This strikes me as just plain weird. I can understand that companies and the government want stability, so you only get to change your insurance once a year; I can’t understand why it is a new law that you can’t sign on mid-stream if you decide you want insurance.
So what if you missed the date and have to pay the penalty? That shouldn’t prevent you from buying the insurance that is being promoted.
This is how the gov’t provided health insurance works for civil service workers. Open enrollment is a few weeks at the end of the year unless there is a significant change, birth, new spouse, etc.
To kill of the insurnce companies perhaps? If a private insurance company can't write any policies for the next 7 months, what happens to them?
What if you lose your insurance mid-year? You simply can’t buy insurance directly?
Will some obnoxious white liberal explain to me how this is some kind of progress?
Speaking of mid-stream I’ve been trying to figger out how the million or so college grads who will be new to the job market this June will be handled? “Handled” might be an understatement for what they’re gonna get?
It's because of the pre-existing condition clause in Zero-care. If people can sign up for insurance at any time during the year, and if the companies cannot refuse them because of pre-existing conditions, then an intelligent consumer would wait until insurance is needed, sign up for the policy, get the treatment, then cancel the policy.
By establishing an open enrollment period, people are forced to choose insurance months in advance and must hold that insurance through at least 9 months.