HealthCare.gov is the face of Obamacare, the online marketplace where millions of Americans sign up for health insurance — and now, two days before the 2020 election, the Trump administration has approved a plan to scrap the website in the swing state of Georgia.
In a Sunday announcement, which is highly unusual timing, as several health care experts noted, the US Department of Health and Human Services announced it had approved a plan from Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp to close HealthCare.gov to his state’s residents. They will instead be asked to shop for health insurance through brokers or on private websites.
“The Obamacare Exchanges have not worked for Georgians, leaving them with fewer options and skyrocketing premiums,” CMS Administrator Seema Verma said in a Sunday statement. “Today’s approval of the state’s waiver will usher in a groundswell of healthcare innovation that will deliver lower costs, better care, and more choice to Georgians in the individual market.”
That statement is untrue on both counts. Georgia’s uninsured rate today is 5 points lower today (13.7 percent) than it was before Obamacare took full effect (18.8 percent in 2013). More than 430,000 Georgians buy their health insurance through HealthCare.gov, and almost all of them receive premium subsidies created by the health care law. The reason the state’s uninsured rate isn’t even lower is its Republican leaders had refused to expand Medicaid through Obamacare, leaving 240,000 people without coverage. (We’ll come back to this in a moment.)
