How to Sign Up For TrumpCare

Everything You Need to Know About Enrolling in TrumpCare

We explain how to sign up for TrumpCare and enroll in a TrumpCare plan (i.e., how to sign up for health insurance under President Trump). That means we’ll explain health insurance enrollment dates, how to get cost assistance, and other important information for getting covered under President Trump.

TIP: Keep in mind “TrumpCare” is just a nickname to mean healthcare under the Trump administration. There is no “ObamaCare” or “TrumpCare” officially. In short, this page is just information about how to sign up coverage under the current system. 🙂

What Does it Mean to “Sign Up For TrumpCare?”

There are two key points to realize here before moving forward

1. Signing up for TrumpCare just means: “getting health insurance with cost assistance under Trump.”
2. Just like ObamaCare is a nickname for “health care reform under Obama, especially the Affordable Care Act,” TrumpCare is just a nickname for “healthcare and health insurance under Trump.”

In other words, the process used to sign up for ObamaCare and TrumpCare is the same, because both of these terms are just shorthand ways to describe complex legislative changes to the one-and-only healthcare system in the United States.

With that in mind, below we explain everything you need to know about getting health insurance with cost assistance under President Trump. We’ll also explain what has changed with health insurance under Trump here in 2017 and what could changes we could see down the road.

The Key Enrollment Facts about Signing Up For TrumpCare

Here are the most important things to know about enrolling in a TrumpCare plan:

• How to enroll in TrumpCare: To enroll in individual or family coverage, you still use HealthCare.gov or your state exchange or you can use a broker outside of the marketplace.
• TrumpCare Sign up Date and Deadline: To enroll in a plan with cost assistance, you must sign up during open enrollment. 2019 Open Enrollment in the Health Insurance Marketplace (Healthcare.Gov) starts November 1st, 2018 and ends December 15, 2018. These are the dates for signing up for health plans with cost assistance for 2019 (you shop at the end of 2018 for 2019 health plans). Get more information on TrumpCare for 2018 – 2019.
• Some states use the federal marketplace, while others have state exchanges. See Healthcare.gov for information on federal healthcare.^[1] See State Run Exchanges for information on those.^[2] Some states may decide to extend the open enrollment period on their state exchanges.^[3]
• TrumpCare Cost Assistance: To be clear, you can still get assistance on premiums and out-of-pocket costs by enrolling in a HealthCare.Gov plan under Trump.
• Trump and the Fee for Not Having Coverage: Republicans reduced the fee to zero in the new tax bill in response to an executive order by Trump. That means you won’t owe the fee in most states (some states have their own fee).
• Short Term is Expanded: Under Trump short term health plans are expanded so some shoppers will be able to get a short term plan at a low cost. Short term plans don’t qualify for cost assistance.
• Medicaid is still expanded (despite further expansion funding being frozen in the Senate bill), so those who live in states that expanded it can get covered for little to no cost if they make less than 138% of the poverty level. In other states, only children and some parents are covered under a part of Medicaid called CHIP.
• If you qualify for employer coverage, you may not be eligible for cost assistance unless that coverage meets the guidelines for “not being affordable.”
• If you qualify for Medicare, you CANNOT get a marketplace plan and must use Medicare.
• If you are between enrollment periods and have lost coverage for reasons other than non-payment, or if you have a life change like getting married, you may qualify for special enrollment.
• If you don’t qualify for special enrollment, don’t have coverage, and are in-between enrollment periods then options are limited to short term health insurance, Medicaid, and CHIP.
• Open enrollment is the only time of year that individuals and families can obtain Minimum Essential Coverage that qualifies for cost assistance and protects them from the fee.
• In summary, just like it has been for the past few years: If you want to get cost assistance and avoid the fee, make sure to use the marketplace during open enrollment to obtain coverage, then make sure you don’t have a gap in coverage of more than 63 days.

1. Healthcare.gov
2. State Run Exchanges
3. States That Have Extended Health Insurance Open Enrollment for 2018 (and States That Still Can)