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Following federal direction received on February 15, 2013 California PCIP has suspended new enrollments for applications received after March 2, 2013.

Any applications in process with PCIP will be referred to the MRMIP (Major Risk Medical Insurance Plan).

For more information, please visit the CA PCIP website.

When the new individual plans mandated by health care reform begin on January 1, 2014, you may be eligible for a subsidy if your family income is less than 400% of the Federal Poverty Level?

For a family of four, this is a household income of $93,000.

This easy and fun calculator estimates your life expectancy.  It was developed by Northwestern Mutual Life, and it tries to predict how long you're likely to live. 

The predictions aren't going to be close if you do have a long-term health issue, but generally it works well. Barring long-term health problems, we are going to live a long time, most was into our late 80s or 90s.

Some of you may be receiving this newsletter for the first time. We have been expanding our outreach efforts, but by all means, if you are not interested in receiving future newsletters, please click the unsubscribe link at the bottom of the page. If we haven't spoken in a while and you have concerns about health insurance that we can help you with, please let us know.

Please ask about additional services and value-added products such as HR administration and online policy management tools. 

"Your expert advice is always appreciated. I literally don't know what I would do without you. You give me the most valuable gift of all: time."    --Scott Gordon 

Caffrey Insurance Solutions Presentation on Health Care Reform and How It Will Impact You and Your Business!

On March 15th, 2013 we will conduct the first session of our monthly updates on changes in health care reform legislation, new rules and how they impact prospective and current group and individual clients. 

Every month this year until the beginning of 2014, we will host a presentation on the industry. Our goal is to increase your comprehension of all of the issues so that you can continue to make the best choices regarding your benefits.

Our first session is on March 15th, 2013 at 9:00 AM in the conference room of our offices at 405 14th Street, Suite 204, Oakland, CA 94612. We're centrally located just above the 12th Street Oakland BART Station.

We can handle approximately 20 attendees for these sessions. Coffee They will be a great opportunity for you to get ahead of the coming changes of Health Care Reform and the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. 

To sign up, please click here. 

Health Care Reform Timeline 2013

The Obama administration says it will require health insurance companies to report all price increases, no matter how small, to the federal government so officials can monitor the impact of the new health care law and insurers' compliance with it.

...

Under current rules, the federal government requires insurers to report information on rate increases of 10 percent or more. New rules being issued by the administration will extend this requirement to all rate increases for all health plans sold to individuals, families and small businesses - a total of 60 million people.

...
Consumer advocates welcomed the new reporting requirements, saying they would enhance the ability of insurance regulators and the public to scrutinize rate increases.

Insurers object to the requirements. The federal government "is creating a hugely burdensome and expensive reporting system" that duplicates what most states already require, the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association said.
...
The new law requires insurers to pool the claim costs of all their customers when setting rates in the individual market in a state. Likewise, insurers must consider the claims histories of all their small-business customers when setting rates for them. Premiums for each product are supposed to reflect the combined experience of all products in the market.
...
Federal health officials said they needed to know the prices of all insurance products so they could determine whether insurers were complying with these requirements.  

For more details, please review the full article recently published in the New York Times.

What Would Lynn and Gabriel Do?

A client from many years ago contacted us and asked us to review their benefits.  They were a two person group and one of them was over 65.  Their premium had gone up to over $4000 a month.  What could they do?

1. Dramatically reduce their benefits and hope for the best.
2. Leave it as it is, they do enjoy good benefits.
3. Move one member to Medicare and hope the other would be approved for individual coverage.
4. None of the above.  

None of the above.

In analyzing what they had, we discovered that that the Medicare-age person could waive the plan and buy a Medicare supplement and drug plan. Because this is considered a valid waiver, the other person was able to remain on the company plan. 

In this instance, we did lower their benefits somewhat, but even adding in the self-funding needed to make each of them have 100% coverage we saved this two-person group 32% and more than $16,000 in annual premiums. 

What can we do for you?

Covered California 

(CA Health Care Exchange in 2014) Announcements 

For more information, please visit the newly launched Covered California website. 

Remember, we will be appointed as official brokers with Covered California and will be able to guide you in the right direction and assist with any issues that may arise.

About Caffrey Insurance Solutions