In his final days as Secretary of Health and Human Services, Tom Price got a flu shot and cut outreach to get people to sign up for health insurance. (Reuters/Kevin Lamarque)

Former Secretary of Health and Human Services Tom Price resigned on Friday after being caught in a scandal in which he took expensive chartered flights without justification.

His short and ignominious tenure at the department was characterized by leading the Trump administration’s fight of the Affordable Care Act, and involved tactics that many observers saw as sabotage to the 2010 health care law known as Obamacare.

One of his final moves to hinder the ACA is the HHS’s shuttering of the federal health insurance exchange HealthCare.gov every Sunday for 12 hours during the open enrollment period, which goes from Nov. 1 to Dec. 15.

The Department said the site will be down for maintenance from 12 a.m. to 12 p.m., preventing people from sorting out their 2018 coverage Sunday mornings, according to a tweet from Kaiser Health News’ Phil Galewitz.

..@HHSGov plans to shut down @HHSGov for 12 hours during all but one Sunday during the upcoming 6 week open enrollment season pic.twitter.com/0d5WUtLc9G — Phil Galewitz (@philgalewitz) September 22, 2017





Since inauguration, the Trump administration has taken steps to stymie the success of the ACA, despite the law surviving numerous attempts at several repeals. President Donald Trump campaigned on a platform of its repeal, and while in office has repeatedly incorrectly asserted that it “isn’t failing, it’s failed — done” and wished for its demise.

Obamacare has not died on its own, however. While the problems of high costs are far from fixed — Congress has not attempted to fix it yet — the market is stable, and previously uninsured counties have managed to find insurers for 2018. Now, every county in the U.S. has an option.

‘Planned HealthCare.gov downtime during open enrollment’

The open enrollment period is when most people buy health insurance for the year, as you can typically only buy outside of that period if you have a qualifying life event like a job change or a marriage. All but 15 states use HealthCare.gov to publicly offer individual health insurance plans. In addition to the 12-hour overnight shutdown for six weeks, Kaiser Health News also reported the site will be down on Nov. 1, the first day of open enrollment.

“Why not do it before? Why not do it after,” said Abbe Gluck, a Yale University law professor specializing in politics and health law. “My own suspicion is that it’s a technical matter they can justify as an administrative matter. It seems thinly veiled especially when placed alongside the many other instances of intentional sabotage to make it more difficult for people to enroll.”

Narrowing the window will likely decrease enrollment, as it reduces the time a person has to sign up for a plan. “Anyone who has been through limited enrollment knows the amount of time you have facilitates your ability to get it done,” Gluck said.

With each Trump move, the message has gotten louder. Lori Lodes, who previously ran ACA outreach, told Yahoo Finance, “the kindest word you could say is that it’s sabotage.”

A spokesperson for the HHS did not respond to comments by publication time.

The enrollment period has already been cut in half

This isn’t the first time the Trump administration has narrowed the time period for open enrollment, a move that restricts sign-ups and drives costs for insurers up, something that hurts the market. (Industry groups frequently note that they do better when more people are involved.) In September, the enrollment period for this year was revealed to be cut in half to six weeks from 12. Previously, open enrollment used to run through the end of January, giving families a little more time to get their plans in order.

Former CEO of HealthCare.gov told Bloomberg earlier this year that a huge number of people sign up right at the deadline, and a deadline shift may catch people off guard.

The Trump administration has crippled ACA advertising

The damage from a shorter open-enrollment period was magnified by the Trump administration’s suppression of advertising for the program. In January, between the inauguration and the end of open enrollment, the Trump administration pulled $5 million in Obamacare advertising, at the time citing it was searching for “efficiencies.”

In late August, the Trump administration dealt an even bigger blow by slashing the HHS budget for ACA advertising during open enrollment by one-tenth, to a mere $10 million from $100 million in 2017. With a shorter window and fewer announcements, the Trump administration is following a recipe designed to decrease enrollment.