Starting November 1, 2022, enroll in or renew 2022 health coverage for 2023.

Attention: Enroll in or renew 2023 ACA health insurance today!

You have through December 15, 2022 to apply for new 2023 health insurance, or renew, change, or update your 2022 health plan for 2023.

Enroll by December 15, 2022 for coverage that starts January 1, 2023.

"Many people who get health insurance through the Marketplace are eligible for more savings and lower monthly premiums. In fact, 4 out of 5 people who enroll in a health plan through HealthCare.gov can find a plan for $10 or less per month, with financial assistance."

If you need help filling out your application call 1-800-318-2596 (TTY: 1-855-889-4325)
Available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week (except holidays),

You can apply for 2022 Marketplace health insurance right now

You can apply for the first time, update, or change your plan for 2022. Open Enrollment ends January 15, 2022.

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services announced a 14.5% hike in Medicare Part B premiums Friday night, blaming the pandemic but also what it called uncertainty over how much it may have to be forced to pay for a pricey and controversial new Alzheimer's drug, CNN reported.

The 14.5% increase in Part B premiums will take monthly payments for those in the lowest income bracket from $148.50 a month this year to $170.10 in 2022. Medicare Part B covers physician services, outpatient hospital services, certain home health services, medical equipment, and certain other medical and health services not covered by Medicare Part A, including medications given in doctors' offices.

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services played down the spike, pointing out that most beneficiaries also collect Social Security benefits and will see a cost-of-living adjustment of 5.9% in their 2022 monthly payments, the agency said in a statement. That's the largest bump in 30 years.
...
However....
It "will consume the entire annual cost of living adjustment (COLA) of Social Security recipients with the very lowest benefits, of about $365 per month,"...
...
Along with the premium spike, the annual deductible for Medicare Part B beneficiaries is rising to $233 in 2022, up from $203 in 2021.

It's time to rethink this price increase. Way to high much for many Medicare recipients. Write the President, your congress people, AARP, whoever you think might have some influence and might care.

Starting today (November 1, 2021), enroll in or renew 2022 health coverage

Attention: Enroll in or renew 2022 health insurance today!

You have through January 15 to apply for new 2022 health insurance, or renew, change, or update your 2021 health plan for 2022.

Enroll by December 15, 2021 for coverage that starts January 1, 2022.

If you need help filling out your application call 1-800-318-2596 (TTY: 1-855-889-4325)
Available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week (except holidays),

You have until Tuesday, December 15, 2020 to enroll in or change 2021 Marketplace health coverage that starts January 1, 2021.

Enroll at HealthCare.gov.

You can review 2021 plans & estimated prices before you log in.

All plans cover essential health benefits, pre-existing conditions, and preventive services. Your deductible, out of pocket expenses, co-pay, co-insurance are all dependent on which plan you select.

Premiums for benchmark silver plans on the federal individual market exchanges will drop [1.5%] in 2019, marking the first decrease since the Affordable Care Act was implemented, CMS Administrator Seema Verma announced on Thursday.

According to this article, "Tennessee will see the sharpest premium decline, as average monthly premiums for silver plans fell more than 26% from more than $600 last year to $449. "

In August, Tennessee Dept. of Commerce and Insurance announced rate changes for Obamacare providers. BC BS TN proposed an average decrease of 14.8%, whereas Cigna proposed an average premium decrease of 12.9%.

Obamacare open enrollment this year for 2019 is from November 1 to December 15.

Note, The Trump administration plans to shut down the federal health insurance exchange for 12 hours during all but one Sunday in the upcoming open enrollment season. The shutdown will occur from 12 a.m. to 12 p.m. ET on every Sunday except Dec. 10.

More than 80% of ACA enrollees for 2018 (7.3 million of 8.8 million) are in states that Trump won in the 2016 election. The four states with the highest number of sign-ups (44.3%) — Florida, Texas, North Carolina and Georgia, accounting for nearly 3.9 million customers — were all Trump states.

“There’s politics, and then there’s taking care of yourself and your family,” said analyst Chris Sloan of the consulting firm Avalere Health. “You can have political views about a program like the Affordable Care Act, but when you get an opportunity to get subsidized health insurance for you and your family ... politics is a distant consideration.”

Who will they blame when subsidized health insurance is no longer an option?

Open enrollment for health insurance through the Affordable Care Act is available now.

This is a shorter enrollment period than previous years, so it’s important to act quickly.
If you don’t act by December 15, you can’t get 2018 coverage unless you qualify for a Special Enrollment Period. Plans sold during Open Enrollment start January 1, 2018.

You can go here to preview plans offered for 2018.

Knox County had 19,338 enrolled in 2017. Blount County had 4,788 enrolled. In these counties, there was one insurer (Humana) offering plans in 2017 and there is one insurer (Blue Cross Blue Shield) offering plans in 2018.

Don't wait. With the shortened enrollment period it could get very busy.

The Senate is going to try and vote again to repeal/replace the Affordable Care Act/Obamacare. The Republicans are so desperate they are trying to fly Sen. McCain to DC after having had brain surgery less than a week ago.

Please contact your Senators to request a NO vote to repeal/replace the Affordable Care Act. It is just now starting to work. If repeal/replace is successful, hundred of thousand of Tennesseans could lose their current health insurance or Medicaid. Millions in the U.S. could lose their current health insurance or Medicaid.

Please make a call.

Senator Alexander – (202) 224-4944
Senator Corker – (202) 224-3344

There has been a lot of discussion about the Australian healthcare system lately. The Australian healthcare (Medicare) system is quite different from the healthcare system in the United States. Public hospitals are owned and operated by the State and Territory Governments. Public hospitals are rare in the United States. In addition to the public healthcare (Medicare) in Australia, there is also private health insurance. "Nearly half of the Australian population (47%) had private hospital coverage and nearly 56 percent had general treatment coverage in 2015." It would appear the Australian Medicare system is dependent on public facilities.

"President Trump is right. The Australian healthcare system provides healthcare to all of its people at a fraction of the cost than we do," Sanders commented on Twitter." A fraction of the cost of U.S. healthcare? I'm not sure the numbers support that statement. According to a 2015 report from The Commonwealth Fund, The U.S. spend 17.1% of GDP on health care compared to 9.4% in Australia. The average annual growth of health care spending per capita in the U.S. is 1.24%, in Australia it is 2.42%. Out of pocket health care spending per capita in the U.S. is $1,074, in Australia it is $771. Maybe they are catching up with us.

The Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) includes a mandate for prenatal care. During the House Energy and Commerce Committee debate over repeal and replace of the ACA, Rep. John Shimkus, a Republican from southeastern Illinois, asked, "What about men having to purchase prenatal care?" Shimkus said. "Is that not correct? And should they?"

Rep. Mike Doyle, a Pittsburgh-area Democrat, responded, "There's no such thing as a la carte insurance..."

Health insurance, like all insurance, works by pooling risks.

As referenced in a NYMag article from a Washington Post 2013 article, "Up until now, many policies on the private market did not cover maternity care as a standard benefit.
...
lawmakers who wrote the policy didn’t want insurers to be able to discriminate against women. And it goes both ways — under Obamacare, women pay for basic services that benefit men such as prostate cancer tests and a preventative service that checks older men who have smoked for abdominal aortic aneurysms."

Would they also believe that since they have money or health insurance offered by the federal government they shouldn't have to help pay for insurance for those less fortunate?

What is wrong with these people?

There are more details to the history of health insurance, but here is a brief summary.

In 1929, "a group of 1,500 Dallas-area teachers offered to prepay premiums to the Baylor Hospital in exchange for up to 21 days of future care, and the forerunner to Blue Cross was born." In the late 1930s Kaiser Construction started offering dam workers health insurance, eventually leading to Kaiser Permanente.

"In 1940, less than 10 percent (12 million people) of the U.S. population had any kind of health coverage. By 1950, about half of America was covered." The increase is attributed to WWII and the government limiting wage increases. Employers used the health insurance benefit as a way to recruit employees. As a result certain groups of society were left out; those unable to work or had low paying jobs without health insurance and retirees.

"In 1965, President Lyndon B. Johnson, with Democratic majorities in the U.S. House and Senate, created the Medicare and Medicaid systems. Today, the two programs, administered jointly by federal and state governments, insure more than 105 million Americans at any given time, about a third of the U.S. population."

In 2010, President Barack Obama, again with Democratic majorities in the U.S. House and Senate, created the Affordable Care Act. "A larger percentage of Americans will see their care arranged through government programs, with boomers entering Medicare en masse and millions of low-income workers now eligible for newly expanded Medicaid programs."

"And as more people sign up for individual plans through HealthCare.gov and state-operated health insurance shopping exchanges, incrementally, health coverage will become further divorced from employment, a slow unraveling of the job-based insurance system that has developed over the last century."

Alas, we now have a Republican president and a Republican majority in the U.S. House and Senate. Will health insurance continue to evolve or will it devolve?

As you are probably aware, Blue Cross Blue Shield no longer offers ACA subsidized insurance in the Knoxville or other major Tennessee metro areas, or any other individual (i.e. non-employee provided) plans off the exchange. Humana is now the only company offering Knoxville area plans on the healthcare.gov exchange.

Looking at the healthcare.gov estimator for the Humana bronze and silver plans (the only two offered), there are generous ACA subsidies for those who qualify resulting in low monthly premiums for basic coverage. (High deductibles still apply, like most insurance these days.) The Knoxvile PPO network has good coverage among area providers.

But, there's a huge catch. Neither Humana plan has an out-of-pocket limit on out-of-network coverage. There is an out-of-pocket limit of $6500 if you are in-network. but there is no limit for out-of-network. And, there is no out-of-state or national in-network coverage with these plans. We called Humana to verify if this was correct. It is.

This means that if you are traveling and have a serious accident or medical event and go to an out-of-network hospital, you are responsible for the entire cost (or possibly the 80% out-of-network co-insurance, not clear). So if you rack up $100,000 in medical bills, the out-of-pocket limit doesn't apply and you are responsible for the full $100,000 (or $80,000 of it, not clear), as opposed to $6500 if it happened in-network. It's like having no insurance at all. (It appears that ACA requires ER visits to be covered as in-network, but if you are admitted all bets are off.)

Blue Cross Blue Shield plans offered on the exchange for 2016 had an out-of-network, out-of-pocket limit. These plans are no longer available. BCBS group plans (i.e. employer provided plans) still have the limit.

It's unfortunate that plans with no out-of-pocket limits are the only ACA subsidized plans available in Knoxville. It's surprising that such plans are even legal. But they are.

MORE: PPO Plans Remove Out-Of-Network Cost Limits, A Costly Trap For Consumers

for not filling out a survey.

Wow! That's a pretty steep price to pay.

Aaaahhh, I see now. Knox County is self-insured.

This year employees (and spouses, if applicable) are required to fill out a HumanaVitality survey, for a discount in insurance premiums. In the case of this employee, it is $3,360 for the year. Next year it may be participation in "coaching and other “health improvement” resources, Jones [Dir. Human Resources of Knox County] said, but policyholders weren’t required to use them this year."

According to Knox County Law Director Bud Armstrong, "Perhaps as many as 10 percent of around 2,400 county employees, or 3,300 people including spouses on insurance policies are facing the same penalty."

Republican Senator Lamar Alexander says, "we need to replace Obamacare with insurance choices that allow Tennesseans to select low-cost insurance that fits their budget and their health care needs."

For seventeen years, while residing in Florida, my husband and I had individual health insurance. We moved to the State of Tennessee in 2000. In 2003 our individual health insurance was no longer available in Tennessee. We were unable to purchase individual health insurance through any other company in Tennessee. We called the Tennessee Department of Commerce and Insurance to no avail. They basically told us we would not be able to obtain an individual health insurance policy in Tennessee. Luckily for us, we have a small business with two or more employees and were able to obtain health insurance through the business.

How many people in the State of Tennessee were unable to purchase individual health insurance until the passing of the Affordable Care Act? How many people were unable to get the healthcare they needed since they did not have health insurance? Do you have any idea of the pent up demand in Tennessee since individual health insurance policies were unavailable until recently? Do you really care? I don't think so.

It's no wonder health insurance companies are not making as much money as they were before ACA. There were many people, and still are, in Tennessee who could not even get insurance. Thus, when ACA came along a lot of people were finally able to get health insurance and the healthcare they have been needing for years. If the governments of the State of TN and United States had cared a lot earlier, the demand for healthcare needs may not have cost so much.

I cannot imagine what your idea of a low-cost insurance policy is that fits a budget and health care needs. You who have an excellent health insurance policy paid for by the citizens of the United States.

Thanks, Sen. Alexander for not caring about the health and welfare of the people in your state.

In January, his second day in office, the new Democratic governor of Louisiana, John Bel Edwards, signed an executive order expanding Medicaid coverage under the Affordable Care Act, fulfilling a campaign promise that will expand health coverage to hundreds of thousands of people in one of the nation's poorest states.

Department of Health and Hospitals [DHH] will begin the massive task Wednesday (June 1) of enrolling 375,000 people into the state’s expanded Medicaid program. The department’s goal is to get Medicaid insurance cards into the hands of more than half of the people eligible for the program by July 1.

Arkansas, Kentucky and Louisiana are the only southern states that have signed up for Medicaid expansion. Tennessee is among the eight other southern states that have elected to bypass healthcare for all. Thirty-two states, including Washington D.C., have adopted Medicaid expansion.

Our company group plan is coming up for renewal and they have offered to extended it for another year with a slightly higher premium. It is "grandmothered" (their term) and has slightly different benefits than a standard ACA plan. We are thinking of not renewing and dropping our company group plan and instead switching over to a BCBS individual/family plan. (We are the only two employees in our group plan.)

Trying to figure out the variations in premiums, deductibles, co-insurance and maximum out of pocket is a little confusing. So, we made a spreadsheet to do some basic comparisons. It appears we are paying "silver" prices for a "bronze" plan.

In reviewing the most recent ACA enrollment report, here are a few numbers of note. This information relates only to states with Marketplaces that are Fully-Run by HHS (FFM).

Out of the 32 states on the Federal Marketplace Plan, Tennessee ranks 12th in the percentage of individuals who have selected a Marketplace Plan, based on state populations.

IMPORTANT DATE!

The deadline to get health care insurance through the Affordable Care Act for 2014 is March 31st.

After that date you will not be able to enroll till the end of the year for a plan that would start in 2015. (There are some exceptions to this for "life changing" events. For instance, if your employer based insurance is no longer available to you.)

Enrollment can be done online at (link...)

To just look at the insurance plans available, you can go to (link...)

Here is a calendar of the enrollment events (link...)

Because smaller government, etc.

Representatives of organizations seeking to help the uninsured sign up for health coverage under the Affordable Care Act reacted with dismay, anger and disappointment Thursday after Tennessee issued emergency rules restricting their activities.

The rules require their employees and volunteers to be fingerprinted, undergo background checks and limit the advice they can give to people. The Tennessee Department of Commerce and Insurance said the agency is protecting consumers from fraud, but religious and social service leaders question the motive.

The rules were issued less than two weeks before the Oct. 1 launch of the Health Insurance Marketplace, where the uninsured can shop for policies and possibly qualify for subsidies toward buying coverage.

So, when inexcusable legislative delays, political foot-dragging, breath-holding, and incomprehensible temper tantrums don't work to get your way, just throw bureaucracy at the problem.