In the closing days of the open enrollment period for the Affordable Care Act (ACA) , the Department of Health and Human Resources (HHS) was mailing out letters notifying certain Americans that they had already started a healthcare coverage application for them.
The HHS letter stated that the information they used to begin the application for individual Healthcare was obtain by the state agency in charge of implementing Obamacare. In this particular case, the State of Florida was responsible for submitting personal records to HHS.
The next step for the individual would be visit Healthcare.gov and complete the already started application to see if they qualify for “Marketplace coverage.”
Is this how the Obama administration is inflating the enrollment numbers, by making it easier for people to finish the application?
Here is how the letter reads.
You submitted an application for healthcare coverage, or made a change to your eligibility information. Your state sent your information in a secure transaction to the Health Insurance Marketplace, because you or someone on your application does not qualify for Medicaid or Children’s Health Insurance Plan (CHIP).
You or someone on your application will likely be able to get coverage through the Marketplace, and get help paying for health coverage…We used the information from the state agency to start an application for you on Healthcare.gov. You’ll need to complete and submit this application to see if you qualify for Marketplace coverage.
To do this, you can log into your Healthcare.gov account, or if you don’t already have an account, you can create one on Healthcare.gov.
HHS urged enrollees to “confirm” information and “choose a plan before the deadline.”
For more information about how to complete the application we started for you www.healthcare.gov/help/statetranser
When visiting this web address, you will find the exact same text that is used in the letter, except for the asking of the individual to “complete the application we started for you”
How many more healthcare coverage applications of unsuspecting Americans has HHS has already “started” for them?
Original story and letter can be found here.
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