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Health Insurance Reform – Obamacare 2014
Otherwise known as Obamacare 2014 is the year that the Affordable Care Act will go into full implementation. There are many questions and concerns surrounding this legislation. However, many other people are not even aware of the pending changes.
Here is what you should understand about the changes coming in 2014 health insurance plans.
Pre-Existing Conditions
Affordable Insurance Questions
The Affordable Care Act was designed to make insurance cheaper, but that’s only if you qualify for subsidies. Families making less than $45,000 for an individual or $92,000 as a family will qualify for some type of government discount, but families who make more than this could wind up paying more for their coverage. Unfortunately, there is so much that depends on what the published insurance rates are adjusted during the summer of 2013.
Age, Location and Smoking Habits
Insurance rates used to be based on pre-existing conditions and other information, but that is also changing. While insurers can no longer use pre-existing conditions as an excuse to increase rates after 2014 health insurance reform, they can still take age into account. However, they can only charge the elderly up to three times the amount they are charging a young, healthy person. This is an improvement over the increase of 500 percent or more that the elderly currently pay compared to young consumers.
Grandfathered Plans
If you love your current health care coverage, then there is good news for you. Insurance companies have the option of grandfathering plans and maintaining plans that were created before March 23, 2010. While these plans will not be subject to all the rules of Obamacare 2014, they will still have to follow some of them. Whether the plans will still be available is a question that will only be answered with time.
2014 Health Insurance
The 2014 health insurance reform changes were implemented with the intention of lowering the cost of insurance and extending coverage to the millions of people who were uninsured. Employers with more than 50 people will now be required to provide insurance, and small businesses can pool their resources to purchase discounted plans through exchanges. These changes are designed to ensure that everyone can afford to have health insurance under the Affordable Care Act.