About 115,000 people who signed up for Obamacare and may not be legal residents of the U.S. will lose their insurance coverage at the end of the month, the government said Monday.
After spending months trying to coax 966,000 people who enrolled in coverage to provide documents proving their legal status, the government said it had received information from about 851,000 of them. Undocumented immigrants arent allowed to use new government-run health exchanges to buy insurance.
Another 363,000 people who still havent properly shown their incomes may see increases in premiums and out-of-pocket costs if they dont provide documentation by Sept. 30. The government uses income levels to set subsidies that help people buy insurance.
The government sent out final notices to those remaining consumers with a remaining data-matching issue Monday alerting them that their coverage may change, be dropped or their premium adjusted.
If coverage is dropped due to the missing documentation, consumers may be eligible to re-enroll under a special open enrollment period outside traditional open enrollment.
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services Principal Deputy Administrator Andy Slavitt says that the agency is hopeful and confident people will continue to respond to CMSs request for correct information through the end of September.
About 8 million people signed up for private plans under the Affordable Care Act, and the Obama administration has struggled to strike a balance between keeping as many as possible insured and enforcing eligibility standards. About 2.6 million had income or residency inconsistencies in their applications, the government said.
Slavitt says one key lesson learned in this is that circumstances in peoples lives change during the year and they may have different information than what was originally provided to the government.
In future years, consumers will have more experience with these types of [events,] he says, and I think [renewals] will go smoother in future years.
