Kevin Knauss: Health, History, Travel, Insurance
Posts related to health and life insurance in California, Covered California, rates, subsidies, short term medical and travel plans.
Health insurance is absurdly expensive. When you retire, there is strong impetus to conserve money. Consequently, you will be looking at health insurance options that minimize monthly costs. Fortunately, there are a variety of combinations of health insurance options to reduce the monthly premiums.
Dental insurance is analogous to gambling. You sit in front of the slot machine, put in the quarters, pull the arm, and most of the time you win nothing. However, gambling is entertainment, so you had some fun. Occasionally, you hit the triple teeth and win your money back plus a little extra.
An investigation by CDI found that certain insurers are denying coverage, or offering Life, Disability Income or Long-Term Care Insurance coverage under different conditions, to Truvada/PrEP users.
If the carriers feel threatened by the HCSM plans, they should lobby the legislature to ban those plans as well. Don’t use health insurance agents, under the guise of retribution from Covered California, to achieve the objective of limiting the enrollment in these plans. I completely get that if all the healthy people leave the pool, the carriers are going to have problems paying claims, and may exit the market altogether. We don’t want this to happen. But I’m just the agent. Don’t shoot me to protect your business model.
The value of dental insurance is questionable in the minds of many consumers. And I don’t necessarily disagree with that evaluation. However, the importance of regular dental exams, cleanings, and hygiene cannot be disputed. If dental insurance keeps a person on track with good dental hygiene and habits, they will be spared the expense of expensive dental procedures in the future.
The single payer proposals I have read deal mainly with the consumer side regarding access to care and reduced patient costs. What seems to be missing is recognition that medical groups and hospital have built their budgets around the existing health insurance plan reimbursement rates. There is no mechanism in the single payer proposals to limit the costs such as the cost of labor (nurses) which is a significant financial element for hospitals. Until we get a handle on the cost of health care, health insurance rates will continue to rise and a viable single payer proposal, where you have more than one or two hospitals participating, will only be a dream.
If you have to move out of your county because of the wildfires you may be entitled to a Special Enrollment Period. California is broken into 19 different rating regions. Los Angeles County is actually two regions, 15 and 16. If you move to a different region, you have a qualifying event for a Special Enrollment Period IF you already have health insurance.
Not all family members have to have the same carrier either. Some family members can enroll with a more expensive PPO plan while other individuals enroll in an HMO from the same company or completely different carrier. I have clients where some family members have chosen the Blue Shield PPO plan and other household members are with a less expensive Kaiser plan.
You can’t assume that all hospitals part of a larger network are all in-network with the same carrier if one is in-network. In Butte County, Blue Shield contracts with all the Enloe associated hospitals. But Anthem Blue Cross only contacts with Enloe Medical Center – Esplanade. The converse is also true. Blue Cross doesn’t typically contract with Sutter hospitals for their individual and family plans. However, in Amador County, Sutter Amador is an in-network hospital for Blue Cross.
If a consumer does not like their plan or rate, they must make changes to their account and actively renew their coverage by December 15th for a plan effective date of January 1, 2019. Changes to the account and plan selection between December 16th and January 15th will have an effective date of February 1, 2019.
