DES MOINES, Iowa — Open enrollment is open to apply for coverage under the Affordable Care Act (ACA), also known as Obamacare.
The deadline to apply is Dec. 15 if you want to be covered by Jan. 1, and local health insurance experts say that many people could qualify for ACA without realizing it.
Obamacare is a program that acts as a coupon to make health insurance more affordable.
"It's basically just the government recognizing that health care and health insurance is really expensive and the average person can't really afford to spend upwards of 800 dollars a month on health insurance," said Kaylin Stevenson, a local health insurance expert.
More people have opportunities to qualify for ACA than some may think.
"A lot of times there are families of four or five who have an annual household income of 100 thousand or more, they think, 'You know, we have a better income, we probably can't qualify', but a lot of them do still have a few hundred dollars off a month," Stevenson said.
One can qualify if they are not offered health insurance through their job, or if their monthly premium is nine percent or more of their yearly income.
"A lot of the times when it comes to Obamacare, we have people who want to retire early, but health insurance is the main thing that kind of hinders that. Because it can be, you know, upwards of 20 thousand dollars a year, so there have been quite a few families that I have worked with that have retired early because of the Affordable Care Act," Stevenson said.
Experts say it is worth applying regardless because there are many scenarios for qualifications.
"So when it comes to individuals or you know, they have a partner or a spouse, the younger you are and the higher your income, the less likely you are to have a subsidy, but those that are you know, 50 to 65, it's just them and their spouse on their taxes, they can get pretty high subsidies that can lower their premium to almost zero," Stevenson said.
If you want to apply, you can go to Healthcare.gov or you can contact a local health insurance advisor for help.