Open enrollment in Obamacare in Maryland ends today
About 150,000 Marylanders have signed up for insurance in 2018 under the law known as Obamacare, which provides coverage to those without coverage through work.
Nearly 9 million Americans signed up for health coverage in 2018 through the federal HealthCare.gov website this year, nearly reaching last year's total.
The numbers are higher than expected, even as the law faces continuing threats.
The health law will remain unchanged in the new year, but a provision in the massive just-signed federal tax legislation would end the financial penalty for individuals going without health insurance in 2019.
Analysts say that could undermine the law if young and healthy people skip coverage and cause rates to rise even more for those who remain insured. The analysts predict that millions of people could leave the marketplace.
Insurers already raised rates substantially this year after federal officials stopped some subsidy payments to them.
"It's hard to say exactly what the future will bring, but it's a pretty safe bet that the rolls of the ACA will drop very significantly as federal subsidies decrease and as premiums skyrocket once healthy people leave the insurance pool," said
The subsidies that offset the cost of premiums for about 75 percent of consumers in the
Weiner said some "wealthy blue states -- like
Advocates say they will push the state legislature to shore up the federal health law.
"
Gov.
"All of that said, the impact of the loss of [subsidy] payments meant higher rates for 2018," Preston said. "Therefore,
She said the advocacy group is exploring options, such as a state mandate and a reinsurance program that would help insurers cover costs from their most expensive consumers, though finding funding could prove difficult.
Insurers said they already had factored in a lack of enforcement of the mandate in submitting their requests to raise rates for 2018 -- CareFirst BlueCross BlueShield initially said it amounted to about a fifth of its double-digit rate requests.
Consumers protested the big increases, with some reporting to the state's insurance commissioner that their premiums have doubled or more in the last few years, increases that were unsustainable for the roughly one in four enrollees who do not get any federal subsidies.
So far, the Medicaid program that provides coverage to the poor has escaped cuts. Under the health law,
But the fate of the health program that covers about 9 million low-income children, including about 146,000 in the state, remains an issue.
The program, the
Some states say they have or are near the end of their funding;
In a letter to congressional leaders earlier this month urging action, Hogan said the loss in federal matching funds for CHIP would amount to
"This potential worst-case outcome places a tremendous financial and administrative burden on our state and sows fear and confusion among some of our most vulnerable populations," Hogan wrote.
"It's been a bipartisan thing for a long time," Herring said of the children's program. "But I could imagine representatives saying something along the lines of we have such a huge deficit and we can't continue to spend money on these entitlements."
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