Long, long ago, back on March 22, I noted of the ACA signup count that
it ain't over when it's over. Medicaid enrollment, including those newly eligible under the ACA expansion, is open all year. And in this interval between open enrollment periods, many people will become eligible for a two-month "special enrollment period" if they experience a "qualifying event" such as job loss, divorce, marriage (if, say, one of the couple has no income), or childbirth. I also noted with some wonder how fluid health insurance markets are: according to an
estimate by healthcare scholars Rick Curtis and John Graves, less than half the people who will be eligible for ACA enrollment at the end of 2014 will have been eligible a year prior. [Update, 4/4: Graves has just
made the case anew with Jonathan Gruber.]
Today's news brought several further snapshots of this fluidity. The LA Times' Chad Terhune
noted another large category of pending special enrollments -- college graduates:
it's estimated that several hundred thousand more Californians could qualify for a special enrollment period as college students graduate, families move and workers change jobs.
In the short term, also in California, extended enrollment for those who started but could not complete applications before 3/31 is going to be huge,
reports Marketwatch's Russ Britt:
