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.
Yeah, but if you are a government employee, you’ve had a very obvious opportunity to get insured when you start employment. And, yes, similar things happen under Medicare—in that you can’t switch policies or coverages in between the annual update months.
But, here we are at the start of a program, with a less stable, younger and uninsured populace. This is more of the stick side of carrot and stick. Carrot is LeBron James and Hollywood useful idiots and Obama joking and pushing insurance. Stick is “you missed your chance, and we’ll show you—your uncovered until our next deadline.”