Georgians didn’t spend much time over Thanksgiving break applying for health care plans on the state’s Affordable Care Act exchange. And it shows: The pace of sign-ups in the state is now down 1.6% from last year.
That’s according to the latest weekly snapshot from the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.
In contrast, last week's snapshot included no big holidays, and the state's sign-ups were up significantly over the same period last year. Last year Thanksgiving came a week earlier.
The numbers don’t mean much until final tallies are in.
People tend to sign up at the end of the open enrollment period. The period runs from Nov. 1 to Dec. 15.
Many factors, good and bad, can influence whether people sign up. They include people getting insurance in other ways, such as through a job; the level of premium prices; and misinformation about insurance or lack of information about it.
In previous years Georgia has received extensions on the period because of weather interruptions, but that may not happen this year.
WEEK 5: ACA SIGN-UPS
Now that Thanksgiving week is included in Affordable Care Act sign-up snapshots for both 2018 and 2019, Georgia’s sign-ups are running slightly slower than last year’s pace. Last year’s tally for the total by week five included one more day than this year’s.
Total sign-ups so far in Georgia:
2018 (Nov. 1-Dec. 1): 182,018
2019 (Nov. 1-Nov. 30): 173,337
Daily average so far:
2018: 5,872
2019: 5,778
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