<p>lerkin, I do not. But with my luck, they’ll tell me I’m not eligible for the exchange because I have my old plan. </p>
<p>(No really, the staff is that poorly trained.) I don’t want to deal with staff that has no idea what’s going on yet. It was more of a curiosity of whether or not my plan will still be around.</p>
<p>I have now entered info for all five our family members THREE TIMES on the healthcare.gov site. On each page, I clicked, “SAVE AND CONTINUE.” This time, the system froze after I entered answers about the full-time student status of my kids. I clicked multiple times and nothing happened. I finally refreshed the page, and it took me back to square one! It requested that I start typing in SSNs again!</p>
<p>I called our insurance broker and she is going to plug in some numbers to see what our group premiums might be (she can’t give me a quote yet).</p>
<p>ML - If you are eligible for a subsidy, it sounds like you don’t have a choice other than the website.</p>
<p>The idea is still being “studied” in North Carolina</p>
<p>Insurance Commissioner (name deleted) issued the following statement:
And Blue Cross Blue Shield of NC issued the following statement:</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Personally, I liked my old cancelled policy a lot. But given a choice I will most likely enroll in a new ACA policy and pay a lower subsidized rate. If I do nothing I will automatically be enrolled in a new ACA compliant policy that is much more expensive. One of my remaining questions is, will I be eligible for subsidies if I do nothing and allow BCBS to automatically enroll me in the new plan, or do I have to go on the Healthcare.gov website and purchase the same plan there in order to be eligible for subsidies.</p>
<p>“This is what our agent did for my H’s small business. He made us a member of a larger pool of similar small business and thus spread the risk”</p>
<p>Yes… This is what I was really asking dietz. Does dietz do the same?</p>
<p>In NH, BCBS had already offered me an early renewal effective Dec 1 that would keep my old policy active until Dec 1, 2014. I didn’t take advantage of the offer because my policy already runs until July 1, 2014 and there was a significant price increase with the early renewal.</p>
<p>Will they will offer me another year renewal in July? Who knows?</p>
<p>We have a small group too: DH (who owns the business as a sole proprietor), me as an employee and one other full time employee. Right now it’s just me and DS with insurance, DH who waives with medicare, and the employee who waives with spousal coverage that is great. When we started the plan many years ago, we had up to 10 employees on it, but with the economy, larger equipment and rapidly rising healthcare costs, it’s only me now.</p>
<p>We can keep our plan until next renewal, but I’m not sure whether they really will keep us or throw us out. My broker said they should keep us, but she’s not always right. I haven’t asked her for new plan prices, yet. But our plan has out of network coverage and lower deductibles than the new plans.</p>
<p>interesteddad,</p>
<p>My H’s business (for which I make this kind of decisions) is in similar situation. Our renewal is September 1st, and we were offered new renewal date of December 1st. </p>
<p>I wrote about it some pages back. </p>
<p>In our situation the letter from Medica did not mention anything about premium increase. It just warned that 2014 rates are going to astronomical. </p>
<p>I decided against changing the renewal date and the more I think about it, the more I am happy with my decision. We will know so much more about this whole situation next summer and can make informed decision then.</p>
<p>Our insurance broker told me that our premiums are going up “only” 6% in 2014. Whoo hoo, I feel like I’ve won the lottery. “Only” another $88 a month. Better than the 28% increase we had last year. I’m still hoping to check out the exchange price, if I can ever get through the application stage on the website.</p>
<p>Mainlonghorn: As per my broker, S-corps can still be treated as groups under ACA. That said, H and I are not EMPLOYEES, we are share holders. We had to provide BS with out K1 filings at the time of group application. Since we are a small group (2) our RAF (rating factor) is 1.1. In other words, we pay an additional 10% above the rate a larger (don’t know how much larger) group would pay. Our group plan is ACA compliant in that it covers the 10 preventative items, it has no life time cap and it has a $2500 deductible. These ACA required changes were put into place last year. At the time of the 2013 renewal, we had to choose a new plan (our current one) because the one in place at the time was being cancelled. </p>
<p>dstark: yes, we are pooled with a larger group of small groups…spreading the risk. I am reminded of the commercial…we take the small parts, mash them into a big part and then cut them into small parts…And, yes, we are a very very small group…but we try to make up for it with a big attitude :)</p>
<p>Thanks for the info, dietz. Our plan wasn’t compliant since the OOP maximum was $10,000. Our broker said we can still be a group, at least.</p>
<p>Re post #4527:
</p>
<p>Er, no. </p>
<p>I don’t know about the other states, but in California, the state insurance commissioner does not make the decision. The rules are set by the Covered California board, which next meets on November 21 - see <a href=“http://www.hbex.ca.gov%5B/url%5D”>http://www.hbex.ca.gov</a> - so no decision yet in California, and I doubt that there is going to be a material change. </p>
<p>I think this extension is partly intended as safety valve for the states where people are really having difficulty enrolling, primarily states serviced by the federal healthcare.gov exchange. It’s needed in situations where people have received cancellation notices but there are still significant barriers to actually signing up for insurance by the December 15 deadline. That part is running pretty smoothly in California, so extending policies potentially just adds to the confusion.</p>
<p>Here in South Carolina, our insurance commissioner said the state will not get in the way of allowing insurance companies to continue old policies. Not a ringing endorsement but does open the door for the insurance companies to allow the old policies back. However, none of the companies here in SC have said yea or nay yet. They are ‘studying’ the issue.</p>
<p>
No.</p>
<p>
Yes, you have to enroll via the exchange, but you can mail in a paper application, use the 800 number, or use a navigator or insurance broker or agent instead of wrestling with a non-functioning web site. </p>
<p>I think that if I were dealing with the type of web site issues that MaineLonghorn is describing - I’d go paper - I’d fill in a paper application, keep a copy for myself, use priority mail with a tracking number so I could verify receipt on the other end, and just put my faith in the post office instead of a broken web site.</p>
<p>dietz, I am not familiar with the small group market but am interested in learning. How are you pooled with other small groups? Don’t you buy the small group plan from the list of plans offered by BS. Does your broker/agent have some kind of flexibility to assign you to a particular pool?</p>
<p>Are the PPO networks for the BS ACA-compliant small group plans similar to the old networks or the new narrowed networks for exchange plans.</p>
<p>^^^^ It’s been a long time since we qualified for this group plan so many of the details are foggy. The ability to be considered a group is directly tied to the fact that the business structure is an LLC. I not clear on how the behind the scenes works…I was at one time…but again…it’s been a while. </p>
<p>As far as I know, the PPO provider network for the ACA compliant small group plans is the same as it was prior to ACA. That said, all I can guarantee is that as of today, all the doctors I was seeing in-network are still in-network. Of course I don’t know of changes to providers which I never used.</p>
<p>Do you need to show income on the K1’s? What if you had no income or losses?</p>
<p>So does anyone have info about how the insurance companies are to price the un-cancelled policies? Will they be allowed to offer preferential gender or health status premiums? Are they bound by the 3-1 rule?</p>
<p>To GP: I thought you might be interested in this. The Covered California board meets on November 21st – here’s a copy of their agenda: <a href=“http://www.healthexchange.ca.gov/BoardMeetings/Documents/November%2021,%202013/Agenda%20(Open)%20-%20November%202013%20Board%20Meeting_Public.pdf[/url]”>http://www.healthexchange.ca.gov/BoardMeetings/Documents/November%2021,%202013/Agenda%20(Open)%20-%20November%202013%20Board%20Meeting_Public.pdf</a> (Nothing about the new initiative to allow continuation of plans into 2015, but it’s possible they can add on new business.) – </p>
<p>Here’s the part that I thought you might want to know about – the accept public comment on all agenda items. It’s an all day meeting with a web cast – and there is a phone in number for comments, so you don’t have to travel to Sacramento – you can watch at home and call in when appropriate. </p>
<p>You can find web casts of past meetings here: <a href=“http://www.healthexchange.ca.gov/BoardMeetings/Pages/Default.aspx[/url]”>http://www.healthexchange.ca.gov/BoardMeetings/Pages/Default.aspx</a> – I think it would be tedious to try to watch much of them, but you could watch bits and pieces to get a sense of the flow of the meetings and how the comment thing is handled.)</p>
<p>I’m not suggesting that you are going to magically fix your concerns with a 2-minute phoned-in comment to a public meeting-- if you’ve ever participated in local government by showing up to a city council meeting you might have a sense of how these things go – but the point is, this is something you care about, and that meeting is the right place/forum to voice your concerns.</p>
<p>Not an employer, but I’m being told our existing PPO provider network will remain the same. If a medical practice accepts BCBS, they will accept policies whether employer-based, individual or through the exchange. The only option would be to disassociate themselves from that insurer, completely.</p>
<p>So they all say- BCBS, the billing folks for the large group of practices under their umbrella, and the folks at the practice, itself. </p>
<p>This may be what cpt was referring to, for her state. I wonder if she can clarify.</p>