|
?:reviewBody
|
-
In early September 2017, Facebook users began posting about several changes the Trump Administration had made to 2018 open enrollment for the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare). A typical message read as follows: Another Facebook post read: The Trump administration has indeed cut the budget for publicizing 2018 Obamacare open enrollment by more than 90 percent, and did indeed cut the open enrollment period in half - from three months in 2017 to six weeks in 2018. Spending on in-person enrollment assistance (the Navigator system) is also set to be cut by 41 percent from 2016 levels. On 13 April 2017, the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) -- an agency of the Department of Health and Human Services, which runs the Healthcare.gov web site -- announced that open enrollment for Obamacare in 2018 would run from 1 November to 15 December 2017 - a shortened six-week period - to more closely align with Medicare and the private market. For 2017 sign-ups, the open enrollment period was twice as long - from 1 November 2016 to 31 January 2017, a period of three months. On 31 August 2017, CMS announced the advertising budget cut: The CMS also announced in August 2017 that there would be changes to funding for the Navigator program, which gives grants to community health centers, nonprofits, and private companies who provide free in-person assistance to people who find it difficult to understand or manage the paperwork and applications required to sign up for health insurance. This is what various Facebook users meant by cuts to enrollment assistance. The August CMS announcement set out a more strictly performance-related system for renewing grants to designated Navigators: A spokesperson for the Department of Health and Human Services told us that these Navigators will receive $36.8 million in 2018, a reduction of $25.7 million (or 41%) from the $62.5 million disbursed in 2016.
(en)
|
![[This page as RDF]](http://data.gesis.org/claimskg/static/rdf-icon.gif){kind=icon}