Thousands of people in Maine remain in need of health insurance. While Phase 1 of open enrollment under the Affordable Care Act has closed, people still have until Feb. 15 to buy insurance through the health exchange website. But they need to be careful when it comes to choosing a plan.

Figuring out which plan is the best fit has, in the past, proven challenging and/or frustrating for many who have found that having insurance doesn’t necessarily mean they’re covered. That’s because many of the plans lacked transparency — specifically in terms of what they offered, what medications they covered, and other information that’s important when choosing a plan.

The first year had challenges. This year, the technical system has improved. Unfortunately, now that we’ve had a chance to see the plans for 2015, it’s clear many of the coverage problems persist.

Information about the plans remains difficult to find. Specifically, patients need to know if prescription drug formularies on the plans have narrowed or expanded and whether medications approved by the FDA in the past two years have been added to the formularies. Have deductibles increased or decreased, including separate prescription drug deductibles? Last year, some deductibles were as high as the maximum patient out-of-pocket costs allowed, which meant patients had to spend $6,300 before the plan would begin to pay.

Several months ago, the Epilepsy Foundation joined more than 300 other advocacy organizations that appealed to Sylvia Burwell, the secretary of Health and Human Services, to ensure consumers have access to more information about cost-sharing, plan design and physician specialists before they enroll in a plan.

And under a recent proposal from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, patients would be able to access drug formularies for different plans on a public website, and there is encouraging language to prevent insurers from discriminating against those patients with chronic illnesses. These are welcome changes and should be adopted by the federal government and the state of Maine.

As the Maine field coordinator for the Epilepsy Foundation, I hear stories of families who have experienced barrier after barrier from their insurance companies. They’ve bought the insurance to make sure they have access to the medications that keep their conditions under control. But too often, their medications are not what the plans offer, and they are faced with having to take new drugs — untested on their bodies — or pay dearly for the ones they know will work.

The roughly 13,000 people living with epilepsy in Maine rely on specialized medications to treat their conditions. Add in those who have other chronic illnesses, such as arthritis, leukemia and lymphoma, lung disease, cancer, diabetes and more, and the numbers surge. Their doctors prescribe the best treatment for them. Without access to these essential medicines, they skip doses, flounder and get sicker. Those realities often drive up health care costs because the patient ends up in the emergency room.

The Affordable Care Act was implemented to help people get the insurance they need. People living with epilepsy and other chronic illnesses just want to have access to the most successful medications available to treat their conditions so that they can live normal lives. These families are fighting enough as it is. They shouldn’t have to fight just to figure out which plan is best for them, and which plans cover their medications. They should be able to access that information easily.

Transparency within the plans is essential. These patients are essential.

Kristine Binette is the field service coordinator in Maine for the Epilepsy Foundation New England. Bill Murphy is the director of advocacy and public policy for the Epilepsy Foundation New England.

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