<p>Texas. GWH - Greater World Health</p>
<p>Texas? Great. Make sure and tell your friends down in Texas. :)</p>
<p>Minnesota is said to have the lowest rates in the country, but Texas is supposed to have rates that are below average. Texas has the highest percentage of uninsured people in the country. It is nice to read you are saving money, Cromette.</p>
<p>If this has been mentioned, sorry. If a person qualifies for subsidized health care premiums and he buys a silver plan, he may also qualify for other subsidized costs. This may make the silver plan a better deal than a bronze for many.</p>
<p><a href=“A Guide to the New Exchanges for Health Insurance - The New York Times”>A Guide to the New Exchanges for Health Insurance - The New York Times;
<p>Re: posts #1257 and #1259
Our state’s exchange includes several HSA silver plans. Our AGI is < 200% FPL, and I was planning on buying a Silver HSA. During the application process would they tell me I’m not eligible for the cost-sharing reductions? Or when I file 2014 taxes would they disallow the HSA deduction because I received cost-sharing reductions? How does that work? And what does it mean that there’s no clawback?</p>
<p>Texas has a HIGH immigrant population which I believe contributes greatly to that uninsured number.</p>
<p>“The IRS is on high alert right now for employee classification changes and intends to audit same. So if someone were formerly W2 and deigns to change that to 1099 this year, the reclassification has a high likelihood of audit.”</p>
<p>Trust me, I won’t have that problem. I have owned a company for a while on which I have paid taxes and issued 1099s.</p>
<p>CalMom, that provision about the HSA & CSR was just one part of the online training, I have probably done 80-100 hours of training as each state has it’s own session, and, IIR, they are 30 hours minimum, so no, with no downloadable PDFs to scan, I don’t have a reference.</p>
<p>When I posted earlier, I remembered there was some issue with HSA & subsidies, it was your refutation of that generic point that caused me to recall the CSR detail. It may very well be that the states are setting up plans such that an HSA-CSR conflict cannot happen due to the types of plans offered. That would be smart, forcing a buyer to choose either an HSA eligible plan or a CSR eligible plan, preventing buyers remorse the next April.</p>
<p>Thumper1, </p>
<p>How is your daughter that had to go through a couple of emergency surgeries doing now?</p>
<p>Thank you for asking. Those surgeries were in January 2010, and she is fine!</p>
<p>Re post 1238:
</p>
<p>I don’t understand this. Isn’t everyone on Medicare allowed to purchase an Advantage plan? Or is it really restricted by age? My husband (age 60 and disabled) has an Advantage plan. Will he lose it due to age at some point? I sure hope not! He may be considered “younger” by Medicare standards, but he’s far from healthy. His care costs a lot.</p>
<p>The issue with Medicare Advantage is that in fact, the people who do enroll in Medicare Advantage are younger and healthier, for whatever reason. Maybe Medicare Advantage is more attractive to healthier people, or maybe the insurance companies intentionally market to healthier people (by doing something like offering free gym memberships), but in any event, the population insured by Medicare Advantage plans is healthier than the rest of the Medicare population. </p>
<p>So Medicare should not be paying more per person for the healthier Medicare Advantage people and less for the sicker population on regular Medicare. That’s our money! It needs to be spent wisely, to provide health care for seniors, and not to line the pockets of insurance company executives.</p>
<p>Watching Saturday football now, I keep seeing BCBS TX ad over and over. </p>
<p>Key points.</p>
<p>Over 100 million trust us.</p>
<p>lots of plans to fit your budget.</p>
<p>Financial assistance available.</p>
<p>Nowhere do they mention that assistance is taxpayer largesse. I am glad to see someone taking credit for all the money they get from the government as coming from their company.</p>
<p>Sounds to me like Blue Cross Blue Shield knows their business. I figured the insurance companies would start advertising. Smart business.</p>
<p>Smart indeed, taking credit as if they are giving away their own money.</p>
<p>Well, Somemom, it looks like I’m mistaken about the Bronze vs. Silver level on the HSA’s for individual plans, given Washmother’s post. I don’t know how that would be handled – technically I don’t even know if your training is generalized to all states, but it certainly makes sense, as the CSR would be using taxpayer dollars to fund what is supposed to be available to the HSA-account holder out of their tax-sheltered bank account. So it definitely would be a double-dipping situation.</p>
<p>Washmother, my guess is that you would find that the HSA-eligible Silver plans in your state (Washington?) are simply not eligible for the cost-sharing subsidies – so it probably depends on the plan you choose. As you probably know, you can only fund an HSA during time periods that you also have an HDHP (high deductible health plan) to go along with it. So you will probably see that you have to choose one plan or the other. </p>
<p>I think that for most people, the CSR is the better deal – if your AGI is less than 200% of FPL, it’s hard to see any particular tax benefit to you in having the HSA. But you’d have to do the math to see what works best for your needs. I think if I were in your shoes, I’d opt for the CSR-eligible silver, keeping in mind that you know you will be able to change plans in future years if you move out of range of CSR eligibility.</p>
<p>If one of my kids qualifies for Medicaid (disability), does that change anything for us?</p>
<p>
Because that would go over real big in Texas, right? </p>
<p>One reason that ACA can succeed will be all the low-information voters out there who have no clue that they are buying into “Obamacare”. They’ve been led to believe that Obamacare is a government-run system that will require them to see government doctors.</p>
<p>Maine, I’m not sure what your question is – but the ACA is set up with the assumption that there will be families where the kids qualify for Medicaid but the parents don’t. It’s still your household income determining what the policy costs for the rest of the family. </p>
<p>According to this chart, you would NOT include any SSI payments in household income – see: <a href=“http://laborcenter.berkeley.edu/healthcare/MAGI_summary13.pdf[/url]”>http://laborcenter.berkeley.edu/healthcare/MAGI_summary13.pdf</a></p>
<p>My insurance has gone up by 100%. And my deductible has increased by 10000 dollars. Nobody here has had anything but a yearly physical in over ten years. </p>
<p>Insurance pays nothing but the physical until after the deductible has been paid. </p>
<p>If I am anything like my relatives, and given my habits, I’m even more healthy, I won’t ever recoup. Ever. </p>
<p>Fine. Except. I hate insurance companies and despise that they now also get to act generous on. My dime. </p>
<p>The insurance lobby wrote this bill. So obvious.</p>
<p>Poet…what do you mean? Do you mean the cost of your PLAN has gone up 100%…that is hard to believe. Or do you mean your cost share has gone up 100%? And what exactly IS the dollar amount? </p>
<p>If you have gone from $15 a month ( like a poster upstream) to $150 a monthly for cost share, that would be different than having your plan cost increase for $6000 a year to $12,000 a year…out of pocket.</p>