Tuesday deadline to sign up for healthcare through Affordable Care Act

Delaware Public Media | By Rachel Sawicki
Published January 15, 2024 at 6:02 PM EST

The deadline to sign up for healthcare through the Affordable Care Act is Tuesday and its expected to be another record year of signups.

The Insurance Commissioner’s office says over 42,000 Delawareans have signed up as of December 23, 2023. Those numbers were released last week.

This far surpasses last year’s total of almost 35,000 Delawareans. In 2022, sign-ups during the open enrollment period totaled just over 32,000.

More plans are available to Delawareans this year – a total of 57 offered by four insurers, compared to two years ago when there were only 12 plans through one carrier.

And navigators are still available to help people find the right plan before enrollment ends. Nadege Dorleans at Westside Family Healthcare is among them. She says the number of enrollments they have assisted with at their walk-in clinics has doubled from last year.

“We don’t only just provide in-person application assistance, we can do applications over the phone and we can also do applications over Zoom,” Dorleans says.

Medicaid coverage is unwinding – another factor driving ACA signups.

“Medicaid is still doing those redeterminations so if someone does lose their Medicaid coverage, they are able to still enter in a marketplace plan and qualify for a special enrollment period,” Dorleans says. “So we’re still seeing those marketplace enrollments from that.”

Dorleans adds they have translators for people speaking Spanish or Haitian Creole. Hours and locations for assistance from Westside are available on their website at westsidehealth.org/marketplace.

Go to healthcare.gov to browse and choose a plan.