Consumers facing questions about their immigration status or income to qualify for health insurance plans have a few extra weeks to provide more information before losing coverage or subsidies, a Department of Health and Human Services official said Monday.
About 115,000 of 966,000 people who bought plans on HealthCare.gov and owed more information about their immigration status have unresolved issues, Andy Slavitt, principal deputy administrator at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, said. These people were given a deadline of Sept. 5 to submit information — they now have until Sept. 30 to provide proof of their citizenship, or they will lose coverage.
After that date, those people can reapply if they can prove citizenship even though the open enrollment period is closed.
The other 851,000 people either have had their cases resolved, or the cases are in the process of being resolved. Slavitt would not comment on how the resolved cases were decided.
“The good news is they have been able to resolve one way or another most of the problem applications where federal databases could not verify income or legal status,” says health care consultant Kip Piper, a former state and federal Medicare official. “Bad news is the CMS data remain opaque, raising more questions than answers on how the effort to resolve cases will impact those individuals and families.”
Still unknown: How many people have lost their subsidized coverage or will have to pay back money to the Internal Revenue Service.
Read the full report here.
Contact Steven G. Cosby, MHSA with questions or to request more information and to schedule a healthcare plan evaluation, savings analysis or group plan solution for your company.