Health Care Reform is Here, Now What?

The Choice is No Longer Yours

Jay-Z in he song titled “Excuse Me Miss” off of The Blueprint 2 expresses my feelings quite poetically in his lyrics “Red or Green Pill, You Live and You Learn”

Ryan, seriously Jay-Z, Health Care, what are you talking about?

This is actually a double pop-culture reference in that the lyrics Jay-Z is using actually reference Laurence Fishburne from The Matrix when he offers Keano Reeves an opportunity to see the New World… Which, (for those of you who haven’t seen the movie and I haven’t completely alienated at this point), turns out to be a Post-Apocalyptic Sewer System…

Now does my metaphor on Health Care Reform make sense?

I joke, I joke… (Kinda)

What The Health Care Reform Bill Means to You

Individuals

• All individuals (with some exceptions) will be required to have health insurance by 2014
• Individuals who do not purchase health insurance will be required to pay a yearly fee of $750 per person up to a total of $2,250 per family.  This will be introduced from 2014-2016
• Exceptions to this rule include anyone below the poverty line or if the lowest health insurance option available is more than 8 percent of your household income.

Small Business 

(defined as an employer who employs 25 or fewer qualified employees during the taxable year, and the average employee compensation does not exceed $40,000)

• Starting in 2011 these employers will be eligible for tax credits up to 35 percent of their contribution to employee health insurance.  In 2014, when Small Business Health Options Programs (SHOP) exchanges are established, tax credits will increase to 50 percent of employers’ contributions.
• To qualify for the credit, small businesses much contribute at least 50 percent of the cost of health insurance.

Large Business

• Required to automatically enroll employees into lowest cost health insurance option offered if the employee does not sign up for coverage.
• If as a large business you do not offer health insurance to all full-time employees or do not contribute at least 60 percent of premiums and an employee files with SHOP (insurance exchanges set up in 2014) than that employer will face a penalty.

There is much more information to come out on this bill.  I will posting every time I find new regulations, mandates or stipulations that you the insurance consumer need to know. 

Regardless of my personal opinion on whether this bill will help the US as a whole in the long-term, it does provide valuable coverage to individuals that otherwise had none.  I believe in the idea of Health Care Reform just not the practice of it, yet…

“If you’d like to talk about your Insurance Risk, contact me today. We can talk about your exposure, and begin our relationship!”

Thank you,

Ryan H.

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