Open-enrollment period for Obamacare health insurance ends Friday

The open-enrollment period for most people who buy Obamacare health insurance on their own — as opposed to getting coverage through an employer — ends Friday.

The time frame to sign up for coverage under the Affordable Care Act was cut in half this year, leaving brokers and others who help people sign up for coverage racing since Nov. 1.

“It has been busy, no two ways about it,” said Chris McArdle, vice president of the Rauser Agency in Milwaukee.

As of Dec. 9, 128,267 people in Wisconsin had signed up for health plans on the federal marketplaces set up through the Affordable Care Act.

That doesn’t include people automatically enrolled in a health plan.

People whose current health insurer is exiting the market will have until Feb. 3 to pick a new health plan, provided they indicate before Dec. 31 that coverage through their health plan is ending this year.

“For most people, (Friday) is a hard deadline,” McArdle said.

Donna Friedsam, who oversees Covering Wisconsin, said sign-ups during the open-enrollment period have been stronger than expected given that the federal government spent less money on outreach this year.

In Milwaukee County, that was partly offset by support from the Milwaukee Health Care Partnership, a coalition that includes the county’s health systems and the United Way of Greater Milwaukee & Waukesha County.

Friedsam, director of health policy programs at the University of Wisconsin Population Health Institute, expects total enrollment to be down this year because of the shorter open-enrollment period.

Some people who are not eligible for federal subsidies are expected to not buy health insurance because of sharp increases in premiums this year. The increases stem partly from the Trump administration’s decision to not fund subsidies that pay for the additional coverage insurers must provide to people with low incomes and partly from the uncertainty surrounding the market.

“For the people not getting the tax credits, it’s a pretty bitter pill to swallow,” McArdle said. “But as people have said, as expensive as it has become, you can’t afford to go without it.”

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In the first half of this year, an average of 211,015 people in Wisconsin were covered by health plans sold on the marketplaces.

That doesn’t include people who bought health plans off the marketplaces.

In all, health plans sold directly to individuals and families covered 233,904 people in Wisconsin on Dec. 31.

A final surge is almost certain on Friday.

The number of people signing up for coverage has increased in the past week, Cathy Mahaffey, chief executive officer of Common Ground Healthcare Cooperative, said in an email.

The health insurer, which had a total of 56,000 people sign up for coverage as of last week, expects the last day to be very busy but will be able to handle the increased volume, Mahaffey said.

People can go to the healthcare.gov website to shop and sign up for a health plan.