It’s Open Enrollment time!

[JBS...]

Company name any... approx 500 employees.

They may of put the employer mandate on hold for a year, but not the taxes.

And I should add that nobody is blaming the company, Nobody!


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Open enrollment will begin on Monday November 4th. [Company name omitted] portal will open for enrollment selections as of 8:00 am Monday November 4th. The portal will remain open until Wednesday November 20th at 5:00 pm. On Monday morning you will receive an e-mail from [Company name omitted] inviting you to begin your enrollment. Your user name will be [omitted for privacy] password will be, [omitted for privacy].

As the impact of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) becomes clearer, we are faced with some challenges for Medical Benefits in 2014. ACA impact on our bill will add approximately $600,000 to our 2014 spend.

o $300,000 for Taxes and Fees
o $300,000 in Base Premium increases

As a result, we need to make some changes to Plan Design and Employee Cost Sharing. The Plan Design changes will allow us to mitigate a portion of the increases in a way that can be managed by employees to not increase out of pocket costs. However there still must be an increase to your premium contribution.

Taxes and Fees:

There are two new components to the taxes and fees for 2014, and one carry over. The two new taxes and fees are an Annual Fee on Health Insurance Carriers which is passed on to [Company name omitted], and a Transitional Reinsurance Program that is established to provide funding for high cost claimants that become insured in the individual marketplace throughout the country. These two new taxes and fees do not provide [Company name omitted] with any benefit, they are simply added cost. The carry over fee is a Patient Centered Outcomes Research Institute fee which is designed to fund comparative effectiveness research.

Base Premium:

The base premium increase was projected to increase by 4.17% for 2014. This increase revolves around changes to required essential benefits, changes to out of pocket limits, and medical cost trend.

Impact:

So, the bottom line is we are looking at a plan design change and a cost increase for 2014. We are going to implement a three tiered Prescription Drug Program, with Tier 3 drugs requiring an $80.00 co-pay. However, as you will see in the following documents, you can manage your prescription benefits so you are not exposed to this change. Premium Cost Sharing is increasing from an 8% charge to a 10% charge. This increase still leaves us significantly below the standard of a 20% Premium Cost Share. We have tried to minimize the impact on employee cost and feel this is the correct approach at this time.

Please review the attached documents for the specifics. If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact anyone from Human Resources.

[CarlV]

Originally Posted by JBS...

They may of put the employer mandate on hold for a year, but not the taxes.

The sequester did not change any taxes we pay, the holding the Gov't hostage did not change anything either. They just cost us taxpayers many billions of more debt instead.

Source your article please.


Carl

[JBS...]

Originally Posted by CarlV

The sequester did not change any taxes we pay, the holding the Gov't hostage did not change anything either. They just cost us taxpayers many billions of more debt instead.

Source your article please.


Carl

Um, work..

[merrylander]

Since ACA requires insurers to offer drug coverage our supplement insurer offered it at twice what we pay for Part D for Florence and I don't need Part D as my coverage with Bell is better than Part D and I don't take drugs.

I think this requirement is only for people without Medicare,

[barbara]

My insurance premium has been steadily increasing for the last fifteen years as well as my co pays.

Thank god for obamacare! Now I have something to blame those increases on!!

[JBS...]

How did he sell it Barbara?

"I will sign a universal health care bill into law by the end of my first term as president that will cover every American and cut the cost of a typical family's premium by up to $2,500 a year."

Do promises matter?

"if you like your plan, you can keep your plan, period."

The whole thing was sold I lies...

[barbara]

Originally Posted by JBS...

How did he sell it Barbara?

"I will sign a universal health care bill into law by the end of my first term as president that will cover every American and cut the cost of a typical family's premium by up to $2,500 a year."

Do promises matter?

"if you like your plan, you can keep your plan, period."

The whole thing was sold I lies...

Right, and if it had been a republican selling it... Instead of lying he would have mis spoke when talking about the issue.

We are all old enough to know that politicians make promises that are not kept. I think that Obama made a mistake in his choice of words just like Bush did when he claimed 'mission accomplished'.
Doesn't mean the ACA is a complete failure, it simply means Obama should have considered what he was going to say before putting his foot in his mouth.

Calling Obama a liar doesn't negate the fact that the other countries provide health care for less money with better outcomes and, if we could ever get our act together, we could do the same in the United States.

[BlueStreak]

Barbara, we may all be "old enough", but age and maturity do not always go hand in hand.

[barbara]

Originally Posted by BlueStreak

Barbara, we may all be "old enough", but age and maturity do not always go hand in hand.

Mmmm.. Yes, good point.

[piece-itpete]

No Change?

Pete