It’s constitutional – deal with it
McCarter was one of nearly 1.2 million Texans who signed up or were re-enrolled in health coverage before open enrollment ended Sunday. The newly released numbers show Texas ranking behind only Florida in the number of people it signed up or re-enrolled in coverage among the 37 states that rely on the federal health insurance marketplace to sell insurance plans, federal officials said Wednesday. Florida signed up or re-enrolled about 1.6 million people.
“When was the last time this many people became insured?” asked Elena Marks, president and CEO of Houston’s Episcopal Health Foundation and a nonresident health policy fellow at Rice University’s Baker Institute. “It is almost double the number who signed up last year.”
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About 150,000 consumers who were waiting to buy marketplace coverage and those who had technical problems while completing their applications as open enrollment ended Sunday will have until Monday to finish enrolling. Burwell said she hasn’t decided whether to open a special enrollment period for consumers who realize they face a penalty for being uninsured as they file their 2014 federal income taxes.
Texas’ enrollment figure indicates about 500,000 residents might have bought marketplace insurance for the first time. Last year, nearly 734,000 Texans bought coverage during the marketplace’s inaugural open enrollment period.
According to the national insurance advocacy group Get Covered America, more than 317,000 Houston-area residents bought or were re-enrolled in 2015 marketplace insurance coverage.
“The fact that more than 180,000 Texans enrolled in the final nine days of the open enrollment period shows that people want and need an affordable and quality health care plan,” Mimi Garcia, Get Covered America’s Texas director, said in a written statement.
That’s over 11 million nationally, or 19 million if you count Medicaid expansion. Not too shabby for a program that the hacks at the TPPF claims is broken, or for a population that Rick Perry swears wasn’t interested in getting coverage. Imagine what these numbers could be if everyone cared about doing something about the uninsured problem.