Opinion: Americans should be able to register to vote when they apply for health insurance on HealthCare.gov
The last time you renewed your driver’s license, you likely had the opportunity to register to vote at the same time. As former administrators at the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services in the Department of Health & Human Services, we believe Americans should have a similarly frictionless opportunity for voter registration when they submit an application for health insurance on HealthCare.gov, the federal government’s online health insurance marketplace. While no legal change is needed to make this a reality, HHS would have to make technical upgrades to the HealthCare.gov platform and workflow. These changes would create a new opportunity for voter registration in the 33 states that rely on the federal marketplace for health insurance. The result: An estimated 1.2 million people each year would register to vote or update their registration information through HealthCare.gov, according to the think tank Demos.
HHS has already endorsed the goal of providing a seamless opportunity for people to register to vote at the same time they apply for health coverage, in line with President Biden’s March 2021 Executive Order calling on federal agencies to “expand citizens’ opportunities to register to vote.” While recognizing all that HHS has on its plate, we urge the department to implement this simplification in time for the next open enrollment period this fall. This makes sense for at least three reasons.
