Washington residents have until a minute before midnight Friday to sign up for health insurance under the Health Benefit Exchange if they want coverage to start by January first.
Even with the uncertainty over the future of coverage under the Affordable Care Act, Chief Marketing Officer Michael Marchand says signups this year are way ahead of last.
“We are up 47% in this time compared to our 2016 enrollment, and that’s with new customers submitting applications, and these are customers who had not previously purchased on the exchange in the last year,” says Marchand.
He says one reason could be that the cost of certain types of plans has not gone up as dramatically as had been reported in the media. He says most of the cost increase has been for silver plans, because of a reduction in the amount the federal government contributes to cost shares.
“The result is yes, more expensive silver plans, but silver plans also determine how much tax credit you get so if you are tax credit eligible, you saw your tax credit jump accordingly, which all of a sudden makes gold plans, or if you went lower, bronze plans, it makes it much more affordable to get either of those,” says Marchand.
He says the phone hours for assistance have been extended to make sure people have more opportunity to sign up by the end of the day Friday to ensure coverage will start on January first.
The phone line will be open from 7:30am until 11:59PM through Friday.
The Health Exchange has an enrollment center in Spokane that you can also stop by and talk to advisors about enrollment questions. It is located at 1206 N. Lincoln.
