Kevin Knauss: Health, History, Travel, Insurance
Covered California consumers are penalized for having the good fortune of their household income’s increase. To add another layer of insult, if the consumer makes over 400% of the federal poverty level, they have to repay all the monthly tax credit subsidies they received during the year and pay for an artificially inflated Silver plan rate. Ouch!
QR codes can be read by a smart phone to open a website, map, or other internet function. From the Medicare description above, the QR code would be used for quality control and not be able to open any website with the beneficiary’s information on it.
Under the Department’s new rule, AHPs can serve employers in a city, county, state, or a multi-state metropolitan area, or a particular industry nationwide. Sole proprietors as well as their families will be permitted to join such plans. In addition to providing more choice, the new rule makes insurance more affordable for small businesses. Just like plans for large employers, these plans will be customizable to tailor benefit design to small businesses’ needs. These plans will also be able to reduce administrative costs and strengthen negotiating power with providers from larger risk pools and greater economies of scale.
The steps for reporting a change in CalHEERS have been significantly reduced. It is no longer required to provide reason and event date information multiple times when reporting a change for your consumer like address change, income updates, etc. Currently, if a household reported a change, the user was prompted to enter the reason and date multiple times, and even when not warranted. This has been updated to only ask reason and date if a household member is to be removed from the application or the plan. If the member is a primary contact or primary tax filer or primary care giver, then an option will be provided to identify a current household member in the role.
The health plan line-up includes the standard small group benefit design metal tier plans and a mix of what Oscar calls “Classic” and “Saver” benefit designs. The Classic and Saver benefit designs will have lower premiums because the members have a higher maximum out-of-pocket amount or a coinsurance percentage.
For eligible members, there is no additional cost to participate in this program or for services provided by Landmark. Covered services provided by non-Landmark providers through a referral from Landmark may be subject to cost-sharing based on members’ health plan benefits and coverage.
The increased revenue is also in light of reducing health plan assessment from 4% of the gross premiums down to 3.75% for the individual and family plan market. The proposed operating budget for FY 2018-19 is $340.2 million. This represents a 6.55 increase over the FY 2017-18 budget or an increase of $20,686,242.
It has been pointed out that several features or bends of the American River are not illustrated. I don’t believe it was the intent of the map maker to accurately depict river but to note its relative position to the mines. The distances of 25 miles to the lower mines and of 50 miles to the upper mines is pretty accurate. The lower mines were also known as Mormon Island for the first group of miners who did extensive mining after the initial discovery of gold by Marshall. The distance to the upper mines, site of Marshall’s gold discovery is also relatively accurate considering hilly terrain that had to be traversed to get to the location.
We spent one week in the central London area and took train trips to Brighton Beach and Bath. All areas exceeded our expectations on all levels. We bought some Radney purses in Bath, a rare 1848 map of Sacramento in London, some cool Mod clothes in Brighton Beach, and saw the musicals Book of Mormon and Kinky Boots in the Piccadilly Circus area. We also toured Kensington Palace, the Banqueting Hall, and the Roman Spas in Bath, rode the British Airways i360 in Brighton Beach, and toured the Royal Observatory in Greenwich.
In their conclusion, Covered California notes that health plans have already begun their decision-making process for participation and rates for 2019. The decisions the health insurance companies make will be based on existing federal rules. If the rules and policies to stabilize the marketplace are not implemented in the next couple of months, consumers will most likely face premium increases of 12% to 32% in 2019.
