Open enrollment for Affordable Care Act Insurance ends this month

More than a Quarter-Million Tennesseans choose Obamacare

The deadline for choosing a plan through the Affordable Care Act is at the end of this month and already more than 236,000 Tennesseans have signed up for Obamacare coverage. To find out if you are eligible for coverage, renew coverage or to sign-up for coverage you may visit HealthCare.gov.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services reports that over eleven million US citizens have signed-up through HealthCare.gov for health insurance. The Affordable Care Act made health insurance coverage more available to people with disabilities because of the elimination of the “pre-existing condition” restrictions.

Although our state has not expanded Medicaid to provide coverage to working Tennesseans that do not qualify for the Affordable Care Act subsidies, Tennessee still ranked eleventh of the 38 US states that use the Healthcare.gov marketplace. Tennessee Health Care Campaign estimates that 280,000 Tennessee residents remain in the “coverage gap,” because our state has failed to adopt Medicaid expansion or pass Governor Haslam’s Insure Tennessee legislation. The total tax money lost by not expanding Medicaid is approaching $2 billion, thousands of lost jobs, closing hospitals and higher taxes in our state.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services reports Marketplace Signups and Tax Credits in Tennessee:

* 82 percent of Tennessee consumers who were signed up qualified for an average tax credit of $213 per month through the Marketplace.

* 60 percent of Tennessee Marketplace enrollees obtained coverage for $100 or less after any applicable tax credits in 2015, and 92 percent had the option of doing so.

* In Tennessee, consumers could choose from 5 issuers in the Marketplace in 2015 – up from 4 in 2014.

* Tennessee consumers could choose from an average of 71 health plans in their county for 2015 coverage – up from 48 in 2014.

* 78,571 consumers in Tennessee under the age of 35 are signed up for Marketplace coverage (34 percent of plan selections in the state).  And 64,705 consumers 18 to 34 years of age (28 percent of all plan selections) are signed up for Marketplace coverage.

1. Florida-1,569,551

2. Texas-1,108,935

3. North Carolina-558,892

4. Georgia-517,715

5. Pennsylvania-412,914

6. Virginia-387,470

7. Illinois-348,346

8. Michigan-324,359

9. New Jersey-260,323

10. Missouri-258,696

11. Tennessee-236,000

USA-11,400,000