New campaign to enroll more young people on ACA exchanges

Following up on plans HHS announced in June, CMS has outlined additional recruitment efforts to attract younger, healthier enrollees on the Affordable Care Act (ACA) exchanges to improve the risk pool.

“More than nine in 10 marketplace-eligible young adults without health insurance have incomes that could qualify them for tax credits to make plans affordable, but that fact hasn’t fully penetrated the millennial community, and we want to change that,” Healthcare.gov CEO Kevin Counihan said in a statement. “This year, we’ll be using new tactics and strategies to reach young adults where they are and deliver the message that they have affordable coverage options. These new tactics will both benefit young Americans and strengthen the marketplace risk pool.”

Among those new steps will be using different social media platforms to reach those younger customers. CMS singled out Twitch, which is used by video gamers, whose core 18- to 34-year-old demographic has above average rates of skipping out on health insurance.

Making the Healthcare.gov site friendlier for mobile users will also be a priority. The CMS announcement admitted signing up for coverage on a phone or tablet was less than convenient last year, requiring shoppers to zoom in and out on a site designed for desktop computers.

“This year, consumers will find an end-to-end, mobile-optimized experience, including a new state-of-the-art shopping process that for the first time offers improved ability to comparison shop on their phone or tablet,” CMS said.

Similar to what HHS had outlined in June, enrollment efforts will involve several partner organizations to reach younger customers, including medical groups like American Hospital Association and the American Medical Student Association, along with groups outside healthcare, such as the United Methodist Church.