Today’s Healthcare – Tips to quell the confusion on finding affordable health care plans for families.
With the passing of Obamacare, also known as “The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act” commonly abbreviated “ACA”, Healthcare has become an even more confusing subject to navigate. My goal here is to give you a few short tips and an understanding of a few important points on the new healthcare rules and how they work.
I must confess, when researching this subject it occurred to me that I always took health insurance for granted, never considering the History of health insurance. As it turns out, employers started offering health benefits in the early 1940’s as a way of circumventing World War II wage and price controls. Because they were barred from offering higher salaries to attract workers, employers offered health insurance instead.
The key word in that paragraph is Employers but what about individuals?
As most of us already know, most large companies (employers) have traditionally offered health insurance benefits but small business, restaurant and retail companies have not, leaving many Americans without insurance. Love it or hate it, the “ACA” act was passed into law to force all employers into offering insurance while at the same time…wait for it…forcing all individuals to sign up for health insurance. Yep, that means you! Job or no job you MUST get health insurance. I realize “force” is a strong word, but it is important to understand that if you do not comply with the “ACA” act fines will be imposed by the I.R.S. If you do not have health insurance.
So the big question is “How do you get Insured?” aka Enrolled!
The federal government and state governments have set up Health care Exchange websites for you to enroll. Keep in mind there is a limited enrollment period and if you do not enroll during the Open Enrollment Period of November 15, 2014–February 15, 2015 you could possibly be facing fines.
What are some of the benefits of the new “ACA”?
Kids under 19 cannot be denied coverage for pre-existing conditions
- Elimination of lifetime and annual limits on coverage
- Preventive care is covered with no deductibles
- my favorite…you can appeal insurance company decisions!
Have you ever been denied payment by your health insurance provider? Under the new law you can appeal decisions not to pay your claim. If the appeal doesn’t work directly with your insurance company you can have a third party appeal process. Seems a bit more fair to me under that rule.
With the “ACA” being over 3000 pages I could never possibly touch on everything here but my friends at United Healthcare have a number of excellent educational videos to help answer all your in-depth questions. I highly recommend you stop by their website and review their information on Health Reform and get ahead of the curve before open enrollment is over. If you already have health insurance, it won’t hurt to get up to speed on the “The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act” because it is more than likely here to stay.
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