{"id":70835,"date":"2025-12-26T10:50:07","date_gmt":"2025-12-26T10:50:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/70835\/"},"modified":"2025-12-26T10:50:07","modified_gmt":"2025-12-26T10:50:07","slug":"pa-aca-specialists-help-navigate-2026-open-enrollment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/70835\/","title":{"rendered":"PA ACA specialists help navigate 2026 open enrollment"},"content":{"rendered":"

From Philly and the Pa. suburbs to South Jersey and Delaware, what would you like WHYY News to cover? Let us know!<\/a>\n<\/p>\n

Standing at a table with pamphlets, flyers and business cards, Laura Polo greeted people with a cheerful hello and a big smile as they walked around during a recent community holiday fair in West Philadelphia.\n<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you know someone that needs health insurance, if they don\u2019t qualify for Medicaid or Medicare, Pennie\u2019s the marketplace for them,\u201d she told one woman who passed through and said she\u2019d take the papers home to her adult daughter to look at.\n<\/p>\n

Polo is one of about 240 state-certified enrollment assisters<\/a> who help guide people through the process of shopping or changing insurance plans on Pennie<\/a>, which is Pennsylvania\u2019s Affordable Care Act marketplace.\n <\/p>\n

During a typical open enrollment period<\/a>, which starts Nov. 1 every year, Polo said people have the usual questions: What do the deductible numbers mean? How do they find the Pennie shopper tool online? What documents do they need to enroll?\n<\/p>\n

But this year has been especially chaotic, Polo said, as she finds herself helping more people who are stressed<\/a> and panicked about the cost of their coverage in 2026.
\n\"InformationPennie enrollment assisters help answer questions about health insurance and provide free open enrollment support over the phone or in person at community events. Assisters with the Mendoza Group handed out flyers and pamphlets at a recent community holiday fair in West Philadelphia on Sat., Dec. 20, 2025. (Nicole Leonard\/WHYY)\n<\/p>\n

On average, out-of-pocket monthly premium costs will double in Pennsylvania, according to state officials. That\u2019s due to a combination of rising insurance rates<\/a> and the loss of boosted federal tax subsidies, which previously helped lower those monthly payments.\n<\/p>\n

Without action from Congress, the advanced premium tax credits will expire<\/a> in just a few days.\n<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, enrollment assisters like Polo and other licensed brokers and insurance agents are hunting down resources and affordable options for people who face tough financial decisions.\n<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re going to do everything we can to ultimately give you some information so you don\u2019t walk away thinking, \u2018What am I going to do?\u2019\u201d Polo said.\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"From Philly and the Pa. suburbs to South Jersey and Delaware, what would you like WHYY News to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":70836,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[5892,917,28,30,29],"class_list":["post-70835","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pennsylvania","tag-affordable-care-act","tag-health-insurance","tag-pennsylvania","tag-pennsylvania-headlines","tag-pennsylvania-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70835","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=70835"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70835\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/70836"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=70835"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=70835"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=70835"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}