This open enrollment season, be on the lookout for online scams targeting Minnesotans who need health insurance. MNsure’s open enrollment period runs from November 1, 2022, through January 15, 2023. Scammers take advantage of this opportunity to try to trick Minnesotans into purchasing products that do not provide comprehensive coverage
For example, if you search for MNsure online, you may see ads or websites that appear to be the official MNsure website but are not. Some of these sites collect your contact information and may bombard you with phone calls. Scammers also may claim they can find you a better plan for less money or threaten that your coverage will be discontinued if you don’t re-enroll.
Here are three tips to verify you’re working with MNsure and purchasing comprehensive health care coverage:
Access Health CT (AHCT) today announced Navigator partnerships with the Community Health Center Association of CT (CHCACT) at its Danbury, Norwich and Willimantic locations, Community Renewal Team (CRT) in Hartford, Greater Bridgeport Area Prevention Program (GBAPP) in Bridgeport and New Opportunities, Inc. in Waterbury. These partnerships increase the number of Navigator locations in the state and deepen AHCT’s reach into Connecticut communities where residents can get one-on-one health insurance enrollment help year-round.
“Our Navigator program is a critical part of our outreach, particularly to underserved communities,” said Chief Executive Officer of Access Health CT, James Michel. “It was important to us to expand this service, so all Connecticut residents can get the help they need to enroll in health insurance plans throughout the year. Qualifying life events that allow you to enroll in health insurance outside of the annual Open Enrollment period, like getting married or having a baby, can happen any time. We want residents to have somewhere to turn all year.”
Tennessee has posted their approved 2023 individual & small group market health insurance rate filings. For the most part they're fairly straightforward: The individual market is looking at average rate increases of around 8.5% (down a bit from the 9% average via preliminary filings), while the small group market averages around +3.0% overall.
The biggest news here is Bright Health is dropping out of Tennessee's markets. Bright's withdrawal will leave roughly 50,000 Tennessee residents to have to either manually pick a different plan from a different carrier or be automatically "mapped" to a similar plan to what they have now...via a different carrier.
West Virginia has by far the highest average unsubsidized premiums in the country (Wyoming and Alaska rank 2nd and 3rd). It also has the second smallest individual market in the U.S. (Alaska has the smallest), with just over 22,000 West Virginians enrolled in ACA policies statewide.
For 2023, they're looking at roughly a 5% rate hike for those who don't qualify for ACA subsidies. The good news is that, being West Virginia, the vast majority of those enrolled (95%) do qualify for financial help.
WV's ACA-compliant small group market is even smaller, just ~14,000 people; they're looking at roughly a 3.4% average rate hike next year.
10/18/2022 The Alabama Department of Insurance (ALDOI) has approved the final 2023 premium rates for the Affordable Care Act Individual Market in Alabama. The rates will be effective on January 1, 2023. The three carriers in the Alabama individual market are Blue Cross Blue Shield of Alabama (BCBS), UnitedHealthcare Insurance Company (UHC), and Celtic Insurance Company (CIC). In general, rates for BCBS decreased 0.3 percent, and rates for UHC increased 14.9 percent. CIC is new to the Affordable Care Act Individual Market in Alabama in 2023. The actual rates and the supporting material may be found by clicking on the links below.
Consumers with an insurance question may contact the Alabama Department of Insurance, Consumer Services Division, using the contact information below. The Department also maintains a Live Chat feature for consumers at our website at www.aldoi.gov. A representative will be happy to help answer your questions.
Hearing Aids: Hearing aids are so expensive that only 14% of the approximately 48 million Americans with hearing loss use them. On average, they cost more than $5,000 per pair, and those costs are often not covered by health insurance. A major driver of the expense is that consumers must get them from a doctor or a specialist, even though experts agree that medical evaluation is not necessary. Rather, this requirement serves only as red tape and a barrier to more companies selling hearing aids. The four largest hearing aid manufacturers now control 84% of the market.
In 2017, Congress passed a bipartisan proposal to allow hearing aids to be sold over the counter. However, the Trump Administration Food and Drug Administration failed to issue the necessary rules that would actually allow hearing aids to be sold over the counter, leaving millions of Americans without low-cost options.
The 2023 ACA Open Enrollment Period is still ongoing in 6 states, and many people can still enroll in other states as well!
The 2023 OEP is the best ever for the ACA for several reasons:
First, the expanded/enhanced premium subsidies first introduced in 2021 via the American Rescue Plan, which make premiums more affordable for those who already qualified while expanding eligibility to millions who weren't previously eligible, are continuing for at least another 3 years via the Inflation Reduction Act;
Second, because several states are either expanding or retooling their own state-based subsidy programs to make ACA plans even more affordable for their enrollees;
There's also expanded carrier & plan offerings in many states/counties, and as always, millions of people will be eligible for zero premium comprehensive major medical policies.
If you've never enrolled in an ACA healthcare policy before, or if you looked into it a few years back but weren't impressed, please give it another shot now. Thanks to these major improvements it's a whole different ballgame.
Here's thirteen important things to know when you #GetCovered for 2023:
Open Enrollment for 2023 Health Insurance Begins October 15
Idahoans can now determine their tax credit and shop for a plan within minutes.
BOISE, Idaho – Open Enrollment for health insurance in Idaho starts tomorrow, October 15. Idahoans can enroll in 2023 medical and dental coverage through Your Health Idaho, the state’s health insurance exchange. For the first time ever, Idahoans will be able to apply for a tax credit and health insurance on the same application and find out if they qualify within minutes. The new technology is designed to improve Idahoan’s health insurance shopping experience.
Florida state law gives private corporations wide berth as to what sort of information, which is easily available in some other states, they get to hide from the public under the guise of it being a "trade secret."
In the case of health insurance premium rate filing data, that even extends to basic information like "how many customers they have."
