Whispers across the country in regards to the new healthcare reform implementation may or may not surprise you. Lets talk about a couple of issues that are coming into focus that consumers need to be aware of going forward.
First, you can visit the following link discussing inevitable rate increases for most health insurance policies. Reasons vary from subsidizing unhealthy risks to more mature people who haven't yet qualified for medicare. The article discusses of whether rate regulation actually helps or hurts keeping rates low. The article is written from the perspective of someone critical of the new legislation. Our intent is to provide different viewpoints and to inform our customers and readers about different impending scenarios which might impact their health insurance.
It looks like rates may be going up initially 20% across the board in some states to possibly even doubling for younger insureds. At Compare Health Insurance we find that completely unacceptable to raise premiums substantially on many working families and then offering a modest subsidy to qualified individuals and families.
Mandated benefits such as autism and preventative services are estimated to add about 5% in monthly costs. State health insurance exchange officials admit that many policyholders will receive significant increases and for those residents in less than healthy areas may pay more such as in areas or as the health exchange calls 'rating pools' for Sacramento and West Los Angeles.
Clicking on this recent news article about smoking penalties will be alarming if you happen to smoke. What is new to us is how tax subsidies will not be able to offset any smoking upcharge. The other variable is how insurers will be careful not to attract too many smoking policyholders as to create an adverse selection environment. We also question how insureds will be able to determine if someone has smoked recently and what qualifies as a current smoker.
The good news is that Federal law allows the individual states to limit the amount of smoker penalty but on the other hand younger smokers can't be charged as much as older smokers. Expect premiums to fluctuate widely in the first few years along with the amount of penalties that can be assessed for not purchasing health insurance.
As we have stated before this entire new Affordable Care Act is new to us and so much is yet to be learned going forward. Our job again is to advise the public on what to expect and how to adapt and to give you every option in the marketplace including paying taxes and not having health insurance.
Please feel free to contact us toll free at 888-504-6171 or email us with any questions by clicking on the contact us page.
