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Pulling back the curtains on wage-theft enforcement in MN; Trump's latest attack is on RFK, Jr; NM LGBTQ+ equality group endorses 2024 'Rock Star' candidates; Michigan's youth justice reforms: Expanded diversion, no fees.

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Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg says rebuilding Baltimore's Key Bridge will be challenging and expensive. An Alabama Democrat flips a state legislature seat and former Connecticut senator Joe Lieberman dies at 82.

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Historic wildfires could create housing and health issues for rural Texans, a Kentucky program helps prison parolees start a new life, and descendants of Nicodemus, Kansas celebrate the Black settlers who journeyed across the 1870s plains seeking self-governance.

South Dakotans Urged to Sign Up Early During ACA Open Enrollment

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Tuesday, October 31, 2017   

PIERRE, S.D. – The open-enrollment period to purchase health insurance on the federal marketplace begins Wednesday. Folks in South Dakota can go to healthcare.gov or get local help at getcoveredsouthdakota.org, which includes scheduling in-person meetings for help signing up.

Shelly Ten Napel, chief executive director of the Community HealthCare Association of the Dakotas, says because the enrollment period has been cut from three months to 45 days, people should sign up as soon as they can.

"There's been a trend of kind of waiting until that last week, which we all do, wait until the deadline," she says. "But given the fewer resources that are out there to help people enroll and the shorter timeframe in which those fewer people have to enroll, the same number of individuals, I think it will be really important to get out the word about signing up early."

Open enrollment ends December 15. The federal government has cut the marketing budget for insurance exchanges and also the budget for navigators - individuals who help people find plans. Premiums are expected to go up in South Dakota because the Trump administration has decided to end cost-sharing payments to insurance companies.

In South Dakota, there has been growing interest in the health-insurance marketplace. Last year, there was a 14-percent increase in the number of enrollees and this year more than 30,000 South Dakotans are enrolled through the marketplace. Ten Napel hopes to see similar trends during signup for next year.

"What we want to make sure is that we don't lose momentum this year and that we continue building on that track record and working together as South Dakotans to make sure that all of our friends and neighbors know that they can sign up for coverage and get help affording health care if they need it," she explains.

Ten Napel says 90 percent of people who enroll through the marketplace receive premium subsidies to lower the cost of coverage.


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