Federal officials are continuing to make operational adjustments in health law marketplaces and they are meeting insurers to encourage them to offer interesting plans in those areas of the country that are forecasted as low on competition. In addition to this, HHS is now focusing on outreach efforts to reach the uninsured individuals, especially those who are healthier and younger people.
The Department of Health and Human Services recently said that they are planning to get these people enrolled when the market opens on Nov 1. Sylvia Burwell, who is the secretary of HHS, said that the potential enrollees under the age of thirty-four, are mostly driven by deadlines and these people often enroll closer to the end of the enrollment time.
It is to be noted that Aetna, UnitedHealth, and Humana, which are three of the largest healthcare insurance providers in the country, have already announced that they would sell individual plans in many of the fewer markets in the coming year. Many Blue Cross and Blue Shield plans have also said that they will follow the same path. These announcements apply generally to the individual markets, but the larger market of the employer-sponsored insurance is not part of it.
It is true that some of the consumers will face less choices and higher prices for their insurance coverage, but eighty five percent of exchange enrollees were qualified for tax credits that help them offset the increase in premium. Apart from that, HHS has also proposed some adjustments aimed to reflect the concerns of insurers like how to better account for people who are not enrolled in any health plan for a complete year. Other concerns include making better use of the drug utilization data and spreading the risk of high cost enrollees in 2018.
HHS is also seeking to improve enrollment by working with the Internal Revenue Service to contact those people who have paid penalty for not having insurance coverage, and provide them information on how to enroll on exchanges.