Covered California

Posts on the development and implementation of the California health insurance market place, application, account, enrollment, termination.

Medi-Cal Estate Recovery and IRS 1095-B confusion

May 27, 2016 By Kevin Knauss 8 Comments

The implementation of Obamacare requires it to be administered by a variety of federal, state, and local government bureaucracies. Many consumers have been caught in a swirl of seemingly conflicting and utterly confusing rules, advice, and government forms. This cauldron of Obamacare confusion is particularly acute among individuals over 55 years old who are subject to California’s Medi-Cal Estate Recovery program. The anxiety instilled in this population is compounded by conflicting IRS 1095 forms that seem to open the door to a large tax bill for the repayment of the premium subsidies they received during the year.

Non-Tax Filers will lose Covered California subsidy

May 6, 2016 By Kevin Knauss Leave a Comment

Covered California will strip the health insurance subsidy from consumers who have not filed their federal taxes beginning on May 16, 2016. Word of the non-tax filer ineligibility for the Obamacare tax credits was released in a summary of updates to the Covered California online application software known as CalHEERS. The release notes for the CalHEERS 16.4 update state that enhancements to the application will include a way for consumers to attest that they have filed their taxes.

Income questions top Covered California agent forum

April 28, 2016 By Kevin Knauss Leave a Comment

Consumers receive letters from Covered California stating that their estimated income doesn’t match with their most recent federal tax return. This has led many consumers to assume that Covered California can actually view a taxpayer’s federal return. Covered California can’t see a consumer’s federal tax return unless they send it to them to verify their income.

Keeping track of Covered California clients

April 20, 2016 By Kevin Knauss 3 Comments

Covered California is not very health insurance agent friendly when it comes to managing an agent’s book of business. Agents seem to be the last to know when Covered California or Medi-Cal makes changes to a client’s account and either strips their premium assistance or dumps them into Medi-Cal. Covered California has developed book of business and conditional eligibility reports for an agent’s clients enrolled in health plans through Covered California.

Blue Shield online Covered California payments not applied for new members

April 14, 2016 By Kevin Knauss Leave a Comment

As of April 2016, when a consumer makes their first month’s payment for their Blue Shield health plan, the money is never applied to their account.

Encrypting emails to protect health insurance consumers

April 14, 2016 By Kevin Knauss Leave a Comment

For independent health insurance agents, such as me, who don’t have access to an already established secure network through a large agency, we have to be more diligent in securing all the different parts of the internet communication puzzle.

Deflating income under 400% to keep health insurance subsidy

April 8, 2016 By Kevin Knauss Leave a Comment

Built into the Affordable Care Act is the loss of the health insurance subsidy when the household income exceeds 400% of the federal poverty line. For older adults whose income might be greater than 400% of the federal poverty line they face losing the Advance Premium Tax Credits that makes their health insurance premiums affordable. In some instances the health insurance premiums can shoot up to over 20% of their income.

Medi-Cal advocate smears health insurance agents

April 7, 2016 By Kevin Knauss Leave a Comment

Medi-Cal advocate Beth Capell smeared the reputation of all health insurance agents by insinuating that agents enroll Medi-Cal eligible children in private plans just for the commissions they derive from those enrollments. Ms. Capell is assuming, incorrectly, that all health agents put money above the best interest of their clients. It’s unclear where Ms. Capell’s animus towards health agents springs from when thousands of agents have assisted tens of thousands of families with enrollment in Covered California and Medi-Cal health plans.

No more letters from Covered California

March 31, 2016 By Kevin Knauss Leave a Comment

In a March update to the Covered California enrollment software, individuals and families who indicated their preferred method of contact was email will actually start to get notifications from Covered California to their email addresses. The email will alert the consumer that there is an electronic letter in their secure Covered California Mailbox. This doesn’t mean Covered California will stop sending out reams of confusing letters to members, it just means that people can read them or delete them online.

Removing a household member from Covered California

March 29, 2016 By Kevin Knauss 5 Comments

There are a variety of reasons why a household member needs to be removed from a family’s Covered California account. In some unfortunate instances a family member has died. Other times a young adult ages-off the plan or a spouse gains other coverage such as Medicare.

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Covered California