If you are one of the thousands of people in South Texas who rely on the Affordable Care Act for health insurance, an important deadline is coming up. The time to start making plans for next year’s coverage is now.
Enrollment for health insurance through the Affordable Care Act begins in less than a month, on November 1st. If you already use Obamacare, be advised, you still have to sign up again.
Three big insurance companies have dropped out of the marketplace in Texas: Aetna, United Healthcare and Humana.
Sofia Moreno Castillo, an application counselor with CentroMed, says there are still plenty of options. "The main plans that people have picked are still in the marketplace, Castillo said, "and that’s a good thing.
Appointments for assistance fill up fast, so counselors say don’t wait until the last minute if you want help.
Castillo says working with a counselor often makes the process faster. "It’s difficult many times to try to figure out the process," she added. "So we want to let people know that we are here to help them. They don’t have to go ahead and worry about having to do it themselves and try to figure out how it works."
Last year, more than 120,000 people in San Antonio enrolled in Obamacare, more than 1.3 million statewide. Sign up by December 15th for coverage that would start January 1st. For more information, you can call 2-1-1 or go online to enrollsa.com.