The relentless increase in health insurance premiums is stressful, and those high deductibles just keep rising. Do you bite the bullet and pay-up for insurance or tempt fate and go without it? Either way, you’ve got to make a decision fast because once open enrollment is over, it’s done. You are stuck with your decision for a whole year. All this makes understanding open enrollment for health insurance 2024 a pretty big deal.

Life is a sea of endless and unpredictable possibilities – you never know what can happen. So you need to protect yourself as best you can from what could go wrong, but without draining your bank account. Traditionally, health insurance has been marketed as the life jacket we need to stay afloat when things get rough. No matter what happens, if we have our jacket on we won’t die. But, what if you can’t get to your life jacket in time? 

Unlike car insurance or home insurance, you can’t sign up for health insurance whenever you feel like it. Open Enrollment is the period every year when people are allowed to sign up for health insurance. So you have to drop everything during open enrollment to focus on making this important decision about your health insurance coverage for the year.   

Most people don’t know that you can cancel health insurance at any time of the year.  This is really important to realize because if you get a new job with employer-paid health insurance you will want to quit paying for your own health insurance whenever your employer’s health insurance has you covered. Some people quit health insurance mid-year and replace it with a medical cost-sharing plan like Impact Health Sharing  instead. Sounds pretty simple and organized right? Well, not really.

Missing open enrollment for health insurance 2024 means waiting a full 12 months until the next open enrollment window opens again for new health insurance options. The only exception to this rule is if you experience a ‘qualifying event’, making you eligible for a special enrollment period. This means enrollment outside of the specified time frame due to extenuating circumstances. Some qualifying events for special enrollment for health insurance 2021 are:

• Getting married or divorced.
• Having a baby or adopting a child. 
• Taking in a child for foster care.
• Someone on your marketplace plan dies, leaving you no longer eligible.
• Moving to a different service area where your current plan isn’t available.
• Moving to a different service area where you have access to new plans.
• Involuntary loss of health insurance (usually job-related).
• Becoming a United States citizen.

To get coverage with traditional health insurance in 2021, open enrollment must be completed between November 1 and December 15th 2023. This gives you around 6 weeks to untangle all the options and complete your open enrollment for health insurance 2021. Ever wonder why all the rush to squeeze everyone into such a tight time frame?

Most big life decisions benefit from careful planning. Health insurance is no exception. It’s important to shop around every year for the best health care solution because the individual market is volatile, especially after the COVID virus and pandemic.

Insurers change plan designs, coverage network, doctors and hospitals, and coverage limitations year to year. We all have a lot on the line so it’s worth your time to consider each healthcare option during open enrollment. You need to find a plan that is the perfect fit for your health, lifestyle and budget. Shortening the open enrollment window makes it more difficult to explore better options or alternatives to health insurance.

Fortunately, the best alternative, called medical cost sharing, is open for new enrollments all year long. So when you regret the choice of overpriced health insurance you picked during open enrollment 2021, you are not stuck. You can always quit health insurance without penalty and cut your costs by enrolling in a medical cost sharing organization, like Impact Health Sharing

Is Open Enrollment For Health Insurance 2021 Really Your Only Option?

Americans have been taught to think that insurance is the only protection against large medical bills and health care disasters. This narrative has entrenched many myths about the healthcare industry, like: 

• Quality healthcare is expensive.
• Doctors don’t accept cash.
• Because of their size, insurance providers are the best at negotiating the best prices.
• You have to be part of a good insurance network to get the best care.

But this couldn’t be further from the truth. There is no binary choice between protecting your family and gambling against fate. There is no reason to feel forced to consider health insurance options that confuse you or are just too expensive. There is another, even better, option – medical cost sharing. 

Fortunately, health insurance is no longer required for individuals, families, and small business employers. In one important way, medical cost sharing works a lot like health insurance. It pools the resources of a lot of people to protect them from expensive health care risks. The big difference is that In times of need, cost sharing members look to their community instead of a big insurance company.

It is an affordable alternative to traditional health insurance options because it eliminates much of the profits and overhead of a large insurance company. Medical cost sharing is a membership and new members can enroll anytime they like. No open enrollment for health insurance 2021 hurdles in sight!

Missing open enrollment for health insurance 2024 leaves you treading water, vulnerable to every wave life can throw. But medical cost sharing is a large life raft, built on the strength of a growing community with like minded ideas about health and paying each other’s large medical needs. 

There Is A Better Way