Maine launching state-run health insurance marketplace for 2022 enrollment

Maine will start its very own condition-run health and fitness coverage market in November, which implies that state citizens shopping for Inexpensive Treatment Act coverage for 2022 will order it via a new state internet site.

Setting up Nov. 1, people signing up for ACA insurance coverage in Maine will go through the coverme.gov web site relatively than the federal government’s health care.gov web page, in which Maine individuals have bought Obamacare insurance policies due to the fact 2014. A overall of 15 states, like all of New England apart from New Hampshire, have been employing condition-based marketplaces instead than the federal version.

Maine now has its individual site for inhabitants who want overall health insurance policy by way of the Very affordable Treatment Act.

The federal government also authorized new point out marketplaces for Kentucky and New Mexico on Monday. The open up enrollment interval goes from Nov.1 to Jan. 15, 2022, but buyers have to have to enroll by Dec. 15 to have protection get started on Jan. 1. Enrollees who want to preserve their existing options will be mechanically re-enrolled.

Jeanne Lambrew, Maine’s health and human solutions commissioner, stated Maine can now “customize the enrollment method to suit our state’s needs.”

“The CoverME.gov market will give Maine men and women much better entry to cost-effective health and fitness insurance plan possibilities when open up enrollment kicks off on Nov. 1,” Lambrew stated in a assertion.

Mitchell Stein, a Maine-centered independent health coverage advisor, reported the ideas will be the exact, but having a state-operate marketplace gives Maine some insignificant benefits.

“The condition has additional manage and will be superior equipped to personalize the outreach attempts,” Stein explained. “Assuming all the things will work as supposed, the site ought to be pretty clear for the close person, but they will be getting the similar programs.”

Ann Woloson, government director of Consumers for Very affordable Well being Treatment, a Maine-dependent advocacy group, said a state-operate web site can be tailor-made to the state’s certain requires.

“State-based exchanges can also far better target … outreach activities geared towards finding info out about protection alternatives. It can also, ultimately, function a lot more competently with other point out organizations, these kinds of as the department of labor, corrections and taxation, to hyperlink folks to the (market) for assistance in sorting by means of alternatives and enrolling in coverage.”

Considering the fact that 2020, Maine has been running a hybrid sort of the marketplace, with the condition overseeing advertising and outreach, and the federal government dealing with signups.

About 55,000 men and women in Maine have ACA market insurance policy, down from about 70,000 in 2019, mostly since Maine expanded Medicaid that 12 months. The growth resulted in about 85,000 Maine individuals attaining entry to Medicaid protection.

The Biden administration beefed up subsidies for ACA enrollees through the American Rescue Program monthly bill, and now 25 % of enrollees have a monthly high quality of $10 or much less.


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