Changing Your Plan During Open Enrollment

You can change your plan during ObamaCare’s health insurance marketplace open enrollment. You’ll have to switch your plan or keep your plan by Jan 1st. This is true no matter when you enrolled in your marketplace health plan. In most cases you will get a notice letting you know whether your plan will automatically renew or not and whether or not you have to take action. Read more... Consider another option before you keep your current plan or switch to Obamacare.Switch to a better Plan...

Is this the Beginning of the end for Obamacare?

The president’s signature legislation is facing a new Supreme Court challenge. If successful, the majority of states that did not establish state-based health insurance exchanges would be free of IRS penalties on their employers and individuals. Read More.

ObamaCare Premiums May Rise as Much as 20%

People shopping for health insurance under Obamacare starting this weekend can expect insurance premiums to be an average of 5.6 percent higher than last year, although that average reflects changes to premiums that will fall in some cases, and rise as much as 20 percent in others, according to a private estimate. In one state, Colorado, premiums are expected to jump 35 percent for some plans, according to an analysis by PriceWaterhouseCoopers. Read More.

ObamaCare Architect You Should Know

Jonathan Gruber, the MIT professor who has touted the “stupidity of the American voter” as a reason why Obamacare passed, was paid $400,000 in July to advise Vermont Governor Peter Shumlin (D) on how to finance a government-run health care system in that state. According to Watchdog.org, Shumlin’s office announced in July that it would pay that amount for advice on how to proceed. But the website said Shumlin’s office has declined to reveal anything about its plans for nearly two years. Read More.

ObamaCare Enrollment 2.0

Bringing new people on — which is key to keeping insurers in the program and stabilizing the new markets — willbe harder than in year one. The individuals who were most eager to get coverage have already done so, and the remaining uninsured population knows remarkably little about what the law offers. About 90 percent don’t know open enrollment begins this month, according to a recent survey by the Kaiser Family Foundation. More For more options go to Get a quote for better health insurance.

Over 214,000 Doctors will not participate in ACA Plans in 2015

Over 214,000 doctors won't participate in the new plans under the Affordable Care Act (ACA,) analysis of a new survey by Medical Group Management Association shows. That number of 214,524, estimated by American Action Forum, is through May 2014, but appears to be growing due to plans that force doctors to take on burdensome costs. It's also about a quarter of the total number of 893,851 active professional physicians reported by the Kaiser Family Foundation. In January, an estimated 70% of California's physicians were not participating in Covered California plans. Here are some of the reasons why: 1. Reimbursements under Obamacare are at bottom-dollar - they are even lower than Medicare reimbursements, which are already significantly below market rates. "It is estimated that where private plans pay $1.00 for a service, Medicare pays $0.80, and ACA exchange plans are now paying about $0.60," a study by the think-tank American Action Forum finds. "For example, Covered California plans are setting their plan fee schedules in line with that of Medi-Cal-California's Medicaid Program-which means exchange plans are cutting provider reimbursement by up to 40 percent." 2. Doctors are expected to take on more patients to make up for the lost revenue, but that's not happening, because primary care doctors already have more patients than they can handle. "Furthermore, physicians are worried that exchange plan patients will be sicker than the average patient because they may have been without insurance for extended periods of time, and therefore will require more of the PCPs time at lower pay," says the study. The study also points to two reasons that doctors might not get paid at all: 3. An MGMA study indicates that 75% of ACA patients that had seen doctors had chosen plans with high deductibles. Given that most of the patients are low-income, doctors are concerned that the patients cannot meet the deductibles and they will get stuck with the bill. 4. HHS requires that insurers cover customers for an additional 90 days after they have stopped paying their premiums: the insurer covers the first 30 - but, it's up to the doctor to recoup payment for the last 60 days. This is the number one reason providers are opting to not participate in the exchange plans. Currently, about a million people have failed to pay their premiums and had their plans canceled. So, Obamacare is asking doctors to take on sicker patients for less money, with the risk of not getting paid at all? No wonder doctors are running from these plans!

Impact of Affordable Care Act: Health Care Costs Down -

"According to the Congressional Budget Office, the Affordable Care Act (ACA), often referred to as "Obamacare," will cut the federal budget deficit by a $100 billion. That despite adding health coverage for about 10 million people, by federal estimates. Paul Van de Water, a senior fellow at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, says the reform has been able to do this because it's had real success at one of its key goals: holding down the cost of health care." This statement fails to mention that one of the factors that make up "cost" are the premiums that consumers pay as well as co-pays. Yes, many of the Obamacare plans have lower premiums and have forced insurance companies to keep their premiums artificially lower for the last 2 years. Starting in 2015 we will see the insurance companies defy the Obama administration and raise the rates to reflect the actual market conditions. Premiums reflect the cost of keeping people insured. If more people are insured that would normally not get coverage, due to their condition that the insurers would consider "risky" or "expensive", then rates in a free market would naturally rise to offset this cost. That's what will happen in 2015. So this statement is a bit premature since it only factors in the results of the last 2 years. Let's compare those 2 years to the next 2 years. Premiums will continue to rise as well as deductibles. As subscribers to Obamacare plans learn that more doctors will be refusing to serve them the backlash will be seen more readily.