Enrollment Deadline For Health Insurance Through Colorado's Marketplace Is Thursday

DENVER (CBS4) - Thursday is the last day for Coloradans who have found themselves suddenly uninsured and out of a job because of the global coronavirus pandemic to sign up for Connect for Health Colorado, the state's health care marketplace. However, if you have lost a job or are going to lose your job, you will still have a 60 day period to enroll.

Like the rest of the country, many Coloradans have been getting their health insurance through their employer, but since job cuts started the state decided to open up an emergency enrollment period to help those newly uninsured.

Not everyone who loses their job is without health insurance -- some are insured through their spouse, or some even qualify for Medicaid, however without health insurance the cost for care would come out-of-pocket, and could come out to thousands of dollars in some cases. The lack of coverage may also cause some to delay seeking medical attention, and with COVID-19, that could lead to dire outcomes.

CBS4 talked with Ben Zipperer, an economist at the Economic Policy Institute, a nonprofit tracking labor and the economy.

"If you don't have health insurance, your only course to get care is to go to the emergency room, that's expensive, and in many cases that's not the kind of the care that you need, or that you could have avoided had you had regular access to doctors, and emergency room care is footed by somebody by customers of the existing health insurance system, or it's going to be funded by our tax dollars depending on how hospitals make their revenue," Zipperer said.

After this Thursday, anyone who has lost their job because of the pandemic can still shop for health insurance on the federal health care marketplace. You can click here to check that out.