This brief highlights the experiences of Navigators and other Marketplace consumer assistance programs under the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) in conducting outreach and providing enrollment assistance during the ACA’s first open enrollment period. It provides insight into the outreach and enrollment strategies the assisters developed and identifies the keys to successfully overcoming the challenges of the first year. These insights are based on findings from focus groups with assisters in four cities: Miami, Florida; Houston, Texas; Raleigh, North Carolina; and Cleveland, Ohio.

On August 5, 2014, the Kaiser Family Foundation and the Alliance for Health Reform hosted a briefing to discuss navigator and other in-person assistance programs under Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) implementation.

On Monday, July 28, the Kaiser Family Foundation held an interactive web briefing to examine the experiences and lessons of four states — Colorado, Connecticut, Kentucky, and Washington — that each established state-based Marketplaces, expanded their Medicaid programs, and successfully enrolled eligible individuals into Medicaid and Marketplace coverage under the…

This brief highlights the experiences of four states—Colorado, Connecticut, Kentucky, and Washington—that established a State-based Marketplace (SBM), implemented the ACA’s Medicaid expansion, and achieved success enrolling eligible individuals into coverage. Based on interviews with key stakeholders in each state, it identifies effective strategies that contributed to enrollment and current priorities looking forward.

This survey by the Kaiser Family Foundation of Navigators and other Marketplace consumer assistance programs under the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) offers a nationwide analysis of the number and distribution of assisters and people they helped. The report examines the experience of programs in conducting outreach and enrollment assistance during the first open enrollment period. It also reviews the nature of help consumers needed applying for Medicaid or premium tax credits and understanding health insurance choices, and discusses key factors that impacted the effectiveness of Marketplace Assister Programs.

In this Policy Insight, Kaiser Family Foundation President and CEO Drew Altman discusses the need for community based outreach to enroll the long term uninsured.

The brief provides an overview of the Cook County, Illinois “CountyCare” early expansion waiver experience, which may help inform continued efforts as the Medicaid expansion is implemented across states. It finds that, in just over 12 months, more than 82,000 Cook County residents successfully enrolled in CountyCare coverage, allowing the state and county to get a significant jump start on the Medicaid expansion. Illinois implemented the full Medicaid expansion in January 2014 and automatically transitioned CountyCare enrollees to the expansion. As of March 2014, CountyCare members account for nearly half of the total statewide enrollment of adults into the Medicaid expansion.

This brief provides an overview of mobile technology use today, with a focus on the low-income population and people of color, and discusses how one text messaging initiative, text4baby, is helping to connect eligible pregnant women and their families to health coverage.

With open enrollment beginning Oct. 1, this event examines outreach and enrollment efforts to help millions of uninsured Americans gain coverage in the Affordable Care Act’s new health insurance Marketplaces or through the expansion of state Medicaid programs.

Navigator and In-Person Assister programs created by the Affordable Care Act (ACA) will provide outreach and enrollment assistance during the open enrollment period for the new health insurance Marketplaces. This brief describes these programs, highlighting differences in how they are funded and structured and discusses some of the challenges they face.