Shield Insurance Blog | Affordable Care Act | Health Insurance
Affordable Care Act (ACA) Open Enrollment
OK, so maybe this entry isn’t so much as a blog as it is me just unloading my brain…. and with open enrollment starting tomorrow, it’s about all I can think about (sorry Dawn… I’ll get working on that ‘honey-do list soon!!).
Affordable Care Act: Being able to choose new health insurance plans as early as tomorrow, just makes me think of how much of a disaster it was last year. We are all just hoping like heck that the site works better this year!!! PLEASE!!! We are being told that it’s much more streamlined and shorter than last year’s. We’ll soon see! We did sign someone up yesterday and were told that it would be on the new platform, but it didn’t appear to be very different at all. hmmm…
Last year, buying a plan on the Marketplace was not a very fun event. But we did our best to help folks as best as possible! We’re here to do that again this year and are acquiring quite a bit of expertise, so we feel confident that we can help!
This year, the Blue Cross and Priority rates are closer! They still appear to have a lower price overall. And if you’re eligible for a subsidy, don’t forget that you MUST sign up on the Marketplace, meaning that you can’t purchase a plan from United Health Care, for example, since they are not “playing” ON the Marketplace this year in the counties that we work within Michigan.
Our office is doing the actual process of signing everyone up on the website. She can whip through those pages pretty proficiently now! And she knows many of the stopper/pitfall answers to some of the quirkier questions asked so make sure you call us to get signed up!
FYI, ACA means the Affordable Care Act and it applies to all Americans. Some plans are grandfathered and do not need to comply. I don’t dare claim to know ALL there is about this, but it’s interesting to note that some companies are ditching all pre-ACA plans now and some are going on until at least the end of 2017. that goes for Group AND Individual. Oh, and when I say “individual”, I just mean non-group… so that means that it’s not offered through an employer. The individual does not mean ‘just one person’… it can… but it means ‘families’ too.
Have a great day! Andy
