You may have heard the rumors, but now it’s official: the open enrollment period in the individual market has been extended to January 15 in states that use the Federally-Facilitated Marketplace (Healthcare.gov). The new end date was announced by CMS in a September 17th update to the 2022 Notice of Payment and Benefit Parameters.

We recently wrote about the expected increase in demand for individual health plans this fall. Millions of workers have lost their group coverage due to the COVID-19 pandemic, so they’ll be shopping for insurance in the individual market.

At this point, most agents have begun to realize that there might be a higher-than-normal demand for individual health insurance this fall. The COVID-19 pandemic has forced a lot of companies to furlough or lay off employees, causing them to lose their health coverage. While COBRA is an option for some, others worked for companies that have had to drop their group health plan altogether, leaving them with no continuation option.

The state of Florida has more people enrolled in ACA individual coverage through Healthcare.gov than any other state in the nation, and it’s not particularly close. According to a list published by CMS:

When the Trump administration decided in 2017 to stop reimbursing insurers for cost-sharing reductions on silver-level plans for those who qualify, carriers responded by raising the price of their silver-level plans across the board, a practice known as “silver loading.”

Those who oppose the single-payer health insurance plan promoted by Bernie Sanders in his 2016 presidential campaign, and supported by most Democratic candidates in the 2020 race, often argue that competition is good for the market; it helps improve quality and reduce costs because consumers shop with their wallets. Many insurance agents would agree with this assessment: competition, in most cases, is good for consumers. However, what is often left unsaid in the conversation about competition in the health insurance industry is that it doesn’t really exist, at least not to the extent that we would like to believe it does.

In an August 15, 2019 news release, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services announced that, beginning with the 2020 Open Enrollment Period, CMS “will require the display of the five-star Quality Rating System (or star ratings) available nationwide for health plans offered on the Health Insurance Exchanges.”