We frequently see people lamenting the fact that there’s a limited window in which to purchase coverage, but there are a couple points to keep in mind:
Limited open enrollment periods have long been the norm for employer-sponsored health insurance, which is where most non-elderly Americans get their coverage (you can’t just enroll in your employer’s plan anytime you like; you have to wait for open enrollment, unless you have a qualifying event).
Medicare also has limited annual open enrollment periods.
The individual health insurance market used to allow people to purchase coverage anytime they wanted. But the insurance company would ask a long list of medical history questions, and would decline applications from people with serious pre-existing conditions. That’s no longer the case, so the limited enrollment window is necessary to prevent people from waiting until they’re sick to enroll (which would be unsustainable, since insurance only works if there are enough healthy people paying premiums to offset the costs of the sick people).
Source: https://www.healthinsurance.org/faqs/what-are-the-deadlines-for-obamacares-open-enrollment-period/#QLE
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