Now that the open enrollment deadline has passed for the Obama health law, the work on it doesn't end, whether inside the Obama Administration or in the halls of Congress. So, let's look at what is next for Obamacare, the Affordable Care Act, or whatever you want to call the law that has polarized Republicans and Democrats for the last four years.
1. Health law overtime
In the spirit of the NCAA basketball tournament, we could say that regulation time is over, and now the Obama Administration is going into overtime to deal with what may be thousands of unfinished applications for health insurance. Not only will those enrollments have to be completed, but the feds were already giving extra time to paper applications as well. As the clock ticked down on Monday, it really wasn't clear how many people had signed up for coverage in the final three days of enrollment, but some experts think it may end up close to, or even over, the original goal of 7 million.
2. Tinkering with the websites
The Monday glitches on healthcare.gov only brought back bad memories of the troubled start for the federal exchange website, which after mid-December, held up well until it was overwhelmed by high volume in the last few days. The feds still need to finish the 'back end' of the website, which will make it easier for people to pay their premiums and have money from federal subsidies shifted to insurance companies. Also, some of the states have a lot of work to do on their websites - for example, Maryland is ready to deep-six a site that cost the Free State some $125 million, as Maryland will instead sign a contract with the company that did the website in Connecticut. Oregon will keep working on its own troubled website, which never was able to register a single person electronically.
3. Enrollment over for most until November
If you get health insurance at work, you are probably familiar with the repeated warnings that once open enrollment is over, you can't change your insurance choices, unless you have some major, 'life changing event' occur, like the birth of a new baby. Well, it's the same story for the Obama health law as well, as no one can buy a health insurance plan through the exchanges until open enrollment starts for 2015, on November 15 of this year. But, if you lose your job, get a new job, have a baby, get divorced, or have some major change in life status, then you can unlock that enrollment process. If you want to get insurance in the interim, there are companies advertising short-term health insurance to get you to 2015 - but those plans will not help you avoid the individual mandate tax penalty for not buying the proper level of health insurance.
4. More work for the IRS
The countdown starts now for the Internal Revenue Service and its work to get ready to deal with the "Individual shared responsibility" provision of the Obama health law - the individual mandate. The IRS must still finalize a system that allows people to demonstrate to the tax agency that they do have the proper level of health insurance; the IRS seems to indicate it will have your health insurance company provide people with some kind of documentation to prove there was health insurance coverage in 2014, or else you will be subjected to the individual mandate penalty. Like other tax issues, maybe the best defense is for you to keep good records to prove that you had insurance.
5. More efforts at repeal by Republicans
Just because the health law has taken another step on the road to full implementation doesn't mean that critics of the law are just going to give up on their efforts to overturn the law. Republicans in the House made clear on Monday that they didn't believe the hype about the late surge in enrollments for the law, and would keep pushing to tear the law out by its roots. "House Republicans will continue to repeal this law and protect families and small businesses from its harmful consequences," said Speaker John Boehner yesterday. For now, the law is secure, but the dynamic could change after mid-term elections for the Congress this November.
6. The numbers
As a reporter, there are a variety of numbers that would be nice to see in the weeks ahead on the first open enrollment under the Obama health law - the number who signed up, how many have paid their premiums, the net change in the level of uninsured in the United States, the amount of money to be spent in premium subsidies and more. But, one might expect the Obama Administration will mainly highlight numbers that it wants to make public, which so far have not satisfied many reporters, or the law's critics - and even some supporters - in the Congress.
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