Both Cigna and Anthem Blue Cross of Colorado report no rate increases on new business in Colorado. However, for existing clients on open plans, rates may change due to age attainment and trend. Carriers may adjust rates for closed plans effective January 1, 2013.
Archives for November 2012
How the Affordable Care Act Affects You
For the first couple years after the Affordable Care Act was signed into law, everything seemed to be a bit up in the air. There was almost constant bickering about the subtle nuances of the legislation, along with uncertainty from both sides of the political spectrum insofar as whether or not the law would stand the test of time. The Supreme Court had to weigh in, and we also had a major election cycle midway between the signing of the law and the enactment of many of its main provisions.
Most of that has settled down now. SCOTUS upheld the law. And there was no election upheaval in Congress to tilt the legislative body towards a crowd that would be likely to repeal it. States – like Colorado – that had been working towards setting up a health benefits exchange can continue to do so without as much worry that their work might be in vain (there had been some concern that the law would be tossed after states had invested a lot of time and money in the exchange-creation process). We are just over a year out now from January 2014, when many of the major provisions of the ACA will go into effect; it seems relatively certain at this point that the ACA will continue to move forward now that some of the potential roadblocks are in the rearview mirror.
Several provisions of the Affordable Care Act – ACA have already been implemented over the past two years: Young adults can remain on their parents’ health insurance policy until […]
Individual Health Insurance After Donating A Kidney
This recent AARP article caught my attention last week. My father lost his kidneys in 2001 as a result of Wegener’s Granulomatosis, a rare autoimmune disease. In August, he was the recipient of a kidney generously donated by the family of a young man who had passed away. And this fall, for the first time in 11 years, he’s been able to go about his life without being tethered to a dialysis machine every evening. So I’m drawn to stories about kidney transplants, living donors, or families who choose to donate a deceased loved ones organs.
To sum it up, Radburn Royer is a healthy 57 year old who donated a kidney to his daughter four year ago, after her own had failed as a result of lupus. Prior to donating a kidney, Royer was covered by Blue Cross Blue Shield of Minn. It’s unclear what his health insurance status was in the interim, but last year he reapplied for coverage with them and was turned down. He’s appealed several times, but for now he’s covered by his state’s high risk pool (he has to pay $130 more per month for his coverage and has a higher deductible, both of which are common in high risk pools).
Individual health insurance in Colorado is underwritten just as it is in Minn., but underwriting guidelines usually vary from one state to another and from one carrier to another. So we contacted three of the top individual health insurance carriers in Colorado to see how they would underwrite an applicant who had previously donated a kidney. Cigna, Humana and Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield all said that as long as the donor had been released from medical care and had normal blood pressure and blood lab results, the most likely underwriting outcome would be acceptance with a standard rate.
At first glance, this seems to be at odds with the situation experienced by Royer, but maybe it’s not. The AARP article notes that Royer underwent […]
[…] In the context of kidney donation, it’s important that potential donors not be inadvertently scared off by AARP’s article. Kidney donors are heroes – anyone who had received a transplant will attest to that fact – and they save lives. The study that I linked to above followed donors for 20 – 37 years after their transplants. While some donors did end up having kidney problems, the majority had normal kidney function 20 – 37 years out from surgery, and would likely not have a problem obtaining individual health insurance, even prior to it being guaranteed issue in 2014. Most people who are healthy enough to be accepted as a donor will continue to be healthy after they donate a kidney.
Kaiser Permanente 2013 Rate Increase Announced
Kaiser Permanente announces the average 2013 rate increase for individual/family health insurance in Colorado was 11%.
Election Thoughts – Healthcare Reform And Exchanges
[…] Tim’s article is an excellent primer on the implementation of healthcare reform, specifically in terms of the health benefits exchanges that need to be up and running by October 2013, when enrollment is scheduled to begin (health insurance effective dates wouldn’t start until January 1, 2014, but people should be able to start enrolling next October). That’s less than 11 months away, and there’s still a lot of work to be done. Colorado has been working on its health insurance exchange for some time now, and has made a lot of progress so far. We’re one of the states that has selected a benchmark plan for essential health benefits, and much of the groundwork for Colorado’s exchange has already been done. But in addition to the nitty gritty logistics of setting up the exchanges, there are still plenty of legal and administrative bumps that will need to be ironed out. When the ACA was signed into law in early 2010, the implementation of exchanges and the majority of the law’s “teeth” in 2014 seemed like a long way in the future. That is now just over a year away, with exchange enrollment beginning in less than a year. And there’s still plenty of work to be done, especially in states that haven’t made much progress on their exchange implementation yet. […]
I wish my health insurance _____________?
I understand the trade off we got when we switched to a really inexpensive high deductible plan when even our high deductible HSA qualified plan was too rich and expensive. So I wish my health insurance had a monthly credit card billing option. Our current health insurance company, Anthem Blue Cross of Colorado used to have it, like most health insurance companies did. But then, like most other companies also did, they stopped offering that as an option about a year ago.
What would you change about your health insurance company or plan? It could be the coverage, billing, customer service, anything…
Going Without Health Insurance
You may already be familiar with the blog Zen Habits. It’s a very popular site with hundreds of thousands of readers. It’s written by Leo Babauta, who has authored numerous ebooks and paper books and has over a hundred thousand followers on Twitter (he’s following three people – all those followers he has are just interested in what he has to say). When he writes something, it gets read and shared and talked about. I’ve been reading – and enjoying – his site for a few years, and I usually find myself nodding in agreement with whatever he’s written.
But his most recent post threw me for a bit of a loop. He explains his rationale for not having health insurance for his family (he and his wife and six kids), and goes into a detailed description of how you, too, can make health insurance a bad bet.
I have no idea what his full financial situation looks like. He often writes about being a minimalist, so I know he’s not spending lots of money on material stuff. They do like to travel and recently spent several weeks in Europe – that doesn’t come cheap, but it’s a great experience for adults and children alike. He has a very successful blog and several books, so I have to imagine he’s not poor. And yet Leo Babauta considers going without health insurance to be a reasonable risk.
To be fair, I agree wholeheartedly with the tips he gives for “making health insurance a bad bet“. Things like eating well, exercising, avoiding excess alcohol, not smoking, driving safely […]
2012 Obamacare Premium Rebates (Infographic)
Did you receive a health insurance premium rebate this year? If so, how much was it? We created a simple visualization of how the PPACA (Obamacare) health insurance premium rebates break down between the individual/family, small group and large group markets and how Colorado’s rebates compared to the national average.
Electronic Medical Records And Data Security
[…] As David pointed out, we really don’t need to be too worried about our medical data being stolen. Medical identity theft is increasingly a problem, but that generally happens when someone attempts to steal an insured’s identity in order to receive healthcare under the victim’s health insurance policy. Again, no theft of sensitive medical records, but a significant problem. Data security absolutely needs to be a priority as we transition to electronic medical records. But for the most part, the problems are not what people think of first (sensitive medical data being compromised), but rather, theft of credit card numbers and social security numbers, as well as people who try to fraudulently use another person’s health insurance coverage.