Shalette Freeman

Ahead of current open enrollment, many US employees remained unclear on benefits: 56% understood life insurance and 47% understood disability coverage in a 2024 survey.
That confusion left three common gaps worth reviewing before enrollment decisions: income protection limits, life cover tied to employment, and post-retirement care needs.
Employer disability cover typically replaced only part of pay and carried caps, so higher earners could face shortfalls unless voluntary top-ups matched obligations.
Life cover often ended when employment ended, while long-term care needs stayed uncovered in retirement, especially for workers supporting children, parents, and mortgages.
For HR teams, clearer communication around actual financial exposure, savings support, mental health coaching, and digital physiotherapy could improve engagement before enrollment closes.
Most calendar-year plans open enrollment shortly before January 1 effective dates, so the chance to add group-rate voluntary coverag

Three USA Coverage Gaps Before Enrollment

A policy center’s Mid-Q3 tracker showed Medicaid and CHIP enrollment down 2.3M children, with senators told the drop was faster than during the prior term.
The exact destination of those children remained unresolved: some may have found other coverage or duplicate records, but the decline itself was described as real.
State differences challenged simple demographic explanations, as some states stayed relatively stable while others saw much steeper child enrollment losses tied to administrative choices.
A budget office projected the 2025 law would trim ~$1T from Medicaid and CHIP over 10 yr and leave millions more uninsured.
Federal officials were urged to determine what happened to these children and use available tools now to reverse the nationwide trend promptly.