If you’d like your health coverage to begin January 1, 2014, be sure to enroll in the Health Insurance Marketplace by December 23, 2013.
There are four ways to apply for health insurance through the Marketplace: online, by phone, in person, and by mail.
Although December 23, 2013 is the deadline for coverage beginning January 1, you can apply for Marketplace coverage after December 23,2013.
Open enrollment runs through March 31, 2014.
A friendly reminder from Cosby Insurance Group and USA.gov.
It’s open enrollment season for health-care insurance at many employers.
Increasingly on the menu? High-deductible health-care plans, which are often accompanied by health savings accounts. According to a late-2012 report from Mercer Consulting, 22% of employers now offer a high-deductible plan, and 16% of workers are enrolled in such a plan. The larger the employer, the more likely an HDHP/HSA combination will be on the menu. In some cases, high-deductible plans are employees’ sole health-care options; at other employers, workers can choose between a traditional health-care plan with a higher premium and/or one with a higher deductible.
Read the full report here.
Some 60 percent of Americans—nearly 160 million people—get insurance through their jobs. Thanks to “Obamacare,” that number is about to nosedive.
The president’s signature law is hiking the cost of health insurance for American businesses of all sizes. They’re responding by dumping coverage for workers, spouses, and retirees.
Even though the employer mandate, which requires all firms with 50 or more full-time staffers to provide health coverage or pay a fine, has been delayed by one year, the employer health insurance market is slowly bleeding out.
Read the full report here.
Coverage of the Administration’s Sunday updates regarding the progress it has made as it attempts to fix HealthCare.gov reflects the mixed messages that analysts say the Administration allowed to be promulgated simultaneously.
David Muir, on ABC World News, reported that there was “no big announcement from the White House” because “they wanted it that way,” and the Washington Post 
says “Administration officials…were careful not to declare a full-fledged victory,” but some headlines from print and online outlets suggest that the site is now fixed.
For instance, USA Today , has an article titled, “White House Claims Success On HealthCare.gov Repairs,” and the AP uses the headline, “Officials: Worst Tech Bugs Over For Healthcare.gov.”
On NBC Nightly News, Lester Holt said, “if you ask the Obama Administration, the government’s new health care website is vastly improved.”
The media’s conflation of intermediate goals met and an ultimately successful repair effort has already resulted in a truncated negative press cycle for the Administration. In an example of the evolving narrative, on Sunday afternoon, the New York Times ’ Robert Pear covered the Administration’s progress report in an online piece titled, “Obama Administration Says Health Care Website Is Vastly Improved,” but the front page of this morning’s Times (12/2, A1, Pear, Abelson, Subscription Publication) features an article co-written by Pear under the headline, “Insurers Claim Health Website Is Still Flawed” that details the substantial work that remains to be done before the Federal exchange is fully functioning.
On ABC World News, Jeff Zeleny reported that “government officials say the site’s now working more than 90 percent of the time, up from 40 percent when it began.” White House adviser Jeffrey Zients was shown saying that his “bottom line” was that “HealthCare.gov on December first is night and day from where it was on October first.” Zeleny reported that the site now has “a lower error rate…enough capacity for 50,000 people at once” and increased “speed.” Nevertheless, Zeleny added that the Administration is “easing into the relaunch” and “trying to keep a flood of people from crashing the system.”
USA Today , in an article titled, “White House Claims Success On HealthCare.gov Repairs,” reports that on Sunday, the White House “announced…it has met its goal to make its troubled Healthcare.gov website operate smoothly for most users, fueling hope among Democrats that attention can now turn to successes of the underlying health care law.” Jeffrey Zients, described as “the president’s appointee to fix the website’s problems,” is quoted as saying, “The site is now stable and operating at its intended capacity at greatly improved performance.”
Still, on NBC Nightly News’ Sunday broadcast, Kristen Welker reported that “some tech experts say” HealthCare.gov “isn’t running smoothly enough to meet the April first goal of having seven million people enrolled, including young people whose premium payments are vital to the program.”
Indeed, much of Monday’s coverage is split as to how successful this “fix” has been. Under the headline, “Officials: Worst Tech Bugs Over For Healthcare.gov,” the AP reports that HHS is maintaining that “the worst of the online glitches, crashes and delays may be over for the problem-plagued government health care website,” but, according to the AP, HealthCare.gov is still suffering from “hundreds of software bugs, inadequate equipment and inefficient management.”
The Washington Post , in a front-page article titled, “HHS Touts 90% Success Rate For HealthCare.gov,” reports that the Administration is telling the public that it has “met its goal of improving the online health-insurance marketplace so that it works well for the vast majority of users but acknowledged it still has extensive work to do.” The Post says Zients emphasized that HealthCare.gov “is now working more than 90 percent of the time – a big improvement over October, when the site was operating only about 43 percent of the time and frequently crashed.” According to the Post, “the announcement is a milestone for the administration, which has struggled to improve the Web site since its botched Oct. 1 launch.”
However, the New York Times (12/2, A1, Pear, Abelson, Subscription Publication) offers a markedly more downbeat assessment of the Administration’s progress than many other outlets this morning. The Times reports that HealthCare.gov’s “so-called back end systems, which are supposed to deliver consumer information to insurers, still have not been fixed,” and, “with coverage for many people scheduled to begin in just 30 days, insurers are worried the repairs may not be completed in time.” The Times says “some insurers…have been deluged with phone calls from people who believe they have signed up for a particular health plan, only to find that the company has no record of the enrollment.” According to the Times, other insurers complain that “information they received about new enrollees was inaccurate or incomplete, so they had to track down additional data,” while “in still other cases…they have not been told how much of a customer’s premium will be subsidized by the government, so they do not know how much to charge the policyholder.”
In a piece with a title indicative of this narrative split, under the headline, “White House Claims ‘Dramatic Progress’ On Health Site: Administration Officials Acknowledged ‘More Work to Be Done,’” the Wall Street Journal (12/1, Schatz, Radnofsky, Ante, Subscription Publication) reports that HealthCare.gov is not likely to be able handle the traffic that the Administration anticipates in the coming weeks. According to the Journal, some of the repair work on HealthCare.gov is being done by Google, Oracle and Red Hat employees working as contractors. The Journal reports that some of the contractors initially complained that the repair effort lacked a single manager. However, according to the Journal, many of those concerns were alleviated following Zients’ appointment and the decision to give another contractor, Quality Software Services, which is part of UnitedHealth’s Optum, more responsibility for the project.
The Los Angeles Times (12/1, Levey) also reported that “experts” warn that “even with the improvements…the site’s performance still does not measure up to most commercial websites,” and notes that even “administration officials concede that the added capacity may not be enough to handle the crush of people expected” from now until December 23, the enrollment deadline for plans that begin in January. The Times adds that the Administration “has refused to disclose data about the accuracy of consumer information being transmitted to insurance companies.” The Huffington Post (12/2, Young) also reports that December “could now prove a crucial month for the first year of enrollment” as the “crush of consumers scrambling to get health insurance for the new year could test the rigor of the administration’s fixes.”
Finally, the Washington Times (12/2, Howell) reports that the message from Republicans is that “despite fixes to the site…the administration has lost its credibility with the American public.”
Several media outlets, including two national newspapers, covered the Obama Administration’s announcement over the holiday weekend of a one year delay to small business exchange enrollment on the Federal health insurance marketplace. Some sources focused on the mechanics of the policy shift while others centered their coverage on the political implications of the latest setback to the implementation of the Affordable Care Act.
The New York Times (11/28, Pear, Subscription Publication) reported that the Obama Administration announced on Wednesday a delay of one year to small business enrollment in Federal health insurance exchange. The delay applies to small businesses in states using the Federal government’s exchange. The new target date is November, 2014.
Politico (12/2, Millman) characterized the move as “another high-profile setback for HealthCare.gov.” Small business enrollment was previously scheduled to start last month. The Administration is emphasizing fixes to the individual signup process, which has been sharply criticized for ongoing problems.
The Wall Street Journal (11/28, Simon, Huston, Radnofsky, Subscription Publication) reported on the delay in an article headlined “Small-Business Delay Is Latest Blow For Health Law.” The Journal noted that the Affordable Care Act only requires health insurance coverage to be provided to employees by businesses with more than fifty employees.
McClatchy (11/27, Kumar) added that the Small Business Health Options Program (SHOP) had already had its debut delayed from October to November of this year.
The New York Times (11/27, Mandelbaum) noted in its “You’re the Boss” blog that, during the additional year in which the small business exchanges will not accept online enrollment, “small businesses can enroll in exchange-listed plans through an insurance agent or broker, or directly with the carrier.”
Bloomberg News (11/28, Wayne, Goldman) commented on the holiday timing of the announcement, comparing it to the timing of a one year delay to the employer mandate announced the day before Independence Day. The Affordable Care Act only requires health insurance coverage to be provided to employees by businesses with more than fifty employees.
The NPR (11/27, Chappell) “Two-Way” blog, and the Washington (DC) Post (11/27, Kliff) “Wonkblog” also reported on the announcement.
Small Business Delay Empowers ACA Opposition. The Washington Post (11/27, Harrison) noted in its “On Small Business” blog that “This marks by far the longest in a string of delays for the federal government’s employer marketplace — and elected officials and small business leaders are growing frustrated.”
The Washington Times (11/27, Howell) reported that the delay gives further fuel to Republicans opposing the Affordable Care Act who believe that the small business delay “is the latest sign President Obama’s signature achievement should be scrapped altogether.”
