11 million uninsured Americans are eligible for ACA marketplace subsidies, according to KFF estimates. With the premium subsidy increases enacted in the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) in March, coverage can credibly be called "affordable" for most of them. Another 7.3 million uninsured people are eligible for Medicaid, per KFF.
Ignorance of these offerings is rife. Less than a third of the public knows the ACA is still law, again according to KFF. Enrollment outreach, sabotaged by the Trump administration, has always been a challenge (as has the difficulty of navigating the application for some but not all enrollees).
While considering incremental ways to improve the ACA in my last post, it dawned on me that enrollment outreach at vaccination sites, or via email and texts connected with vaccination, was a golden opportunity to reach the uninsured. Like most lightbulb thoughts, this one was far from unique. It's occurred to many professional enrollment assisters -- probably hundreds. Some have acted on the thought.
