08/31/2021
This year or 2 has brought millions of job losses due to the COVID-19 pandemic. As cases now spike again and some states reverse course to limit non-essential activities, the next couple of months could bring new, permanent employment losses. As difficult as the next few months may be, one bit of good news is that most uninsured people are eligible for financial assistance under the Affordable Care Act (ACA), and they can sign up now while ACA Enrollment for 2021 lasts!
There is no reliable measure of the current uninsured rate, but we do know there were 29 million uninsured people in the United States as of 2019. That number has almost certainly grown in 2020 & 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent economic recession, but it will be months before we have reliable government surveys to measure the true impact.
As the chart below shows, most of the uninsured in a typical year are eligible for financial help to buy coverage, and of those, most are actually eligible for a free or nearly free plan. Before the pandemic, about one in four uninsured people were eligible for Medicaid and another third were eligible for financial assistance on the Marketplaces, meaning, in total, 57% of the uninsured could get financial help to access coverage. In fact, most of those eligible for help can get free (or nearly free) insurance coverage. The 24% of uninsured people who are eligible for Medicaid (6.7 million people) generally would pay no premium to sign up, and another 16% of the uninsured (4.5 million people) are eligible for a Bronze plan with a $0 premium.
There are many options available to help GET YOU INSURED. Contact us at to learn more!
