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New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy today signed a bill (A674/S1646) establishing an "easy enrollment" program for health insurance, the New Jersey Department of Banking and Insurance announced this afternoon (a press release just arrived by email; I can't find it online yet). Update! - here it is.
Maryland pioneered "check the box" programs like this, in which the state prompts uninsured residents to indicate an interest in getting insured and provides help (to the extent creaky state bureaucracies can manage it) with getting an application started. Here is the guts of the initiative in New Jersey:
Through this program, uninsured and underinsured residents can indicate their interest in coverage for themselves or a household member on their tax return or through unemployment insurance benefit claims, which will be shared with the New Jersey Department of Banking and Insurance.
As required by the legislation, the department will create a system to analyze the data collected through tax returns and unemployment benefit claims to determine a resident’s eligibility for health insurance coverage and ability to receive financial help through Get Covered New Jersey and proactively connect with qualifying residents to help them enroll. The law also permits the department to work with the Department of Human Services to determine an individual’s eligibility for NJ FamilyCare and share data with the agency for that assessment.
Several things to note here. First, the prompt to seek health insurance will appear not only on the tax return but on an unemployment benefit claim. The latter is very important, as it comes at a moment when the applicant's income has dropped dramatically, qualifying many for Medicaid. In states that have enacted the ACA Medicaid expansion (e.g., New Jersey), eligibility is based on monthly income (currently $1563 for an individual, $3,191 for a family of four). During the pandemic, Kentucky had the Dept. of uninsurance pass applicant data to the state Medicaid agency, helping to drive a 14% increase in Medicaid enrollment from February to July 2020.
Second, the department collecting the data will share the data with the Dept. of Banking and Insurance, which runs the state ACA exchange (GetCoveredNJ), and with the Dept. of Human Services, which runs NJ FamilyCare, the state Medicaid program. The departments can determine eligibility for NJ FamilyCare or for subsidized marketplace coverage, if the enrollee gives permission for the various departments to share information. The bill statement emphasizes interagency coordination:
The bill requires the Commissioner of Banking and Insurance, in coordination with the Commissioner of Human Services, the Commissioner of Labor and Workforce Development, and the State Treasurer to develop and implement systems, policies, and practices that encourage, facilitate, and streamline determination of eligibility for insurance affordability assistance and enrollment in minimum essential coverage to achieve the purposes of the program.
Finally, because New Jersey (unlike Maryland) is one of a handful of states that implemented a state individual mandate to obtain insurance after the federal mandate penalty was zeroed out, the uninsured tax filer has a strong incentive to check the box, as obtaining insurance will get the penalty for going uninsured waived. For most respondents, obtaining coverage should be either free or very low-cost. In New Jersey's ACA marketplace, supplemental state subsidies, in concert with the major federal boosts to marketplace subsidies provided by the American Rescue Plan Act (which will expire at the end of this year unless Democrats manage to extend them, benchmark silver coverage with strong Cost Sharing Reduction is effectively free, or very close to it, at incomes up to 200% of the Federal Poverty Level ($25,760 for an individual, $53,000 for a family of four).
This is a good strong bill that should reduce the uninsured population in New Jersey, currently just shy of 700,000. Its impact will be blunted somewhat if Democrats fail to extend the ARPA marketplace subsidies. But its chief impact will probably be in Medicaid in any case, which is unaffected by the level of marketplace subsidization.
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