ACA health insurance enrollment reaches new records in Wisconsin, US

by Erik Gunn, Wisconsin Examiner
January 25, 2024

More than a quarter-million Wisconsin residents signed up for health insurance available under the Affordable Care Act in the 2024 open enrollment period, state officials announced Thursday.

Citing information from the federal Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), the Office of the Commissioner of Insurance (OCI) reported Thursday that 266,000 enrollments in Wisconsin through the federal insurance portal, HealthCare.gov. The number was a record in Wisconsin and 20% higher than the 221,128 signups recorded for the 2023 open enrollment, according to KFF, a health policy research, information and news nonprofit.

The health insurance portal lists insurance plans available primarily for individual purchasers of insurance that meet standards set under the ACA.

Since taking office in 2019 Gov. Tony Evers has heavily promoted the annual ACA open enrollment period, which begins Nov. 1 and runs through early January. Evers assigned OCI and the state Department of Health Services (DHS) to coordinate outreach and increase enrollment under the ACA. In 2020 the two departments jointly established WisCovered.com, a website that directs consumers to various sources for health coverage, including under the ACA and through the state Medicaid program for residents who qualify.

The site also has links to Covering Wisconsin, a federally authorized health insurance navigator service to help members of the public seeking coverage evaluate their options.

While some states operate their own HealthCare.gov portal, Wisconsin uses the federal version of the platform. Proposals by Gov. Tony Evers to launch a state-based portal have been rejected by the Republican majority in the Wisconsin Legislature.

National HealthCare.gov enrollment has also set a new record, with 21.3 million Americans purchasing health insurance through the site, the White House announced this week. That is an increase of nine million in the years since President Joe Biden took office, according to the administration.

The organization Protect Our Care, which advocates for the ACA and other federal health programs, has credited measures enacted under Biden for helping make insurance purchased through the portal more affordable. The American Rescue Plan Act, which Congress passed in 2021, included temporary tax credits that lowered the premium costs for purchasers based on their incomes, and the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act extended those subsidies.

“It’s critical that those tax credits are made permanent,” Protect Our Care Chair Leslie Dach said in a statement released by the organization.

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