RICHMOND, Va. (WRIC) — The first year of Virginia’s new health insurance marketplace has been a success, according to some state lawmakers.
The marketplace, which launched in November, replaced the federal marketplace known as healthcare.gov.
“Enrollment is up, as you have heard, this year, with more than 391,000 Virginians having signed up for coverage since the marketplace launched in November,” Sen. Ghazala Hashmi, D-Chesterfield said.
Kevin Patchett, director of Virginia’s Health Benefit Exchange, said they’ve seen a 12% increase in enrollments compared to last year.
“We are seeing health insurance rates in Virginia remain relatively stable and slightly even lower than last year,” Patchett said.
Despite that, Del. Mark Sickles, D-Fairfax, who chairs the House Health and Human Services Committee, said about 7 to 8 percent of Virginians remain uninsured.
“The undocumented population, frankly — they are a big part of the uninsured population that don’t qualify for Medicaid and are served by our free clinic community, and that’s going to take a change in federal law,” Sickles said.
Additionally, Sickles said young people often feel “invincible” and don’t have health insurance.
“They’ve never had a physical, they feel pretty good right now, and so they are not really thinking about their healthcare,” Sickles said. “We as a society have an interest in everybody having insurance, otherwise, we are all paying — there is no free lunch out there.”
Although open enrollment ends next Tuesday, Virginians can still sign up if they have a certain live event after the deadline, including the loss of a job.
