HEALTHCARE/JOBS/OBAMACARE(ACA): “Sharon Barker isn’t used to recruiting new health insurance customers in deepest summer, long before the enrollment season for the Affordable Care Act. But this year, everything is different.
Despite surviving Republican efforts to repeal it, the law known as Obamacare remains vulnerable. President Trump has repeatedly threatened to end billions of dollars in payments to insurance companies, but his administration decided this week to continue them for another month.
An even more crucial question is whether administration officials who openly detest the law will lead a vigorous nationwide push to persuade the uninsured to buy policies sold under its banner, and existing customers to keep their coverage, when open enrollment for next year starts on Nov. 1.
The evidence so far suggests they won’t. The administration recently ended $23 million worth of contracts with two companies that helped people sign up for coverage. It also is cutting the enrollment period in half in most states, to 45 days. A number of advocacy groups that worked closely with the Obama administration to get the word out about open enrollment have heard nothing from the Trump administration about re-upping the partnerships this year.
All of this has Ms. Barker and other Obamacare enrollment counselors around the nation, many of whom rely on federal grants to carry out their work and to keep their jobs, revving up earlier than usual, and bracing for the strange new challenge of promoting coverage that the president is attacking at the same time. They are not even certain the law’s mandate that most Americans have health insurance or pay a tax penalty will be enforced.”
-Abby Goodnough, “Getting People to Enroll in Health Plans While Trump Attacks Them,” The New York Times online, Aug. 20, 2017