COVID-19 & Healthcare

HHS: The Health Insurance Marketplace: What You Need to Know

by

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services posted this blog post to assist consumers with HealthCare.gov at http://www.hhs.gov/healthcare/facts/blog/2013/12/marketplace-what-you-need-toknow.html.

The Health Insurance Marketplace: What You Need to Know

Posted December 4, 2013

Since it launched in October, we have made dramatic improvements to HealthCare.gov, taking it from a system that didn’t perform nearly as well as it should, to one that can help you learn about your new health insurance options, create an account, learn about financial help you may be able to receive, compare your options and select a plan.   If you’ve tried HealthCare.gov and been unsatisfied with your experience, or if you’ve been wondering if you’re eligible for a more affordable option under the health care law, here are some tips for you.  Remember, you MUST enroll in a plan by December 23, and pay your premium, to get coverage on January 1, 2014.   

Haven’t tried yet?  Review your options.

See Plans Before I ApplyWe have added a new feature to healthcare.gov that lets you “window shop” for the types of coverage as well as discounts on premiums and other costs that might be available to you.  Log on to healthcare.gov and click “See Plans.”  You’ll only need to answer a few simple questions to see detailed information about each Marketplace health insurance plan offered in your state – before you apply.  Using this new tool you can compare plans, understand covered benefits, review physician and hospital networks, and more – before you login or complete an application.

Consumers can now window shop on HealthCare.gov

by

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

Consumer Reports posts Hooray! You can now window shop on HealthCare.gov.

Quietly late last night, HealthCare.gov acquired an incredibly useful new feature. Without logging in or even creating an account, you can now see all kinds of details about plans available in your area, with the exact premiums for someone your age. This is a huge help for shoppers in the 36 states served by the portal, who up until now had to go through the long and not always smooth process of filling out an entire application before they could see this information.

I’ve been playing with it a bit, and it works perfectly, even in the midst of what’s one of the busiest days for the site in many weeks. You can filter by metal level or insurance company, and for each plan you can click through and see details about deductibles, coinsurance, etc.

You will also—and this is very important for a lot of people—find links to the provider directory for each plan, and the list of preferred drugs.

But what it will not show you is the size of any subsidy you might have coming to you to lower the cost of your premium. For that, you still have to go through the application process. But there’s a three-step workaround that’s pretty easy:

1. Figure out as best you can what your household Modified Adjusted Gross Income (MAGI) is likely to be in 2014. For this, you can use our cheat sheet that describes exactly how this works. It’s the number you’re going to enter in Step 2.

2.   Go to the Kaiser Family Foundation’s subsidy calculator, which in our opinion is the best of several available. Fill it out, using the MAGI number you came up with in Step 1.  The subsidy it shows you, if any, is given on an annual basis. Divide by 12 to find out what it comes to every month. You’ll need this figure to complete Step 3.

3.  Now, go to HealthCare.gov. On the home page, click on the leftmost medallion that says, “See plans before I apply.” Fill out the requested information, and, presto, you’ll see the plans and can explore them to your heart’s content. To find the actual premium you’ll be paying, simply subtract the amount of your subsidy.

‘How to Enroll in the Health Insurance Marketplace’ Seminar Tuesday

by

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

A free public seminar, “How to Enroll in the Health Insurance Marketplace,” is scheduled for 5:30 p.m. Tuesday at the Quincie Douglas Library, 1585 E. 36th Street, Tucson

The seminar will address the health insurance marketplace, who the Arizona insurance carriers are, how to determine if you are eligible for a subsidy and how to enroll. Navigators from the Tucson Urban League and the Pima County Access Program (PCAP) will be on hand to answer enrollment questions.

Event collaborators include the Pima County/Tucson Women’s Commission, Quincie Douglas Library, Tucson Urban League and PCAP. Alison Hughes, retired University of Arizona public health faculty member and immediate past women’s commission chair, will speak. She will be joined by Debra Johnson, Urban League navigator and a women’s commission member, along with other navigators or counselors, to assist with enrollment. No reservation is necessary. For further information check the following websites:

www.pima.library.gov

www.pimatucsonwomen.org

www.tucsonurbanleague.org

www.mypcap.org/

h/t Arizona Daily Star

White House says HealthCare.gov now working for ‘vast majority of users’

by

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

The Washington Post reports HealthCare.gov meets deadline for fixes, White House says:

Administration officials announced Sunday that they had met their Saturday deadline for improving HealthCare.gov after completing a series of hardware upgrades and software fixes to the troubled Web site.

A progress report released Sunday morning by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services said: “While we strive to innovate and improve our outreach and systems for reaching consumers, we believe we have met the goal of having a system that will work smoothly for the vast majority of users.” Read the administration report.

Government and outside technical employees have worked round-the-clock for weeks on the fixes so the administration could keep its promise to have the site working smoothly for most people by Nov. 30.

The report served as the basis for a press briefing Sunday morning by Jeffrey Zients, the man President Obama tasked to oversee the fixes.

“The bottom line, HealthCare.gov on Dec. 1 is night and day from where it was on Oct. 1,” when the site was launched, he told reporters.

As a result of the improvements: the average system response time is under 1 second; the error rate is “consistently well below 1 percent”; the online system is stable — not crashing — more than 90 percent of the time; as many as 50,000 shoppers can use the site at the same time, or up to 800,000 visits a day.

Two critical lawsuits to get a hearing in December

by

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

Two critical lawsuits will get a hearing in December.

The lawsuit filed in Maricopa County Superior Court on behalf of 36 Republican legislators and a pair of citizens by lawyers for the Goldwater Institute contends the hospital assessment in the law is a tax that required a 2/3 vote of the Legislature under the state Constitution. It also alleges that allowing the director of the state's Medicaid program to set the assessment and exempt some providers gives him taxing authority that properly belongs to the state Legislature. Judge sets date to hear Medicaid expansion lawsuit:

Maricopa County Superior Court judge Katherine Cooper set a Dec. 9 date to hear the suit filed in September on behalf of 36 Republican state lawmakers and a pair of citizens.

* * *

Brewer's lawyers want Cooper to throw out the suit. They say the plaintiffs don't have standing to sue and lawmakers could sue to stop any law it moves forward.

The Arizona Republic reported, Brewer’s lawyers: Suit challenging Medicaid expansion has no merit:

Arizona lawmakers on the losing side of the Medicaid expansion vote have no legal authority to stop the new law that broadens eligibility for low-income residents, attorneys for Gov. Jan Brewer argued in a court filing Wednesday.

Brewer’s attorneys asked Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Katherine Cooper to dismiss the lawsuit, filed last month by the conservative Goldwater Institute, saying the court should not get involved in a legislative dispute.

The Republican lawmakers “are a disgruntled faction within the Legislature that was outvoted by a bipartisan coalition,” wrote Douglas Northrup, an attorney with Fennemore Craig. “Legislators’ alleged injury is a loss of legislative and political power.”

Three other plaintiffs — two constituents and the state director of Americans for Prosperity — also lack authority to sue, he argued, largely because they can’t show they’ve suffered any harm from the portion of the law that’s being challenged, which is an assessment on hospitals to help pay for expansion.

“If the court found that standing to challenge a law’s constitutionality is found with such tenuous allegations of injury, every constituent whose legislator voted against an allegedly unconstitutional bill would have standing,” Northrup wrote.

He argued that the Arizona Supreme Court recognized the limits of legislative standing in a 2003 case, ruling that individual legislators did not have authority to challenge then-Gov. Janet Napolitano’s line-item veto authority.