Did you sign up for healthcare yet? Your enrollment period for ACA plans is now open.

The Trump administration has indeed cut the budget for publicizing 2018 ACA open enrollment by more than 90 percent, and did indeed cut the open enrollment period in half – from three months in 2017 to six weeks in 2018. Spending on in-person enrollment assistance (the Navigator system) is also set to be cut by 41 percent from 2016 levels.

On 13 April 2017, the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) — an agency of the Department of Health and Human Services, which runs the Healthcare.gov web site — announced that open enrollment for ACA in 2018 would run from 1 November to 15 December 2017 – a shortened six-week period – “to more closely align with Medicare and the private market.”

For 2017 sign-ups, the open enrollment period was twice as long – from 1 November 2016 to 31 January 2017, a period of three months.