Open enrollment for the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act marketplace ends on Tuesday, Dec. 15 in most states (fourteen states and the District of Columbia run their own marketplaces and will be open longer). Rural customers, especially those who are suffering lingering side-effects of Covid-19, should remember that they may have increased medical expenses in the future because of that.
"The good news for those shopping for their own coverage is that the Affordable Care Act bars insurers from discriminating against people with medical conditions or charging them more than healthier policyholders," Julie Appleby reports for Kaiser Health News. "Former Covid patients could face a range of physical or mental effects, including lung damage, heart or neurological concerns, anxiety and depression. Although some of these issues will dissipate with time, others may turn out to be long-standing problems."
However, rural customers won't likely have as many choices for insurance as their urban and suburban counterparts. "Researchers noted that rural counties have always struggled to secure a range of payer options and 2021 is no exception: while metro-area counties will have 3.1 payers each on average, non-metropolis counties will have 2.5 payers per county on average," Kelsey Waddill reports for Health Payer Intelligence. About 10% of counties will have access to only one insurer in 2021, down from about 25% in 2020.
from The Rural Blog https://ift.tt/379HqPJ Open enrollment ends Tuesday, Dec. 15; customers may need to consider lingering Covid-19 symptoms - Entrepreneur Generations
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