The paths to health insurance in California: Medi-Cal, IFP, Employer, Medicare, overview.
California Health Insurance
Posts specifically related to California health insurance, enrollment, premiums, plans, termination, Covered California, Medi-Cal, Medicare, small groups.
Which Metal Tier Health Plan Is Best For You?
Platinum plans can save money because they have health care and prescription drug costs half of the Gold and Silver plans. The Platinum plan only makes sense if you can reliably predict the health care and prescription drug utilization in the next year. For everyone else, without that crystal ball, a Silver or Bronze plan work better at containing health care costs.
Unexpected Costs of California Health Plans in 2024
Silver 73, 87, and 94 health plans, available through Covered California based on household income, have no medical deductible. That does not mean you escape any patient responsibility for health care services subject to coinsurance. With the enhanced Silver plans, you go straight into the coinsurance percentage for inpatient hospitalization and skilled nursing facility stays because there is no medical deductible.
Health Insurance as Asset Protection
The cost of major surgeries or cancer treatment can easily top out at $100,000 or more. The health insurance with a maximum out-of-pocket amount limits your liability so you do not have to liquidate your assets to pay the doctor and hospital bills. Health insurance protects your assets.
On-Exchange versus Off-Exchange Health Insurance
There are non-standard benefit design health plans offered by carriers off-exchange. You cannot enroll in a non-standard benefit design plan through Covered California. The off-exchange non-standard benefit design plans are usually in the Bronze and Silver metal tier categories. There are more High Deductible Health Plans (HDHP) that are health savings account compatible offered off-exchange.
Adding a Parent or Stepparent as Dependents on your Covered California Application
Effective January 1, 2023, a new California law expands the definition of “dependent” for the purposes of enrollment in a Qualified Health Plan (QHP), to include a parent or stepparent of a qualified consumer. Rules for this benefit include that a dependent parent or stepparent must:
Breaking Down Covered California Health Plans By Coverage Sections
The one wildcard with outpatient services is the coinsurance. Coinsurance is a percentage of the invoiced services that the health plan member is responsible for. For outpatient procedures, the coinsurance is not subject to the medical deductible for Silver plans. However, you may find yourself getting billed for coinsurance when you thought the health service had just a set copayment. For example, imaging with the injection of a dye to enhance image contrast. The machine imaging scan will have a set copayment, but the injection of the dye is considered an outpatient procedure subject to coinsurance.
Parents Can Be Added To Covered California Health Plan for 2023
There are many good reasons to include qualifying adults such as parents and stepparents within a Covered California household. There can also be unintended consequences such as making the entire household eligible for Medi-Cal and ineligible for the Covered California subsidies. The best approach is to understand all of the IRS rules regarding a qualifying relative and how the inclusion of the parent or stepparent will modify the eligibility of the household for the subsidies and Medi-Cal.
What is Covered California?
Covered California is not a health plan or health insurance. Covered California is more like a farmer’s market. The market place is organized by Covered California. Insurance companies then bring their health plans to the market place for people to review. Consumers enter the market place and purchase health insurance directly from the vendors. Covered California is just creating the space for the health plan transactions.
Are Health Insurance Apps Tracking, Collecting, and Sharing Your Data? Yes
The extraction, storage, and manipulation of your personal online data is akin to the wild west. There are few rules in this relatively young industry and what rules there are, the app gleaners ignore until they are caught violating the law. You can’t see the digital portrait you have created by your own actions on your mobile device and captured by the health insurance apps. In a sense, they own your image. Usually images you create are protected by copyright laws. In this new industry of digital surveillance and capture, you don’t own your own image.