Coronavirus: Trump administration decides against nationwide special health care enrollment
As the number of coronavirus cases in the U.S. keeps growing, there have been calls for the Trump administration to create a nationwide special enrollment period (SEP) for uninsured Americans to sign up for health insurance coverage.
The Trump administration considered an SEP — which would involve re-opening the HealthCare.gov enrollment site — but has now reportedly decided that the administration will not be pursuing that route.
President Trump has the authority to declare an SEP in states that have a federally-run Obamacare marketplace, which is all but 12 states — California, Colorado, Connecticut, D.C., Idaho, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Nevada, New York, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Washington — and Washington D.C.
Currently, all areas without a federally-run Obamacare marketplace besides Idaho have created special enrollment periods on a statewide level. Many of those end during the month of April. A nationwide SEP would open enrollment to Americans in states where the federal government runs the health care marketplace.
“The federal government has done disaster-related SEPs,” Sabrina Corlette, a research professor at Georgetown University, citing Hurricane Harvey leading to an SEP in the Gulf Coast area, told Yahoo Finance. “But to my knowledge, nothing like what’s being contemplated here. I will say there is an SEP opportunity.”
The Affordable Care Act (ACA) — which the Trump administration is currently trying to dismantle — allows certain people to enroll when there have been major life events, such losing your job and therefore losing insurance. The SEP usually lasts for 60 days after a “qualifying event.”
A nationwide SEP would be “almost like a new open enrollment period, like what you have towards the end of the year for the new plan that starts in January,” Linda Blumberg, an institute fellow at the Urban Institute, told Yahoo Finance. “Basically, it lets anybody enroll at this time, regardless of whether or not they had a qualifying event. Certain states have done that, but I think what [is being suggested] is there should be a nationwide special enrollment period for anybody who wants to enroll.”
28 million people uninsured
The issue is crucial for Americans who don’t have health insurance to begin with and may be interested in getting it now because of the coronavirus outbreak.
If an individual finds themself without coverage and doesn’t have a low enough income to qualify for Medicaid, then they have the SEP option if it’s available in their state.
“What we’re really talking about here is there are 28 million people in the country who are uninsured,” Corlette said. “Those folks wouldn’t qualify for an SEP unless they live in one of the states that has established one.”