A record number of Arizonans purchased health insurance through the Affordable Care Act’s online marketplace for the upcoming year.
A total of 348,055 people in Arizona found a plan via Obamacare on healthcare.gov, the federal healthcare exchange that allows people to shop and compare healthcare plans, according to numbers released Thursday by the Department of Heath and Human Services.
Dr. Jeffrey Reynoso, the southwest regional director for DHHS, credited several initiatives that encouraged people to purchase insurance plans via the federal online marketplace, including new tax credits and other subsidies that made plans less expensive, more advertising and outreach about opportunities to purchase coverage and “navigators” who helped people understand their options.
“When President Biden signed the inflation Reduction Act into law. With it came significant financial help for Americans to find affordable health insurance that works for them,” Reynoso said.
The federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services estimates that 90 percent of enrollees qualified for some kind of subsidy and roughly four out of five customers were eligible to purchase a plan for less than $10 a month.
Reynoso said a number of new enrollees were likely losing their coverage thanks to the end of COVID-era expanded eligibility for AHCCCS, the state’s Medicaid program and he said that people who lose that coverage in upcoming months can still shop for plans at healthcare.gov.
Pima County Supervisor Matt Heinz, who works as an overnight physician at Tucson Medical Center, said the recent COVID pandemic “highlights even more for everyone how incredibly important it is to have this kind of security, this kind of coverage.”
Heinz said he was especially grateful that “populations of color, whether Black, Indigenous or Latino …have historically been really left behind by our healthcare system—especially the healthcare system that existed over 10 years ago, without all those protections that are now in place thanks to Obamacare, or the Affordable Care Act.”
Will Humble, the executive director of the Arizona Public Health Association, highlighted what he considered an underappreciated element of the Affordable Care Act: Because people can now buy health insurance outside of their job, they have the ability to pursue dreams of opening a business and are no longer “chained to their job.”
“We hear so much about the ability for people to get affordable health insurance, and that keeps families healthier,” Humble said. “But another thing that the Affordable Care Act did is it gave people freedom.”
Nationwide, more than 21.3 million Americans purchased insurance through the national and state marketplaces—a bump of 9 million people from when Biden took office.
“We need to build on the progress we’ve made by making lower premiums permanent,” Biden said in a prepared statement. “But Republicans in Congress have a different vision. Their recent budget would get rid of the improvements I signed into law, raising costs for millions of people. Over the last decade, extreme Republicans in Congress have blocked efforts to lower health care costs, and they’re still trying to end the Affordable Care Act, just as my predecessor tried and failed to do.”
Presumptive GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump has vowed on the campaign trail to replace the Affordable Care Act with a plan that would be less expensive and deliver better health care.
In November 2023, Trump posted on his social network Truth Social that Republicans should “never give up” trying to repeal the law.
“The cost of Obamacare is out of control, plus, it’s not good Healthcare,” Trump declared. “I’m seriously looking at alternatives.”
Trump frequently promised to develop a new healthcare plan during his presidency but did not release one in the four years he was in the White House.
Arizona Protect Our Care State Director Morgan Finklestein praised the efforts of the Biden administration in a prepared statement.
“President Biden lowered costs and invested in outreach, helping folks who have historically been left behind, like rural Americans, people of color, LGBTQ+ individuals, and people with disabilities,” Finkelstein said.
“Unfortunately, this victory comes as Donald Trump has all but secured the Republican nomination, putting the ACA at risk once again of repeal and sabotage,” she added. “It is unconscionable that Trump and his MAGA allies are promising to rip all of this progress away. The American people are sending a clear message: they want and need the affordable health care made possible by the ACA.”
