The announcement comes just one week into Obamacare's second open-enrollment season, which is set to run through Feb. 15.  One of the rules calls for open enrollment for health insurance plans that will go into effect in 2016 to to begin Oct. 1, 2015, and run through Dec. 15 of that same year. That would mean a sign-up season two weeks shorter than the current season.  Read MoreObamacare toothache! Enrollments were juiced up  Another proposal calls for having Obamacare customers be "defaulted" to a lower-cost insurance plan instead of their current plan.  "Under current rules, consumers who do not take action during the open enrollment window are re-enrolled in the same plan they were in the previous year, even if that plan experienced significant premium increases," CMS said.  "We are considering alternative options for re-enrollment, under which consumers who take no action might be defaulted into a lower-cost plan rather than their current plan."  Although CMS said it is considering allowing state-run Obamacare exchanges to implement that default option in 2016, the agency is eyeing using that option on the federal Obamacare exchange HealthCare.gov starting only in 2017.  While the defaulted option could protect customers from sticker shock once their now-pricier plan renews, the option also increases the likelihood that people will find themselves in a plan that doesn't include their preferred doctors or hospitals.  Automatic renewal is currently a concern among Obamacare advocates, who worry that people will end up staying in plans that are too expensive for them, or which do not give them the most value for federal subsidies that help them pay their premiums.  CMS said the proposed rules would also add provisions to "facilitate public access to information about rate increases and small group markets for" individual health plans.  "It also proposes provisions to further protect against unreasonable rate increased in the individual and small group markets," CMS said.
The Obama administration late Friday called for a slew of significant rule changes that would affect the Obamacare health-care program.