Health Insurance: The Race Against the Clock

There is still time for Congress to pick up the pieces of changing the healthcare system to help stabilize it. The fate of the Affordable Care Act is yet to be determined. In the meantime, people wait while paying extremely high premiums and have mountains of out-of-pocket bills on the kitchen table. Where is the affordability of the Affordable Care Act?

Tick Tock for the insurance companies as well. They are under a timeline for filing dates this summer. Insurance companies have time to decide if they will still offer ACA plans or not. By withdrawing ACA plans, things will start moving back to before the law was signed. This time capsule can be good for many.

The insurance companies may begin screening for health conditions. Do not panic just yet! Years ago, the only problem with pre-existing conditions was not ‘if’ an insurance company would take you, but which one. Each insurance companies had personalities for health conditions. Just because a big name insurance company turned someone down, that did not mean you could not get health insurance from another company. Insurance brokers just had to match the personality with the insurance company. It is as simple as that.

If nothing happens by late March, we could be moving into more increases on the health plans in 2019. This is terrible news for folks on the brink of losing their health insurance due to cost. Not everyone does well enough to pay for their health insurance with no problem, and much more do not qualify for any government subsidies for the premiums.

Governors in Alaska, Ohio, Colorado, Pennsylvania, and Nevada came up with “A Bipartisan Blueprint for Improving Our Nation’s Health System Performance.” It brings together a high-level overview of what some changes should occur. It does not get specific enough to make a difference. Maybe it is too soon at this point. However, policyholders need some answers, and hard proof something will change that will benefit them.

Collective action by 20 U.S. States recently sued the federal government claiming the law was no longer constitutional after the repeal of individual mandate starting in 2019. Individuals and families not having ACA compliant coverage will no longer be fined a tax penalty in 2019. The Individual Mandate was the very rule that was determined by the Supreme Court in 2012 saying it was constitutional as a tax penalty.

The future of the law and health plans are yet to be determined. Since 2014, it seems that most policies are changing every year. Every year the premiums go up, and the policies cover less. At what point is the breaking point? With this race against the clock, we will have to wait until the clock stops to know if we have real change coming.