Late last week, the Trump Administration announced significant cuts to the upcoming open enrollment efforts as they will significantly reduce the amount of advertising they will be doing and cutting the funding for the navigator programs. Originally, CMS was set to spend $100 million on advertising and outreach efforts. That amount has been reduced to $10 million. CMS also indicated that it will be reducing navigator funding in proportion to how organizations did in reaching their enrollment goals. This information is available in a CMS Bulletin released last week.
Several consumer organizations have released statements critical of these decisions: