Implementation of the Health Care Law is Quickly Approaching . . .

As the full implementation of the Health Care law draws near, I'm getting a lot of questions about what may be happening.  To date, there's not a lot to report.  I'm hoping that more concrete details will be available soon.  The carriers are working to develop compliant "qualified" health plans that will be sold inside and outside of the state based exchanges (or marketplaces).  One thing that many are not aware of is the fact that there's an "open enrollment" period being established for individual and family plans.  This is new -- currently in the individual and family market, people are able to purchase new insurance whenever they want to - they are not bound by 'enrollment periods'.

The initial enrollment period will begin on October 1, 2013 and will last through March 31, 2014.  Enrollment will be for plans with an effective date of  1/1/2014 or later.  After that, the annual enrollment period will coincide with the Medicare Annual enrollment period - which is from October 15 through December 7 of each year.  If a person doesn't sign up during an annual enrollment period, they will not be able to buy a plan again until the next one, unless they qualify for a special enrollment period.  Qualification is based on things like major life events/changes - marriage, birth of a child, etc.

There are still many questions to be answered.  One is whether or not the exchanges will be open & ready for business on October 1.  There was an interesting article about this topic and the software that will be used to sign people up for insurance.  Read about it here . . .

As more specifics are communicated to me, I will be sure to post items of note here for my clients and friends.