Beware automatic enrollment
Check your health plan NOW
If you or your loved ones are insured thru the Exchange, you’d be very extremely well advised to make damn sure your health plan hasn’t changed. If you don’t, you may find yourself paying way more for a plan that doesn’t include your doctors or cover the drugs you take…
From the good folks at healthinsurance.com comes this warning for the 24 million Americans who get their health insurance via the Exchanges:
if your current health insurance plan changes - or
the insurer stops operating in your area -
you will be enrolled with another plan or insurer which
may not have the doctors, hospitals, clinics, and drug formulary you use
and might be much more expensive
IF YOU DON’T CHOOSE YOUR NEW PLAN YOURSELF.
There’s been a ton of changes among insurers offering health insurance on the Exchanges; Aetna is dropping out of 17 states, CareSource is exiting Kentucky and North Carolina, Molina’s out of plans in Wisconsin, Michigan, Mountain Health Co-Op is dropping out of Wyoming - and many insurers are changing the areas they serve within states.
As the redoubtable Louise Norris noted some years back, this is “mapping”, a process where
Essentially, the exchange will — if possible — assign people to a new plan from a different carrier in the exchange, if the enrollee’s current carrier will no longer be offering plans in the exchange after the end of the year
This is super important this year with the end of premium subsidies, because the mapping won’t take into account your cost.
If Blue Cross drops your Silver PPO, they’re supposed to put you in another Blue Cross Silver PPO; if no PPOs are available, you might be placed in an HMO. If Blue Cross pulls out entirely, you’ll be mapped to a similar Silver plan from another carrier, and so on.
Either way, the point is that if you take no action whatsoever--you don’t log into your account & actively select the specific plan you want for 2026--one will be chosen for you...and there’s no guarantee that it will make sense for your purposes...or (vitally important with the looming subsidy expiration) that you’ll be able to afford it.
What does this mean for you?
A - make sure you know what plan you will get next year
B - (check here for your state’s Exchange; if it isn’t listed go to healthcare.gov)
B -