The decision by federal and several state officials to extend the deadline to sign up for health insurance under the Affordable Care Act was met with derision from several Republican lawmakers and critics of the program. Others are concerned such deadline extensions will increase the cost of healthcare even further.
Consumers who encountered website glitches on the federal HealthCare.gov at the deadline were granted an extra week to enroll, while officials in Washington state gave residents an extra two months to sign up for coverage.
Forbes columnist John Tozzi is concerned that doing so will attract the wrong demographic and drive up the cost of insurance.
“Giving people another two months to enroll for coverage would raise the risk for insurance companies that some people will wait to buy insurance until they need it,” Tozzi wrote this week. “That’s called adverse selection, and it’s why health plans have limited open enrollment windows to begin with.
“If you could buy coverage all year round some people would wait until they get sick to sign up, and there might not be enough healthy people laying into the risk pool to cover the costs.”
Deadlines were extended during last year’s open enrollment season, largely due to the severe technical difficulties that plagued the sites throughout the sign-up period.
Laura Adams, a senior analyst with insuranceQuotes.com, sees this not as adverse selection but as the simple human tendency to procrastinate.
“I think people just by their nature tend to put these things off. It’s not fun to complete forms online,” Adams told
Insurance Business America in an earlier interview. “I suspect we’ll see the same mad rush this year as we did last year.”
The open enrollment period officially closed this past weekend. The White House reported that 11.4 million people signed up for coverage during the 2015 open enrollment period.
What do you think? Is extending the ACA sign-up deadline a problem? Let us know in the comments below!
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