Thousands of people every week visit my blog posts explaining different aspects of health care reform from enrolling through Covered California, income requirements, and Medi-Cal eligibility questions. Many people leave comments or suggestions to help other readers of the posts. The Obamacare question and answer forum is supported, oddly enough, by my health insurance clients. These health insurance consumers are supporting a website viewed by thousands of people each week with questions about health insurance.
Clients help fund Health Care Reform forum
To be perfectly honest, I only started this website and blog as a marketing tool for my services as a health insurance agent. In the initial phase of the Covered California I was researching different questions because the “experts” at Covered California could not give a straight answer. Since my method of memorizing facts and processes involves writing it down, I figured I would just flip the information into a blog post so others could benefit from my research.
All comments and questions receive a reply
Thousands of people view my blog posts on what income qualifies for Covered California, uploading documents to their account, or how Medi-Cal works. There have been over 1500 comments on the blogs. Most of these comments are viewers asking questions about their particular situation. I reply to all comments and questions to the best of my ability and the most current information. Unfortunately, Covered California can change their online enrollment system overnight and make my answer invalid.
Thanks to my small base of health insurance clients, I’m able to maintain a toll-free website that answers many questions from thousands of people about the Affordable Care Act. I also try to answer all comments/questions to the blog posts, email, and telephone calls.
Covered California is complicated
I probably have received twice as many email questions and half as many telephone calls as blog post comments asking questions. Like the online comments, I try to respond as soon as possible to the consumer’s question. Sometimes I have to do a little bit of research especially if it involves questions regarding the IRS and Forms 1095, 8962 or 8965. But I figure if a person is so desperate for answers they are willing to contact a stranger, then their situation must be pretty serious. I know that I have always deeply appreciated experts who have freely given their advice to my quixotic questions in the past.
Websites do cost money to operate
The knowledge I post and the questions I answer by email or phone are all free of charge. It is the commissions I receive – from the relatively few number of clients I have – that enables me to keep writing and answering questions. There are advertisements on my website and they generate a very modest amount of revenue. That advertising revenue essentially keeps the website functioning. The ad income helps pay for the servers, technical service, backups, and additional software costs to keep the website secure from hackers. (See: How much do health insurance agents earn?)
Answering questions inspire more blog posts
The simple truth is that answering all these questions keeps the information fresh in my mind. The Affordable Care Act has a variety of different pieces that don’t always seem to connect together. From immigration to income, Covered California to Medi-Cal, there is no central location for all the differing rules and conditions that govern the eligibility for receiving the health care premium tax credit assistance. I like to think that fielding a variety of questions across numerous health care topics makes me a better resource for my clients. On more than one occasion a reader has asked a question that I had to research and it eventually turned into post about that topic.
My clients keep the website up for thousands of people to read
Three of the top five most viewed blog posts three months of 2016 on www.insuremekevin.com answer questions about ACA income, Covered California and Medi-Cal.
I almost feel like sending my clients a thank you note for their generous contribution to keep this health care forum available to anyone free of charge. By my clients placing their faith in me to handle their health insurance enrollment and futures issues, I’m able to write Obamacare blog posts that are viewed by tens of thousands and answer questions from folks I’ve never met. My clients have helped thousands of individuals and families figure out Covered California, Medi-Cal or their taxes.
It’s good karma
I suppose I should try to figure out how to slip into my marketing that by becoming my client a consumer is helping perpetuate a free-of-charge answer forum on Obamacare. But I don’t have a marketing pitch. I don’t call people trying to sell them insurance. I think that is part of the value of my blog posts – I’m not trying to sell anything. I don’t leave out a special ingredient in my blog posts that necessitates the reader to call me to get the rest of the recipe. If the content of my blog posts on Obamacare helps people figure out how to enroll, complete an enrollment, navigate Medi-Cal, or do their taxes, that’s great.
Thank you
We are all in this together. I don’t have all the answers. But when I get call from someone with a question I haven’t thought of, I know there must be several hundred people in the same situation. With a little bit of research I can put together a blog post that might save thousands of people thousands of hours of waiting on hold to try and get the answer from some bureaucrat. To all my clients, I feel confident in saying that thousands of my website readers appreciate your association with me and allowing this website to remain toll-free.
Sincerely,
Kevin Knauss
