Feds extend Health Insurance Exchange enrollment by 8 Days

Health Law’s Enrollment Period Is Extended by 8 Days

By MICHAEL D. SHEAR and ROBERT PEAR

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration said Friday that it would give people eight more days, until Dec. 23, to sign up for health insurance coverage that takes effect on Jan. 1 under the new health care law.
Julie Bataille, a spokeswoman for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, said officials recognized that consumers might need more time to compare and select health insurance plans because of the technical problems that have plagued the online federal insurance marketplace since it opened at the beginning of last month.
The administration also said it would delay the 2015 insurance enrollment period for the Affordable Care Act by a month, pushing it beyond the 2014 midterm elections.
The decision means that people who have not signed up for insurance by the end of March will have to wait until Nov. 15, 2014, to apply again. The second enrollment period was previously scheduled to begin on Oct. 15, 2014.
It also means that insurance companies will have an extra month to set their rates for 2015 after taking into account who has signed up for coverage during the current enrollment period. The companies will now have until the end of May to set their rates for the following year.
“This gives them more time to assess the pool of people who are getting insurance through the marketplaces and make decisions about what rates will look like in the coming year,” said Jay Carney, the White House press secretary.
The decision to move the 2015 open enrollment beyond the midterm elections, which will be held Nov. 4, could help Democratic candidates who have been worried that another debacle involving the health care law’s website, HealthCare.gov, would hurt them just as they are facing voters.
Officials said the reason for the change was to give insurance companies more time to evaluate the success of the new insurance marketplaces, which have been dogged by technical and public relations problems.
The more young and healthy people who sign up during the initial enrollment period, the lower the rates will be the following year. Officials said they expected those customers to wait until the last minute to sign up and wanted to give insurance companies more time to set their premiums.