Progress on Federal Insurance Enrollment, But Still a Long Way to Go

It’s becoming easier for New Jersey residents to buy health insurance through the federal marketplace, but the state is still challenged when it comes to signing up enough residents to meet the federal enrollment target.

That’s the upshot of the most recent federal release of enrollment information, which found that 34,751 New Jerseyans had enrolled via the marketplace, or exchange, through December 28. That’s a major advance over a month earlier, when just 3,259 New Jersey residents had used the marketplace to enroll in a plan.

The marketplace, which launched on October 1 and began offering coverage on January 1, is one of two main ways that the 2010 Affordable Care Act seeks to expand insurance coverage, along with an expansion in Medicaid eligibility.

But the marketplace website, healthcare.gov, was difficult to access in October and November, slowing the enrollment process. The site is designed to compare health plans and allow residents to purchase insurance and learn whether they’re eligible for federal subsidies for insurance. To meet the ACA’s mandate that people must have health coverage, residents need to be insured by the end of the open enrollment period on March 31.

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