Kevin Knauss: Health, History, Travel, Insurance
Posts on the development and implementation of the California health insurance market place, application, account, enrollment, termination.
We can be fairly certain that the big push to enroll college students into new ACA health plans will result in a large portion of the students channeled into Medi-Cal plans. It is estimated that are 480,000 young adults age 19-29 that will be eligible for Medi-Cal2. If we assume a full-time student is able to work 20 hours per week, that monthly wage still puts them below the 138% of the federal poverty line ($15,865) and automatic Medi-Cal.
Covered California announced that it has yanked Alameda Alliance for Health (AAH)from its health plans in the state exchange. The trigger for removal was that AAH had not been granted a material modification to its licensed from the Department of Managed Health Care to engage in commercial insurance sales for 2014. This lack of ability to sell health plans to individuals and businesses through Covered California technically puts AAH out of compliance with the contract they signed with the insurance exchange to offer health plans to the public.
The insurance companies know more about the variety of reasons for plan closures than they are telling the public. The CEO’s of major health plans should be brought before congress an asked about the real reasons they are closing plans.
The eligibility requirements to receive premium assistance for the new ACA health plans offered through either the federal or state websites is based on a household’s estimated income in 2014. Past federal tax returns are a great starting point and guide, but an individual or family’s wages may have significantly changed in 2013 and may change again in 2014.
As if Covered California doesn’t have enough to do with fixing website problems, enrolling Certified Enrollment Counselors and certifying insurance agents to sell their health plans, they now have to launch a $5 million grant program to create regional Navigators. It is unfortunate that the rules associated with the Affordable Care Act mandate that states that set up their own exchanges must also create a Navigator program that looks virtually identical to the fledgling Certified Enrollment Entities and Counselors In-Person Assistance Program.
Many Californians are seeing their individual and family health insurance premiums jump with the inclusion of all the new Affordable Care Act benefits and regulations. A small sampling of the new ACA rates shows that Covered California individual health plans are comparably priced with current and future small group plans offered in California.
Registered domestic partnerships are receiving a financial break under the Affordable Care Act not available to married couples. For married couples, if either one is offered employer sponsored health insurance that automatically excludes the spouse and children from receiving tax credits to lower monthly premiums on health plans purchased through the state health insurance exchange of the ACA*.
I used to repair old mechanical clocks so I got used to being frustrated when a 100 year time piece wouldn’t keep proper time or chime on the hour. None of us expected that we would have to tinker with the internal settings of our web browsers just to get the Covered California website to work properly. But here we, trouble shooting modern day web portals like they were antique clocks that don’t keep time.
Agents that are certified to sell Covered California health insurance sign an agreement which in part states that the agent will fairly represent all the different plans. I have faith that all the agents will accurately represent all the plans, but they are under various incentives and realities that may distort some agent’s presentations to clients.
Designating an agent to help you enroll in a new individual and family plan or a small group plan offered through Covered California is pretty simple. Not only can the agent help with the application when he or she is your designated agent, a health insurance agent also provides another level of customer service for future changes.
