Covered California and the Challenged Athletes Foundation Team Up to Promote Open Enrollment and the Dec. 15 Deadline for Coverage During All of 2020
While Covered California’s Open Enrollment period runs through Jan. 31, 2020, consumers must enroll by the end of Dec. 15 to have their coverage begin on Jan. 1.
Covered California is teaming up with the Challenged Athletes Foundation, to host a Holiday Boot Camp to promote the importance of health, fitness and the open enrollment period.
The Boot Camp will be led by Paralympian, 2019 Parapan Gold Medalist and World Record Holder Scout Bassett and Nike Master Trainer Betina Gozo.
Californians who choose to go without coverage could face a penalty when they file their 2020 taxes.
Covered California continued its statewide open enrollment campaign by teaming up with the Challenged Athletes Foundation in San Diego for its Holiday Boot Camp on Tuesday. The event comes as Covered California alerts consumers about a critical upcoming deadline. Consumers must sign up by Dec. 15 if they want their coverage to start on Jan. 1.
For three years running, thanks to a combination of the way the ACA's premiums subsidy formula works and the Silver Loading workaround, several million low-income people are eligible for fully ACA-compliant healthcare policies which end up costing them NOTHING in premiums after federal tax credits are applied.
Here's why: Under the ACA's subsidy formula, if you earn between 100% - 400% of the Federal Poverty Line ($12,490 - $49,960/yr if you're single), you're eligible for subsidies which bring the cost of the benchmark Silver ACA plan down to between 2.06 - 9.78% of your income, on a sliding scale.
If you earn less than 200% FPL (just under $25,000), you also qualify for heavy cost sharing reduction assistance as well...but only if you enroll in a Silver plan.
So, let's suppose you earn exactly $25,000/yr (just over 200% FPL). At that income, you'd qualify for subsidies bringing the benchmark Silver down to 6.5% of your income, or $135/month. If the benchmark plan costs, $600 at full price, you'd therefore be eligible for $465/month.
The clock is ticking on picking the best health insurance plan for 2020. High quality and affordable health coverage is available through HealthSource RI, and Rhode Islanders have until December 23rd to purchase coverage that starts on January 1st.
Getting health insurance is even more important this year because coverage is now required in the state of Rhode Island. As of January 1st, residents who don’t have health insurance will pay a tax penalty when filing for the prior year.
AGAIN: The federal shared responsibility requirement (aka the individual mandate penalty) may have been zeroed out by Congressional Republicans, but in addition to the District of Columbia, four states (Massachusetts, New Jersey, California and Rhode Island) have reinstated it at the state level.
A few weeks ago, I did a write-up about a concerning development at HealthCare.Gov: The growing push under the Trump Administration to not only partner with 3rd-party web brokers (which has been done since the first days of the ACA under the Obama Administration), but to actively promote those third-party brokers over HealthCare.Gov itself.
In and of itself, this wouldn't be too problematic as long as people are still ultimately enrolling in fully ACA-compliant policies and receiving ACA subsidies if they're eligible for them. Hell, one of these 3rd-party authorized web brokers even has a banner ad at the top of my website...which I only allow because this particular one only sells on-exchange ACA-compliant policies.
All private health plans offered on the MNsure marketplace limit the out-of-pocket cost to enrollees for insulin prescriptions in 2020. Each of MNsure's four insurers are offering either low-cost or free insulin benefits, meaning consumers purchasing plans through MNsure will pay no more than 25 dollars per month for insulin.
"The rising cost of insulin has put a huge financial burden on many families across Minnesota," said Nate Clark, MNsure CEO. "It’s so important to have access to insulin at an affordable price. We encourage all those looking for prescription insulin coverage to check out the plan options at MNsure.org."
Medicaid: Completed applications/redeterminations processed through the integrated eligibility system: 29,692
I'm assuming this means that they've joined several other state exchanges and are front-loading their auto-renewals of everyone currently enrolled. I'm further assuming that of those 99,322 people, 10,281 of them are new enrollees. If so, that means they'll have to enroll just 11,744 more people over the next four weeks to beat last year's 111,066 total.
Connect for Health Colorado® Urges Residents to Shop by December 15 for January Coverage
Nearly 42,000 Coloradans signed up for a health insurance plan through Connect for Health Colorado’s Marketplace between Nov. 1 and Nov. 30. Approximately 70 percent of applicants qualify for financial help in the first month of the Open Enrollment period. Residents must sign up for a plan by Dec. 15, 2019 to have coverage in place by Jan. 1, 2020, however, Open Enrollment runs through Jan. 15, 2020.
Coloradans can sign up for a Marketplace plan online, over the phone or in person with a certified enrollment expert. Connect for Health Colorado has 23 enrollment centers to provide residents with walk-in help at different times throughout the week. Residents can also schedule an appointment.
I have a different California-specific post coming later this afternoon, but I stumbled across a mildly interesting bit of data and figured this would be a good time to share it while I wait to be able to post that one.
As you may recall, while the ACA required that most individual market major medical healthcare policies sold have to comply with full ACA regulations, there were some exceptions to this. The biggest exception made was for major medical plans which had been continuously enrolled in since before the ACA was signed into law in March 2010.
These plans were grandfathered in, and so are appropriately called "Grandfathered Plans", and applied to perhaps 5 million people or so back in 2014, when ACA-compliance became mandatory for newly-sold policies.
Washington Healthplanfinder Urges Customers to Act Fast for Jan. 1 Coverage
The Washington Health Benefit Exchange (Exchange) today is warning customers without 2020 coverage that Sunday, Dec. 15 at 11:59 p.m. is the deadline to sign up for health and dental plans through Washington Healthplanfinder that begin on Jan. 1.
Since the open enrollment period began, more than 187,000 Washingtonians have already selected 2020 Qualified Health Plans (QHP) using Washington Healthplanfinder, including around 15,000 residents who signed up for health coverage over the past week. With traffic to wahealthplanfinder.org expected to continue rising, customers needing 2020 coverage are directed to submit an application and lock in their plan selection immediately to avoid any potential delays.
I'm just putting this out there today because I know there's gonna be a bunch of eye-rolling stories completely misunderstanding the data later on this week.
Last Wednesday, the Week 4 HealthCare.Gov Snapshot Enrollment Report came out and showed a "mysterious" 41% increase in ACA exchange enrollments for the week vs. last year...jumping from 500,437 QHP selections to 703,556 QHP selections for the corresponding week this year.
This Wednesday, the Week 5 snapshot report will come out and will almost certainly show a "mysterious" large drop in ACA exchange enrollments vs. last year...from 772,250 down to perhaps 500,000 or so.
