Was quoted in an on-line article about open enrollment!
http://health.usnews.com/health-news/articles/2014/11/12/time-to-enroll-or-re-enroll-in-an-obamacare-health-plan
Health Care Reform
Qualifying for a Subsidy May Make You Ineligible for an HSA Plan
If someone buys a Health Savings Account (HSA) plan, federal law requires that health plan to have a deductible of at least $1,250 per individual and $2,500 per family. Â
If you select a Silver level HSA plan on the exchange, if you receive special discounts, those discounts may make you ineligible for the HSA.
These special discounts will decrease the deductible and out-of-pocket costs. Â Sometimes a subsidy can decrease these amounts enough to drop them below the federal government’s minimum deductible threshold for HSA eligibility. Â If this happens, you will become ineligible for the HSA feature, but automatically enrolled in the base plan without the HSA component. Â Unfortunately at this time there is no notification from the Exchange to alert the customer to this problem. Â
If this happens to you, just realize you can keep your plan, but not the HSA feature. Â
If you want the HSA feature, you will have to wait until the next open enrollment period to select a qualified plan. Â
Some of this information was taken from an email I received from Anthem. Please consult with your tax advisor, and your insurance broker for your specific situation. Â Â
Keeping Your Plan Until 2017
On Wednesday, March 5th, the Obama Administration announced a 2 year extension to the policy that if your individual or small group plan was due to be cancelled in 2014 as a result of the essential health benefit benchmarks and other market reform requirements imposed by PPACA, you would be able to keep it, as long as your state insurance commissioner and the carriers in your state say it’s ok.
This policy only applies to existing policies. Â All newly sold coverage will have to meet all of the market reform requirements and other benchmarks imposed by PPACA (or ACA or ObamaCare).
Here in Kentucky, when this was announced last November for the first extension, we were allowed to do so. Â However, the state of Indiana didn’t allow it. Â We are still waiting to hear from our carriers if this will be allowed a second time.
 This is a political move by the Democrats with the mid-term elections coming up.  Pricing for renewals will be coming out in July/August of this year, which probably won’t be favorable.  Plus, if last week’s Florida election was any indication, then it may be too little too late.
Updated Enrollment Numbers
I read in some online publications today that President Obama’s administration finally released some enrollment numbers of citizens enrolling in medical insurance plans for January 2014. I have my own questions about these numbers.
Some of this information is taken from articles across the Web, but most of it is from Ezra Klein’s blog, which is linked here:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2014/01/14/the-death-of-obamacares-death-spiral/
There are 2.2 million Americans that signed up for private insurance. Of these 2.2 million, roughly 25% are the desired age group of 18-34. According to Ezra Klein’s blog, the Obama Administration, along with others, wants 38%.
The next set of numbers show that 55% of the sign ups were between the ages of 45-64.
These numbers don’t include the state exchanges of Minnesota, Oregon and Nevada.
The most popular metallic level plans are the silver level, with 60% of enrollees selecting these.
Most of the people enrolled haven’t paid yet. In my opinion this is a big deal. If you sign up and don’t pay, you don’t have insurance. As of right now these numbers are just citizens that have signed up, not paid.
Lastly, no Medicaid numbers have been released yet. These should come later this month.
A question I have about these numbers, are they reflective of what the insurance companies thought they would get, which in turn directly impacts the premiums that they charge.
Of course there are two sides to each argument, one side stating that a “modest” increase of 2.4% could be in store for next year. The other side states that if more young and healthy individuals don’t sign up, then it could be much higher.
Only time will tell…
Some questions that come to mind –
- How many were they expecting?
- What did each insurance company expect to get?
2014 Individual Mandate
I’ve been receiving questions about the individual mandate for 2014.
The law states that you may be subject to a fine if you go three consecutive months without medical insurance after March 31, 2014. Â If you go without you may face a penalty on your 2014 federal tax return, only if you’re subject to the mandate.