healthcare reform
Flexible Benefit Service LLC (Flex) has been administering Health Savings Accounts (HSAs) since the beginning. These ten years have gone by fast, and every year more and more people are starting to take notice of them. They have been celebrated as popular, consumer-driven and a great tool for retirement planning.
Moreover, HSA participants themselves have received the reputation of being cost-savvy and more involved overall in their health care spend. While HSAs are not for everyone, these plans offer consumers a triple tax advantage – which is not very common in the tax code.
Here are three major Affordable Care Act (ACA) deadline changes that have made headlines recently.
1. Individuals looking for a January 1, 2014 effective date will now have until December 23, 2013 to submit an application and until December 31, 2013* to make their initial premium payment in the public exchange. Additionally, each carrier must decide how they will handle the implementation of this change outside of the public exchange.
During the holidays, when you are face-to-face with family members, even a “simple” healthcare reform question may land you in the middle of an escalated political debate. You may even be the go-to person for these questions if you are known to be up-to-date with the latest news.
The Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) made a significant announcement on November 19, 2013 that will give insurance companies the ability to verify subsidy eligibility and directly enroll individuals in a subsidized plan without having to direct them to the Federally Facilitated Marketplace (FFM) as part of the process. This announcement appears to be a way to address some of the technical problems and glitches that HealthCare.gov has been plagued with since its launch on October 1, 2013.
Last week, President Obama announced that Americans can keep individual health insurance policies that they were told will be canceled because they failed to meet requirements established by the Affordable Care Act (ACA).
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has announced that self-funded health plans will be exempt from the reinsurance fees after the first year. The recent announcement is expected to be published in a forthcoming document with other rule modifications.
Flexible Benefit Service LLC (Flex), the exclusive operator of the InsureXSolutions® private insurance exchange, would like to take a moment to mention last week’s exciting new partnership with the largest broad-based business association in Illinois, the Illinois Chamber of Commerce.
The new Illinois Chamber Benefits Exchange, powered by InsureXSolutions provides small employers the opportunity to control costs and lay a foundation for their employees to obtain affordable health insurance.
Individuals are required to project their income for 2014 to determine the maximum subsidy that may be available to them through a public exchange to help reduce their insurance premiums.
If it turns out that an individual projected their income incorrectly, and the premium subsidy they received was too much, then the individual will have to pay back a portion or the entire subsidy amount when they file their federal income tax return.
By this time most of us are starting to become familiar with the subsidies that are available to eligible individuals that enroll in coverage through the Health Insurance Marketplace, also known as the Exchange. Many of us have also heard the phrase:
“If your household income is within 400% of the Federal Poverty Level you may qualify for a subsidy in the Exchange.”
This seems simple to understand on the surface, but this statement is packed with terms that require further definition. We’ve put together a summary to help you understand some of the key pieces of information within this statement.
The InsureXSolutions® private insurance exchange, operated by Flexible Benefit Service LLC (Flex), has launched new resources which can be found at insurexsolutions.com.
There is no need to wait.
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