SALT LAKE CITY (News4Utah) – The clock is ticking for anyone who wants to sign up for health insurance under the Affordable Care Act.
Open enrollment was reduced to a month and a half this year, and after Friday time is up. Millions of Americans rely on the ACA for health insurance.
Randal Serr is one of them.
“For me it provides an option, a really affordable option.”
Serr also helps others find the right option for them as the Director of Take Care Utah. Friday, the office is busy, because it’s the last day to sign up for 2018.
“We have appointments back to back. We have about five or six people, just in our office, they all have appointments every hour, on the hour. It’s been a very busy day, we’re also taking a lot of phone calls,” said Serr.
Interest is running high despite all the uncertainty surrounding the law. Jason Perry, the Director of the Hinckley Institute of Politics says the fate of the ACA is still very much in doubt.
“This was a campaign promise for many Republicans across the country. They are going to take down the Affordable Care Act, and the fact that they have not been able to do it so far is not discouraging this dialogue from happening all across the country,” said Perry.
As of December 10, 2017 about 104,900 Utahns had signed up. That’s ahead of this time last year, but it looks like it will fall short of the 179,000 for 2017.
“We’re probably still not going to hit the amount of people that enrolled last year, because of the reduced time frame and the confusion,” said Serr.
Many advocates say that confusion was an intentional move by the Administration to try to sabotage the ACA. You can sign up for coverage at www.healthcare.gov.
