Obamacare, Medicare, and Medicaid are supposed to help the least-well-off. But the least-well-off are exactly those who are least able to navigate the red-tape of the bureaucracy. Signing up for Amazon Prime was far simpler than signing up for Medicare. (My source is personal experience.)
(p. A18) The Trump administration on Friday said that it would drastically cut annual spending on so-called navigator groups that help Americans enroll in Obamacare health insurance plans, from around $100 million to just $10 million.
. . .
The Trump administration on Friday [Feb. 14, 2025] noted that health insurance navigators enrolled only 92,000 people on the Affordable Care Act’s marketplaces last year, or less than 1 percent of plan participants, amounting to more than $1,000 per enrollment. During Mr. Trump’s first term, with funding levels similar to the one announced Friday, navigators enrolled people at “a far more efficient $211 per enrollment,” the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services said in its announcement.
. . .
“They are primarily there to help people navigate a complex, often byzantine, eligibility and enrollment system,” said Sabrina Corlette, a research professor at Georgetown University’s Center on Health Insurance Reforms.
For the full story see:
(Note: ellipses, and bracketed date, added.)
(Note: the online version of the story has the date Feb. 14, 2025, and has the title “Trump Shrinks Funds for Navigators Who Help Americans Enroll in Obamacare.”)