Open enrollment is underway on Connecticut’s state health insurance exchange, giving customers the chance to enroll or alter their existing plans for the coming year.
Access Health CT staff are bracing for a challenging year because of changes from H.R.1, widely known as the Big Beautiful Bill.
“There is a change in eligibility for federal financial help,” Susan Rich Bye, the Organization’s Director of Legal and Government Affairs, said.
Access Health CT was created under the federal Affordable Care Act. It’s the only place residents can go for state and federal financial help to lower health care costs.
The organization’s staff helps more than 150,000 residents enroll in health care plans, often with financial assistance from the federal and state governments.
Less financial help is available this year. The sweeping tax reform bill cut government spending for Medicaid; Congressional Republicans said it was needed to weed out people who abuse the system.
This year, legal immigrants can still enroll in state health plans, but the financial help that kept costs down is mostly gone. Fewer legal immigrants will be eligible for HUSKY Health, the state’s name for Obamacare.
More than 100,000 Connecticut residents on HUSKY will have to prove they’re working or volunteering to keep their coverage, which wasn’t required before.
Advocates have warned that less coverage for the state’s low-income families will send them to hospital emergency rooms, which are required to treat patients under EMTALA — raising rates across the board.
“The more unpaid costs in our healthcare system will be absorbed by individuals that have employer-sponsored insurance or enroll on Access Health Connecticut,” U.S. Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-CT-3)said. “So, if you think Medicaid cuts and 100,000 people losing HUSKY has no impact on you or your employer-sponsored health insurance, please, my friends, think again.”
DeLauro met with Rich Bye and advocates at Project Access New Haven, an organization that aims to expand medical access to low-income greater New Haven residents.
If Democrats take the House in the upcoming election, DeLauro will chair the powerful Appropriations Committee again.
She has vowed to scale back the cuts.
“We can go ahead and look at reconciliation … and try to pull that back in some way and address other areas, particularly Medicaid, and we will be looking for all the legislative tools that we possibly can to move forward on this.”
Many of the effects of the cuts won’t hit until after the midterms. DeLauro said she knows that if Democrats win, people will want action within days.
“It can't happen within several days,” DeLauro said. “We're going to need time to begin to turn some of these things around.”
Open enrollment runs through Jan. 15. Access Health CT is working with customers for free to help with enrollment.
