2016, it raised the fine on those who didn’t buy insurance. This year, the penalty for going without coverage for 12 months is $695 for an individual, up from $325 in 2015 and $95 in 2014.
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) has also ramped up its efforts to get young people to sign up by coordinating enrollment drives with local nonprofits and marketing Obamacare on social media.
Unfortunately for the administration, the next open enrollment period does not begin until Nov. 1, around the same time that health plans will release their proposed premiums for 2017 based on their current enrollees. The anticipated premium increases are expected to be significant, creating a major headache for the administration as well as Hillary Clinton, who is campaigning as a strong supporter of the ACA.
Related: Uninsured rate htis record low
Federal officials have urged state insurance authorities to carefully scrutinize premium increases proposed by insurers to make sure they are justified by the costs the insurer is incurring from enrollees. In fact, the feds recently released $22 million to help states hire staff to help them in their reviews of rate increases.
The administration’s aggressive effort to increase enrollment among millennials, however, is likely in part an acknowledgement that the complaints from insurers is not unfounded. UnitedHealthcare’s decision to exit the ACA exchanges in most states and threats from other insurers to do the same are based on the simple fact that they’re losing money on Obamacare, and will continue to do so until they either raise rates or get more more healthy members.
Complete your profile to continue reading and get FREE access to BenefitsPRO, part of your ALM digital membership.
Your access to unlimited BenefitsPRO content isn’t changing.
Once you are an ALM digital member, you’ll receive:
- Breaking benefits news and analysis, on-site and via our newsletters and custom alerts
- Educational webcasts, white papers, and ebooks from industry thought leaders
- Critical converage of the property casualty insurance and financial advisory markets on our other ALM sites, PropertyCasualty360 and ThinkAdvisor
Already have an account? Sign In Now
© 2024 ALM Global, LLC, All Rights Reserved. Request academic re-use from www.copyright.com. All other uses, submit a request to [email protected]. For more information visit Asset & Logo Licensing.
