Oklahomans buying their own health insurance on the federal marketplace have until midnight to do so.
The enrollment period this year was a month and a half shorter than it was last year. Oklahoma Policy Institute analyst Carly Putnam said that’s part of the Trump administration’s efforts to undercut the Affordable Care Act.
"If your argument is that the ACA is failing and people aren't signing up for coverage, a great way to make sure that's true is to make it harder for people to sign up for coverage," Putnam said. "With that said, resources are still available, navigators are still available and folks can still go over to healthcare.gov and see exactly what might be available for them."
Besides shortening the enrollment period, President Trump or his administration has slashed ACA outreach funding by 90 percent, rewritten rules to allow for more insurance plans that don't meet the law's requirements, rolled back the ACA birth control mandate and focused Health and Human Services news releases on congressional repeal efforts.
Ddespite strong efforts by the president and congressional Republicans this year to repeal the ACA, however, it’s still the law of the land.
"We've been told that the ACA could be in flux for a long time at this point, but it's still here and millions of Americans are still receiving their coverage through it," Putnam said.
The law's individual mandate provision requires you to have coverage. Roughly nine in 10 Oklahoma enrollees last year received tax credits to buy coverage.
With the deadline fast approaching, there’s been a surge in activity this week at healthcare.gov. People calling for help with the sign up process are being asked to leave their name and number.
"Even if they call in today, they may get a call back tomorrow or the day after, and they can still sign up for coverage for plan year 2018 if they do that today," Putnam said. "So, we know that the need is definitely there. We know that people definitely want this coverage."
At this time last year, a total of 4,015,709 Americans and 59,313 Oklahomans had bought insurance on the federal marketplace. So far this year, it’s 4,678,361 Americans and 73,147 Oklahomans.
At the end of last year's open enrollment period, which ended Jan. 31, 2017, 9,201,805 Americans and 146,286 Oklahomans had selected health insurance plans on the marketplace.
