The Biden administration Friday predicted another record year of enrollment in individual coverage under the Affordable Care Act with several weeks remaining to sing up for such health benefits.
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services said 496,000 consumers who do not currently have health care coverage, also known as Obamacare, have selected plans through the individual-market marketplace for plan year 2025 coverage. Last year, more than 21 million people signed up for coverage, setting a record.
“I’m excited about this year’s open enrollment and believe this will be the biggest yet,” CMS Administrator Chiquita Brooks-LaSure said. “It’s never been more critical to ensure access to high-quality, affordable health care coverage in America. Now is the time to remind friends, family, and the whole of our communities that HealthCare.gov can provide a critical lifeline to care and that subsidies that can make coverage more affordable remain for 2025.”
Whether such momentum continues after next year is uncertain. When Donald Trump — who was elected earlier this month in the presidential race against Vice President Kamala Harris — was in office from 2017 to 2021, he and Republicans in Congress tried and failed several times to repeal the ACA, the signature legislative achievement of former President Barack Obama.
It remains unclear what Trump’s healthcare agenda will be in his second term that begins in January because he has yet to reveal a healthcare plan. Earlier this week, Trump announced that celebrity doctor and failed Republican U.S. Senate candidate Dr. Mehmet Oz to run CMS, which oversees Medicare, Medicaid and coverage under the ACA. His nomination still faces a U.S. Senate confirmation process that is expected to begin in January.
Meanwhile, CMS said “over 2.5 million existing consumers have already returned to the Marketplace to select a plan for 2025.”
“Marketplace Open Enrollment on HealthCare.gov runs from November 1 to January 15,” CMS said Friday in an announcement. “Consumers who enroll by midnight December 15 (5 a.m. EST on December 16) can get full-year coverage that starts January 1, 2025.”
Obamacare has come a long way, with millions of Americans gaining such coverage in part due to expanding subsidies that allow more people to afford health insurance. That has also helped an array of health insurers including Centene, Cigna, Oscar Health, UnitedHealth Group’s UnitedHealthcare and an array of Blue Cross and Blue Shield plans to grow their individual coverage portfolios.
