Health insurance enrollments in Colorado, El Paso County up slightly for 2019

Health insurance enrollments through Colorado’s exchange ended slightly up compared with last year, led by a rush of people seeking federal tax credits to ease their monthly insurance premiums.

Across Colorado, 169,672 people signed up for health insurance through Connect for Health Colorado during the most recent 2½-month open enrollment period, which ended Tuesday. That represented a 2 percent increase from last year’s enrollment, when 165,777 people signed up for medical plans.

Among those who signed up for coverage were 12,482 El Paso County residents, an 8 percent jump from 2018.

“We thought we’d be doing well to hit last year’s mark and came in a little better than 2 percent ahead, so we’re very pleased,” said Luke Clarke, spokesman for the exchange.

About 77 percent of Colorado enrollees received tax credits that cut down the cost of their monthly premiums — up from 69 percent last year and 61 percent in 2017. The value of those tax credits increased for most Coloradans this year, cutting the monthly premium of some plans to zero.

“We’re very pleased with more customers getting financial help,” Clarke said. “That’s a major part of our mission, so we’re happy to grow that.”

The ever-rising enrollment totals likely pointed to savvy outreach and marketing by the exchange, as well as a decision by state regulators to limit the impact of President Donald Trump’s decision to eliminate payments to insurers for cost-sharing subsidies, said Joe Hanel, spokesman for the Colorado Health Institute.

The sign-ups also raise questions about the effectiveness of the individual mandate — a tax penalty levied for years against people who did not have health insurance, Hanel said. The penalty was effectively eliminated this year as part of the 2017 tax overhaul, making this sign-up period the first where customers didn’t face a choice of an insurance bill or a tax penalty.

“It really just seems that people have a positive value for health insurance, more than they responded to the negative incentive of paying a tax penalty,” Hanel said.