The state of Florida has more people enrolled in ACA individual coverage through Healthcare.gov than any other state in the nation, and it’s not particularly close. According to a list published by CMS:
People around the world are understandably nervous about COVID-19, also known as the Coronavirus. To date, nearly 900,000 people have tested positive for the rapidly-spreading respiratory illness, and the world-wide death toll now tops 40,000. In the United States, more than 190,000 cases had been reported as of April 1, with at least 4,000 deaths according to Worldometer, which tracks cases in real time. Unfortunately, all of those numbers are expected to rise.
It’s now been a full year since the individual mandate penalty was reduced to zero, so we wanted to take a quick look at the impact this change could have on the future of the Affordable Care Act.
On December 18, 2019, a federal appeals court in New Orleans ruled that the Affordable Care Act’s individual mandate is unconstitutional, calling into question the future of the entire law.
As AHCP first reported nearly two years ago, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services has been working to replace everyone’s Medicare card and assign them a new Medicare number, known as a Medicare Beneficiary Identifier (MBI). As of January 1, 2020, that process is complete and CMS will no longer process claims that are submitted with the old number.
As a reminder, Medicare supplement plan F is no longer an option for new Medicare enrollees. Anyone aging into or signing up for Medicare on or after January 1, 2020, will not be able to purchase a Plan F Medigap plan. Plan C is also being eliminated as an option for new enrollees.
A recent Boston Herald article describes the trouble that some seniors have paying for prescriptions in the Medicare coverage gap, commonly referred to as the “donut hole.” The article tells the story of Judith Pais, who ran out of her medication in November and had to wait until the new year to purchase her prescriptions because the cost of her medications had “skyrocketed” from $120 per month to more than $500 after she entered her Part D plan’s coverage gap.
The fourth quarter is a stressful time. Not only do brokers have to deal with the same year-end stuff as everyone else, like getting ready for the holidays, it’s also the busy time of the year in the insurance industry. And that’s true whether you sell group, individual, or Medicare products.
This will come as a surprise to absolutely none of you, but, according to Forbes, “Healthcare Consumers Lack Knowledge Of Basic Health Insurance Terms.” Actually, that’s the name of a December 3 article that summarizes the findings of a recently released survey by Policygenius that shows, among other things, just “how challenging health insurance is for many American consumers to understand.”