EASY ENROLLMENT PROGRAM OFFERS HEALTH COVERAGE, FINANCIAL HELP TO MARYLANDERS WHO CHECK BOX ON TAXES
AFTER OPEN ENROLLMENT, STATE TAX FILERS WILL HAVE ADDITIONAL OPPORTUNITY TO ENROLL THROUGH JULY 15
BALTIMORE, MD – For the third year, the Easy Enrollment Program, a partnership between the Office of the Comptroller of Maryland and Maryland Health Connection, will allow uninsured Marylanders to enroll in health insurance through July 15. The date coincides with the extended state income tax filing and payment deadline.
This innovative program allows Marylanders to check a box on their state tax return to share information with Maryland Health Connection. Within a week, the tax filer can expect a letter in the mail. This unlocks a 35-day enrollment window, starting from the date on the letter.
The mother of a Minneapolis man who died because he could not afford his Type 1 diabetes medication is asking Minnesotans with an urgent need for insulin to seek assistance through a state program that she helped champion.
In a new video called the “Alec Smith Story,” Nicole Smith-Holt urges anyone struggling to afford their insulin to sign up for the Minnesota Insulin Safety Net Program. Her son Alec died in 2017 at the age of 26 from ketoacidosis after rationing his insulin to make it last longer.
“I encourage anyone who has diabetes and struggling to afford the medication to keep advocating for yourself,’” Smith-Holt said. “I don’t want someone in an emergency like Alec was to be turned away at the pharmacy or start rationing their insulin. You have options.”
Nearly 200,000 Coloradans Signed Up for Health Insurance During Annual Enrollment Period
Special enrollment opportunities and enrollment assistance still available
DENVER – Connect for Health Colorado, the state’s official health insurance marketplace, reports that 198,412 Coloradans signed up for a health insurance plan by the end of the Open Enrollment Period. This is an increase of more than 18,000 enrollments, or 10 percent, above last year’s end of Open Enrollment total, and is the highest end of Open Enrollment total since Connect for Health Colorado opened for business in 2013.
In fact, 2022 OEP enrollment is up 10.5% y/y in Colorado.
Three out of four customers who signed up for a plan qualified for health insurance savings via tax credits. Thanks to the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021, an individual can save an average of 52 percent on their monthly premium after financial help is applied.
For months I posted weekly looks at the rate of COVID-19 cases & deaths at the county level since the end of June, broken out by partisan lean (i.e, what percent of the vote Donald Trump received in 2020), as well as by the vaccination rate of each county in the U.S. (nonpartisan).
This basically amounts to the point when the Delta Variant wave hit the U.S., although it had been quietly spreading under the radar for a few months prior to that.
Now that we're a full five weeks into the Omicron Variant wave, I've updated my case/death rate tracking to reflect that as well...because the data so far is showing a completely new chapter as we enter the 3rd year of the Coronavirus Pandemic.
The "start" of the Delta Wave was easy to lock in for my purposes; both cases and deaths from COVID had dropped off dramatically right up until around the end of June. The Delta Wave started showing up in the daily deaths pretty quickly as July started. The transition from the Delta to Omicron was a lot fuzzier, but I've decided to go with December 15th as my transition point.
So, I plugged in the latest COVID case & death rates at the county level as I do every week. I recently decided to switch from using the beginning of the Delta wave as my starting point (June 30, 2021) to using the "start" of the Omicron wave (around December 15, 2021 as far as I can figure) instead.
Last night, however (yes, I know I'm a nerd doing this on a Saturday evening), I decided to see what it looks like if I use June 30th as my starting point again, and this generated a pretty remarkable contrast which goes to show two things: First, just how insanely contagious the new Omicron COVID variant is; and second, how extremely effective the COVID vaccines are (especially with the 3rd/booster dose added to the mix).
Here's the updated county-level case rates across all 50 states +DC, broken out into 10 roughly equal populations by 2-dose vaccination rate (booster data wasn't available as of this writing):
I go by county residents who have received the 2nd COVID-19 shot only (or 1st in the case of the J&J vaccine).
NEW: Scroll down to see my first attempt at tracking 3rd/Booster shots, with some important caveats of its own
I base my percentages on the total population via the 2020 U.S. Census as opposed to adults only or those over 11 years old (or even over 4 years old).
For most states + DC I use the daily data from the Centers for Disease Control, but there are some where the CDC is either missing county-level data entirely or where the CDC data is less than 90% complete at the county level. Therefore:
For Virginia, I've started using the official state health department dashboard due to some weirdness in the COVID Act Now data for VA. Unfortunately the VA Health Dept. dashboard doesn't allow you to export, view or download all 95 counties/city-counties at once, making this a tedious effort, so I'll only be updating Virginia once a month.
Nevada Health Link Enrolls Over 100,000 Nevadans in Health Insurance During Open Enrollment
The Silver State Health Insurance Exchange marks its highest enrollment numbers during 2022 Plan Year Open Enrollment Period
(CARSON CITY, NV) – Over 100,000 Nevadans enrolled in health insurance during Nevada Health Link’s two-and-a-half month Open Enrollment Period (OEP) which ended Saturday, January 15. With a 25% increase in enrollments from last year’s enrollment period, this marks the largest enrollment cohort since the Silver State Health Insurance Exchange (Exchange) began operating as a state-based marketplace in 2019.
Of the 101,409 total Nevadans who enrolled in health insurance plans through NevadaHealthLink.com, 20,897 were new enrollees, meaning they were not previously enrolled in health insurance through the Exchange. 27,717 were active re-enrollees, meaning they went to NevadaHealthLink.com to upgrade or change their current plan.
Over 66,000 Maine People Chose Affordable Health Plans for 2022 on CoverME.gov
Plan selections for the first year of Maine’s State-based Health Insurance Marketplace outpaced previous year by more than 10 percent
AUGUSTA— The Mills Administration announced today that 66,095 Maine people selected plans for affordable health insurance for 2022 at CoverME.gov, Maine’s new Health Insurance Marketplace, an increase of more than 10 percent over the previous year.
At Governor Mills’ direction, Open Enrollment ended on January 15, 2022, giving Maine people an extra month to browse and enroll in quality, affordable health plans. During this first Open Enrollment Period as a State-based Marketplace, which began on November 1, 2021, an additional 6,357 Maine people selected plans, surpassing the 2021 Open Enrollment period and reversing declines in Marketplace plan selections since 2017.
DISCLAIMER: HealthSherpa is one of the Enhanced Direct Enrollment (EDE) ACA brokers which run banner ads on my site. EDEs are basically authorized private, 3rd-party versions of ACA exchange sites which have their back ends integrated directly into the federal exchange (HealthCare.Gov) (W3LL and Stride Health are the other EDEs which advertise here).
Having said that, I believe Sherpa is the largest ACA EDE out there, and they're pretty transparent about their enrollment metrics, so until CMS posts their latest official Weekly Snapshot Enrollment Report (which should happen soon), Sherpa's updates are pretty good indicators of how things are going overall.
It's important to remember to that Sherpa is currently only equipped to enroll people in the 33 federal exchange states (i.e., those utilizing HealthCare.Gov).
