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Open enrollment for Maine's online health insurance marketplace ends this Wednesday, but numbers are already higher than last year.
Hilary Schneider, the director of Maine's marketplace, said roughly 63,000 people have signed up so far.
Schneider said enhanced premium tax credits make coverage more affordable, especially for middle-income Mainers who are self employed. But she's concerned that those incentives will expire at the end of the year, and more Mainers could become uninsured.
"That means that they may not be able to be self-employed, but also they'll have less money to spend in our economy," she said. "So it not only affects our uninsured rates, but it affects other parts of our economy as well."
She and other health care advocates are urging Congress to make the enhanced premium tax credits permanent.
Medical debt can have wide-ranging consequences. People may spend less on basic needs, such as food and clothing, a Kaiser Family Foundation survey found. To pay for medical bills, people often draw from their savings, borrow money from friends or family members, or take on additional debt.
A recent survey by Consumers for Affordable Health Care found that about 150,000 Maine households had medical debt. These households report having difficulties paying for basic necessities like food, heat, or housing.
The rule change has already been challenged in federal court. It could also be overturned by the incoming Trump administration.
That’s why action from the Maine Legislature is essential. A bill last session aimed to address some medical debt by restricting medical credit cards, which some health care companies offer as a way for patients to pay off medical bills over time. It failed in the Maine Legislature.
Ann Woloson, the executive director for Consumers for Affordable Healthcare, said she's cautiously optimistic about the foundation's acquisition.
"They appear to have a good record in terms of quality, which is important," she said.
But Woloson said she wants to dig more into Prime Healthcare, a for-profit company based in California that says it's the fifth-largest for-profit health system in the US. The Prime Healthcare Foundation is a nonprofit subsidiary of the for-profit system and operates 16 hospitals.
"I'm not saying that that's a problem," she said. "We just want to make sure that this transition, if it is finalized, results in continued access but also provides some relief to Mainers in terms of high hospital costs, which we hear all the time about."
2025
01/01/2025 | Posted by | |
01/13/2025 | Maine Public | Enrollment in Maine's online insurance marketplace surpasses last year's numbers |
01/10/2025 | Bangor Daily News | |
01/08/2025 | Maine Public | California-based nonprofit to purchase Central Maine Health care |
01/08/2025 | Public News Service | Enrollment deadline for ME health insurance marketplace Jan. 15 |
