Kevin Knauss: Health, History, Travel, Insurance
Now there is an alternative to traditional health insurance that is aimed at fitness buffs and gym owners. SHM FIT combines a health care expenses sharing group with a high deductible catastrophic health plan to offer health insurance premiums that may be less than traditional insurance.
Covered California has given their online health insurance enrollment system a serious make over with the release of the CalHEERS 17.2 build. Not only has the user interface been enhanced, members must now enter their employer’s contact information before they will be eligible for the monthly subsidy. In addition, Covered California will begin notifying a member’s employer when they enroll or renew their Covered California health insurance.
The California Department of Health Care released a report confirming that several health plans may have had inaccurate provider directories for their member to search through. The Timely Access Report year 2015 reviewed several different measurements to determine if health plan members could obtain timely access to health care services. The report noted that 13 health plans listed Primary Care Physicians who were not in the health plan’s provider network.
Consumers who purchased health insurance through Covered California may be receiving revised 2016 1095-As without requesting one. The revised 1095-As are popping up in consumer’s Covered California accounts and being mailed to them. Consumers should carefully compare the original 1095-A sent out by Covered California to the revised document to make sure it is correct.
After Covered California acknowledged at the January 2017 Board meeting that they had system issues that affected over 40,000 consumers, new enrollment problems seem to be boiling up. Some consumers have reported that household members who are ineligible for Covered California family dental plans have been automatically enrolled in dental insurance in 2017. In some very rare instances, the Covered California system is allowing consumers to actively enroll in two different subsidized health plans.
The Tower Theater in downtown Roseville was the site of a peaceful, but loud, protest demonstration by residents of Republican congressional representative Tom McClintock’s district in Northern California. Rep. McClintock had scheduled one of his Town Hall meetings at the Tower Theater in Roseville. But I don’t think he was prepared for the hundreds of people who turned out to protest his support of President Trump’s Executive orders.
Covered California has been studying how different changes to the ACA will impact their ability to meet their projected budget and offer affordable health insurance to consumers. At the Covered California January Board meeting they released six reports they commissioned that studied consumer attitudes toward health insurance and potential changes to the ACA.
A Texas U.S. District Court Judge ordered the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) not to enforce rules against discriminating against transgender health care services in health insurance policies. The order was issued on December 31, 2016 before the new nondiscrimination rules were set to go into effect. The nondiscrimination rules are part of Section 1557, the nondiscrimination provision of the Affordable Care Act (ACA). A lawsuit brought by The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty
Millions of people have been enrolled into expanded Medi-Cal through Covered California based solely on their lack of income. Thousands of those same Medi-Cal beneficiaries went on to get jobs or other insurance and forgot to report this to their county Medi-Cal eligibility department. Many of these people fear they will have to repay Medi-Cal for the months they were really ineligible for the no cost health insurance. Do you have to repay Medi-Cal after your income increases and you were no longer eligible? The short answer is usually not.
Under an Executive order signed by President Trump on January 20, 2017, he gave federal bureaucracies the discretion and authority to waive any provision of the Affordable Care Act that might impose a fiscal burden on individuals and families. Two of the most prominent fiscal burdens are the repayment of excess Advance Premium Tax Credits and the Shared Responsibility Payment also known as the individual mandate penalty for not having health insurance.
