CMS tries a direct approach to reach unenrolled young adults

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services announced it would start directly contacting young adults who paid the uninsured tax penalty to encourage them to sign up for health insurance.

The agency expects the outreach program to reach millions of individuals and families who have recently been uninsured, many of whom are under age 26. The demographic is “overrepresented among those who paid the fee,” according to CMS: 27 percent of them remain uninsured.

Increasing insurance coverage among this population will benefit both the individuals and the overall risk pool, the agency said in its announcement. Young people with insurance receive protection from “catastrophic costs” associated with serious illness and are more likely to finish college, according to CMS.

But most young people are fairly healthy, and that’s the impetus for expanding coverage among the population. Enrolling higher numbers of adults ages 19 to 25 would “contribute to a more balanced Marketplace risk pool and lower costs,” said the announcement. That would address some of the issues cited by insurers, including UnitedHealth, who have said they were blindsided by the complexity and poor health of many of enrollees in marketplace plans.

CMS will contact young people via email, as research indicates that they are twice as likely to enroll after receiving an email about marketplace coverage than older adults. Implementing lessons learned in the 2016 open enrollment period, the agency will also immediately contact individuals who open an account or start an application without finishing or who select a plan but do not pay the first premium.

Other efforts to increase enrollment in ACA plans among this group will include:

  • working with insurers to communicate with young people who are transitioning off their parents insurance at age 26
  • offering discount codes for the Lyft ride-hailing service to attend open enrollment events 
  • partnering with hospitals and more than 75 other organizations to reach young adults, including community college students, young families and lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender youths

- read the release