Kevin Knauss: Health, History, Travel, Insurance
Posts related to the California Premium Subsidy, which is a health insurance subsidy targeted on income of 400% - 600%.
Unfortunately, many of us don’t fully factor in the costs of doing business when we think of our monthly income stream. Consequently, many small self-employed individuals may have applied and received unemployment benefits greater than the actual net taxable income received during normal business operations.
The new California Franchise Tax Board (FTB) 3895 is a close mirror image of the federal 1095A. The FTB 3895 statement reports important data regarding your health insurance through Covered California such as the monthly premiums, Second Lowest Cost Silver Plan, and how much Covered California paid to your health insurance company to lower your premiums.
The Shop and Compare Tool calculated the subsidized rates for each Silver 70 health plan for 2021. When compared to 2020, the monthly health insurance premium for the 55-year-old individual increased between 25 and 160 percent. Kaiser, the least expensive Silver plan, had the largest dollar increase of $175 per month. Without the Oscar expansion, the Blue Shield HMO Silver 70 would have been the SLCSP, but the much less expensive Oscar Silver plan came in second, $139 lower after the subsidy.
The confusion lies in the statement that the consumer is not eligible for the California Premium Subsidy. The California Premium Subsidy program is completely separate from the federal Premium Tax Credit subsidy. You can be eligible for the federal subsidy but not the State subsidy. If your income is over 400 percent of the federal poverty level, you are not eligible for the federal Premium Tax Credit subsidy, but you may be eligible for the State subsidy.
The failure on the part of Covered California is that they waited two weeks before generating a letter to the consumer explaining the situation. While the letter apologizes for the error, they never really spell out how or why it happened. It is sad the family had to learn from their health plan that their monthly bill was being adjusted.
Joe and Jan report the income change to Covered California in June so the new lower subsidy will take affect July 1. Much to their surprise, instead of a $850 subsidy, they only receive a $500 subsidy. Their health insurance premium will double! Why? Because they already used $7,200 of the new lower $10,200 subsidy at the higher income amount.
There really is no mystery as to why the Covered California income chart doesn’t match the Medi-Cal federal poverty level income table. Covered California is working with two different programs. They must screen for MAGI Medi-Cal eligibility based on current monthly income and the latest federal poverty levels, and, they must also determine the Advance Premium Tax Credit subsidies following IRS guidelines that use the previous year’s federal poverty levels. And if you follow all of that, you are smarter than me!
The Social Security retirement income is really important. Your spouse may be on Medicare, and not seeking health insurance, but if they are receiving Social Security retirement benefits, that income, even though it may not be fully taxed, it must be included in the Modified Adjusted Gross Income. Many families have failed to include the Social Security retirement benefits in their income estimated and then found they earned too much money to qualify for the Premium Tax Credit subsidy and they had to pay it all back.
I was in attendance at a Covered California meeting in Sacramento where agents asked if Covered California was going to publicize the individual mandate penalty in their marketing campaign for open enrollment. Executive Director Peter Lee told the audience that Covered California marketing would focus on the new California Premium Subsidy and not the penalty. But now, Covered California is using the argument that thousands of people don’t know about the penalty, when they are in charge of making California residents aware of the individual mandate penalty.
In the spirit of Covered California and an open market place, agents should be offering information on all health plans available to the individual or family in their region. If a marketing program is designed to restrict consumer information or attempts to steer consumers into a specific health plan, the loser is the consumer. This sort of devious marketing arrangement is made even more egregious when the bait to entice a consumer is a government funded subsidy.
