I was at a networking function the other day and health care reform was a popular topic. Most people tend to think their health insurance premiums will go up in 2014. Some are nervous they will need to change to a "lesser" plan. Whether this is true or not remains to be seen. We should
Over the past month there have been a few changes to the Affordable Care Act. The most notable is the push back of the employer mandate to 2015. This will give employers with 50 or more employees another year to figure out what there going to do with health insurance. As for individuals and families,
I recently read an article that details the growing relationship between employer sponsored 401k plans and employer sponsored health insurance plans. Over the last 40 years the industry has seen pension plans go away and shift to 401k plans. This has taken the responsibility of retirement out of the employers hands and into the employees.
On May 23 Covered California annouced the 13 health insurance plans that will offer health care coverge through the exchange. You will find large carriers such as Kaiser and Anthem Blue Cross on this list. What I find interesting are the carriers not on the list. Carriers such as Aetna, Cigna and United HealthCare chose to
Can a business with 51+ employees which offers health insurance still be penalized? The answer is YES. If an employeer offers "unaffordable" health insurance to his/her employees the company will be fined. The fine for offering unaffordable health insurance is $3,000 per employee. If you have 60 employees and are found to offer unaffordable health insurance you will see
Lately I have been asked a lot of questions regarding the fines/taxes individuals and businesses will receive for not purchasing or offering health insurance.Starting with individuals. The reality is you do not have to buy insurance. If you are currently uninsured, you can stay uninsured in 2014. The only difference being that the federal government will now
I was able to attend "Covered California's" first town hall meeting yesterday. The event was held at UC Riverside. For those of your who are unaware Covered California is the state health exchange that California has created to facilitate the new health care form act here in California. It was very well done with a
I wanted to give you a brief run down of what we know about the new health care plans for individuals & family plans - meaning, anyone that does not get insurance through their employer. To begin with all new plans must cover essential health benefits such as doctor visits, hospitalization, emergency care, maternity, pediatric
For better or for worse, it looks like the recent health care reform is a go...and in fact it looks like they are going to hit all the targeted dates. I found this article on-line by Allison Bell that talks about the testimony of U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius before a congressional panel:"U.S. Health and
Well I finally decided to start a blog. I am constantly asked questions about Health Insurance and Health Care reform. I figured if I was getting so many questions, it was really only the tip of the iceberg of people that didn't understand the implications or the new laws. So ... I decided to do the next best thing