It's no secret that President Donald Trump and the GOP want to put an end to the Affordable Care Act… and they initiated those plans by cutting registration time in half and depleting funding for promotion. How did that impact Illinois?
In Illinois, the number of people getting insurance through the ACA has, for the most part, remained the same since its launch. About 350-thousand people have been receiving coverage and the same goes for 2018 despite the lack of effort by President Trump’s administration to encourage enrollment.
Though the numbers are not final, they show roughly 340-thousand Illinoisans signed up for coverage- the majority doing so in the final week. Nationally, participation appears to have remained on pace with the prior year. Advocates were busy reminding people of a shorter enrollment period, which ended earlier this month.
Premiums are also up, some as high as 43 percent… but according to the Illinois Department of Insurance, premium increases are actually smaller this year than they were last year.