The state saw about 266,000 sign-ups during the 2024 open enrollment period for coverage.
This year’s Affordable Care Act open enrollment window for health insurance saw the highest number of Wisconsin state residents registering for coverage.
The 2024 enrollment period brought coverage to over a quarter of a million people in the state.
State officials made the announcement, citing health insurance enrollment data released by the federal Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) and from the Office of the Commissioner of Insurance. The data reflected the number of enrollments that occurred through the HealthCare.gov federal Affordable Care Act marketplace.
This year’s figure broke all previous records and represented a 20 percent increase over the 2023 open enrollment period in which 221,128 people enrolled, according to Kaiser Family Foundation data (KFF). The KFF is a non-partisan, nonprofit health policy research, news and information organization.
Since 2019, Wisconsin has been increasingly encouraging participation in the health insurance open enrollment.
State Governor Tony Evers has been actively promoting the health insurance open enrollment period for the Affordable Care Act since he took office in 2019. The open enrollment period begins November 1 and ends partway through January of the year in which coverage is to start. The OCI and Wisconsin Department of Health Services (DHS) received a directive from Evers to coordinate outreach and boost ACA enrollment.
WisCovered.com was launched by the two departments in 2020. That site provides consumers with resources to various coverage sources including those under the Affordable Care Act and through the Wisconsin Medicaid program for qualifying state residents.
It also directs state residents to Covering Wisconsin, a health insurance navigator service authorized by the federal government to provide the public with assistance in obtaining the coverage they need by understanding their options.
Unlike some states, which run their own enrollment marketplaces, Wisconsin uses the HealthCare.gov federal marketplace. Though Evers has proposed the launch of a state-based health insurance enrollment portal through the Affordable Care Act, the Wisconsin Legislature’s Republican majority has rejected it.
HealthCare.gov enrollment also achieved record registrations nationwide this year, with use by 21.3 million Americans who purchased their coverage through the federal site.
