Increasing Health Insurance Enrollment Among Uninsured Americans

Office of Evaluation Sciences811,795 enrolled

Overview

This randomized evaluation used behaviorally-informed letters to increase health insurance take-up on the Affordable Care Act (ACA) Marketplaces.

During Open Enrollment Periods for the ACA Marketplaces, qualifying individuals can purchase health insurance plans through the Federal Health Insurance Marketplace (FHIM). As of early February 2015, many people had visited HealthCare.gov and started an online account, but not yet selected a plan. The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), in collaboration with the Office of Evaluation Sciences (OES), developed and sent letters to assist these individuals with completing their enrollment before the deadline. To evaluate the effect of the letters, the team used a randomized controlled trial.

Study Type

INTERVENTIONAL

Allocation

RANDOMIZED

Purpose

OTHER

Masking

NONE

Enrollment

811,795

Conditions

Health Behavior

Interventions

Letter interventionBEHAVIORAL

Letter intervention

Eligibility

Sex: ALL

Medical Language ↔ Plain English

Inclusion Criteria: * Those with an English language preference; those who had not enrolled in an ACA plan as of early February 2015 Exclusion Criteria: * Those with a Spanish language preference This intervention was a program evaluation and did not go through Human Subjects Protection Review.

Outcomes

Primary Outcomes

Percent of individuals enrolling in an ACA plan by the end of the Open Enrollment period.

Percent of individuals enrolling in an ACA plan during the observation period.

Time frame: Two weeks

Data from ClinicalTrials.gov

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