AHCP Blog (26)

New Bill Would Expand Health Savings Accounts

April 19, 2017

The American Health Care Act had only a 17% approval rating before being pulled without a vote on Friday, March 24. The legislation would have made a number of positive changes for Health Savings Accounts, but the good news for HSA fans is that Republican lawmakers have another shot at expanding these popular tax-advantaged accounts.

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The Individual Mandate’s Tax Filing Requirements

April 11, 2017

As we approach the end of tax season, there’s a lot of confusion about the tax filing requirements under the Affordable Care Act’s individual mandate, largely because Americans have received mixed messages about what the rules actually are.

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The American Health Care Act – What Now??

April 3, 2017

On Friday, March 24, President Donald Trump and Speaker Paul Ryan made the decision to pull the American Health Care Act—the reconciliation bill that was designed to repeal sections of the Affordable Care Act—after it became obvious they didn’t have the votes to send the proposed legislation to the United States Senate. The House Freedom Caucus, a group of about three dozen highly conservative Republican lawmakers, is being blamed for the bill’s failure as the majority of its members refused to support the legislation. Their argument was that they had promised their constituents they would repeal and replace Obamacare but the Ryan plan stopped short of accomplishing that goal; instead, they referred to the bill as “Obamacare-lite” since many of the law’s provisions would remain.

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What advice would you give a new insurance agent?

March 23, 2017

This is a question you may not have given any thought to. Insurance professionals tend to operate in a vacuum—sure, you see and talk with clients and prospects every day of the week, but unless you’re involved with an agent association, you may not interact with your colleagues or competitors very often, or encounter someone new to the industry. So why are we asking you how you would advise an agent who’s just getting their feet wet? That’ll become clear in a moment, but like many of us, you’re probably scratching your head trying to figure out what you would say to a new agent who asks for your advice. Maybe you’re thinking that you would tell them to RUN; after all, with all the turmoil in the industry, it may not be the ideal time to be entering the health insurance sales force. Or maybe your advice would be to take a path different from the one you chose.

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Reminder: You Can Sell Supplements All Year Long

March 14, 2017

A lot of the agents we work with at AHCP sell both individual and Medicare products. While they may have originally focused their attention on one of these two market segments, they realized somewhere along the way that there’s a lot of overlap in the way the products are sold. Agents who are successful selling individual health plans, for instance, catch on pretty quickly when they make the decision to sell Medicare Advantage and Part D plans, and vice versa.

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Humana Pulls Out of Insurance Marketplace

March 10, 2017

Humana’s been making a lot of news lately. On January 23, a federal judge blocked the proposed $37 billion merger between Humana and Aetna. On February 14, the companies announced that they wouldn’t appeal the ruling and that that they were walking away from the deal they’d been working on for the last year-and-a-half. Then, later that same day, Humana made news once again when it announced that it would not be participating in the Obamacare exchanges in 2018. While the company will presumably continue to offer plans outside the Marketplace, it won’t be selling individual health plans eligible for a government subsidy through the federal or state exchanges.

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Big Insurers Call Off Mergers

February 28, 2017

In July of 2015, just weeks apart, four of the top five insurance companies in the nation announced that they would be merging with one of their big competitors: Aetna made an offer to acquire Humana for $37 billion and, in an even bigger deal, Anthem offered to purchase rival Cigna for $48 billion. Now, just a year-and-a-half later, following two adverse court decisions, both of those deals are dead.

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Five Ways to Increase Your Professionalism

February 23, 2017

You don’t have a job. Hopefully you know that by now. People with jobs simply trade time for money and may be doing something they don’t particularly like to help them achieve some larger goal. Students working their way through college have jobs.

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Here’s a Creative Way to Get Referrals

February 8, 2017

We all know that, for nearly every product or service, people are much more likely to buy when they receive a recommendation from a friend. For some reason, though, a lot of insurance agents are reluctant to ask their satisfied clients if they know anyone who could use their service. Other brokers ask but without much success.

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