Although the federal health exchange has not reopened, due to the need of health insurance for many of those who lost coverage due to COVID-19, multiple states have announced the reopening of state marketplaces in order to provide citizens with coverage. States reopening to allow those who do not have coverage to get insured brings to mind if every state will eventually choose to do the same with their ACA marketplaces.
States Reopening
So far, states reopening to allow citizens to get coverage include California, Colorado, Connecticut, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Nevada, New York, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Washington. Other states also have opened their exchange such as Idaho, but for those who have had job loss related to COVID-19. According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, a total of 28,264,700 people are uninsured in the US, with a higher number of uninsured in states that have not adopted the Medicaid Expansion Decision.
Government Works to Ensure Safety & Help
This isn’t the first type of policy states have received in order to help cover new expenses due to COVID-19. Some that came early this year such as social distancing, closure of nonessential businesses, bans of large gatherings, and more. The Federal government back in March took action to ensure access to COVID019 testing, such as requiring Medicare, Medicaid, all group health plans, and individual health insurance policies to cover testing and associated visits related to the diagnosis of COVID-19 with no cost-sharing and prohibits plans from imposing prior authorization requirements on these services during the federally-declared emergency period.
SEP Dates
Although states did reopen enrollment, they still have deadlines on how long citizens can act. Some states have already had the dates pass and others end soon, for instance, Maryland’s enrollment is scheduled to close June 15. Other SEP for Coronavirus are as follows according to obamacarefacts.com:
- California special enrollment coronavirus deadline: June 30, 2020.
- Colorado special enrollment coronavirus deadline: April 3, 2020.
- Connecticut special enrollment coronavirus deadline: April 2, 2020.
- DC special enrollment coronavirus deadline: Deadline not known.
- Maryland special enrollment coronavirus deadline: June 15, 2020.
- Massachusetts special enrollment coronavirus deadline: April 25th, 2020.
- Minnesota special enrollment coronavirus deadline: April 21.
- Nevada special enrollment coronavirus deadline: April 15, 2020.
- New York special enrollment coronavirus deadline: April 15, 2020.
- Rhode Island special enrollment coronavirus deadline: April 15, 2020.
- Vermont special enrollment coronavirus deadline: April 17, 2020.
- Washington special enrollment coronavirus deadline: April 8, 2020
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