The open enrollment period for 2015 Medicare Advantage health plans and Medicare Part D stand-alone prescription drug plans ended Dec. 7.
The enrollment period started Oct. 15.
The insurers that sold the Medicare plans probably enrolled or reenrolled more than 13 million people in Medicare Advantage plans during the enrollment period and about 10 million in Medicare Part D plans.
Aetna, Cigna, Humana, UnitedHealth Group and other issuers, brokers and lead generation firms have run many Medicare product television commercials in recent weeks, according to iSpot.tv.
But the enrollment period attracted relatively little attention.
It’s not yet clear whether that calm was the sign of a fine-tuned, smoothly running enrollment machine purring along, or whether the calm was a sign of marketing problems.
For more thoughts about the enrollment period, read on.
1. Marilyn Tavenner, the administrator of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), had the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) on her mind.
Managers of the locally based exchange in the District of Columbia complained early in the year, when CMS was scheduling the PPACA public exchange annual open enrollment period for Nov. 15, 2014, through Feb. 15, 2015, that running several open enrollment periods at the same time would strain regulators, exchanges and exchange plan issuers.