Kevin Knauss: Health, History, Travel, Insurance
Posts on the development and implementation of the California health insurance market place, application, account, enrollment, termination.
The real story is that rates, especially for older people, have risen so much in the individual and family market that health insurance under the IRS definition of being unaffordable can happen at a very young age. Below are examples of the least expensive Bronze plan rates in Region 1 and Region 3. Within a thirty minute drive between Auburn (Region 3) and Grass Valley (Region 1) in Northern California the rates can be sharply higher.
Upon submitting your application for 2018, the Covered California system checks your eligibility for 2017. If the system finds you ineligible, which you mostly likely are because you are not applying for 2017 coverage, the system automatically generates a letter informing you that you are not eligible for 2017 coverage.
I don’t mind enrolling people into Medi-Cal. I’m a one-person operation and I enjoy chatting with people. But I have to draw the line with people who insist on me answering a million questions and then failing to give me the appropriate information to complete their Covered California Medi-Cal eligibility application. I also will not knowingly participate in any misrepresentation or fraud so a person can either be enrolled in Medi-Cal or be determined eligible for the tax credits through Covered California.
Health insurance companies are smarter than your average house cat. They have reams of data about health care claims and demographics. They can forecast, with reasonable confidence, that altering some of the member cost-sharing benefits may reduce their final exposure to pay member claims. It has also been suggested that consumers who purchase health insurance off-exchange, paying the full premium rate with no subsidy, may be more judicious in how they use health care services. In other word, off-exchange consumer mays tend to file fewer health care expense claims. This results in lower rates to the consumer.
The Covered California agent service representative said I was about the fifth agent he worked with to identify the missing dependent tax status question. He could see the question in his system, but I couldn’t see the question on my client application. When he indicated that Debbie was to be claimed as a dependent of Susan, the APTC monthly subsidy was awarded.
Families don’t all have to be with the same carrier either. Some parents have chosen a PPO plan for their children because certain doctors who are treating their children are in-network with the PPO plan. The parents then choose a less expensive HMO plan for themselves. It could be that a family member needs surgery during the next year. That person might opt for a Gold or Platinum plan to reduce out-of-pocket expenses while the other family members hang out in the Bronze or Silver metal tier level.
If you try to terminate the 2018 enrollment, you will get an error code if date you are specifying is in December or earlier. This is because you can’t terminate an enrollment that has not started. If you try and change the effective date, while the enrollment year is still listed as 2018, you will be told the termination date will be 1/31/2018. If you follow through with the termination, you will be enrolled for the month of January for a plan you don’t want.
Because of all of the numerous ways a provide network search can give incorrect results, I am now recommending that people print out a list of providers in their area. Usually the list can be created in a PDF format that is searchable with Adobe Acrobat Reader. You can look through the list of doctor names alphabetically. You might see Dr. Balabat and realize that is your doctor when you thought the name was spelled Baladat.
The health plans and Covered California may give lip service to the value of the agent community, but it is not reflected in the compensation we receive. I’m not trying to get rich as an insurance agent. My net revenue listed on my Schedule C for 2016 was $34,000. If the new compensation schedules significantly erode my insurance revenue then I will have to find other income streams. Maybe Covered California will hire me to answer phone calls; I hear they have a great benefits package.
One of my clients received a letter from Covered California notifying her that her monthly premium would jump from $63.64 to $993.45 per month. The letter casually stated that the premium increase was 147.2%. The client is a household of two people one eligible for Covered California and the spouse is on Medicare. When I went through the renewal procedure on the updated Covered California website, I had to re-confirm that the spouse was on Medicare. The final eligibility results were that the Medicare spouse could select a plan at the full premium amount while the primary applicant could select a plan with the monthly subsidies.
