California is getting ready for the new changes to healthcare laws and over 5 million people in California who will qualify for the new health care coverages will be getting choices from the insurance exchange that will comply with the Affordable Care Act.
California is following in the footsteps of neighboring states Oregon and Washington who recently announced reasonably priced health insurance rates for next year. The expectation was that the insurance rates would increase and that has been one of the main criticism the opposition to Obamacare has promoted for the past year or so. But now more and more states are proposing reasonable and lower rates which public can benefit from. The law protects policy holders who have pre-existing conditions and does not support increases based on gender or sicker policy holders. Almost three dozen insurance companies in California have submitted proposals for the new insurance exchange that will take effect in 2014 and 13 have already met the requirements. The California health care exchange representatives are allowed to negotiate with insurance companies and therefore have rejected higher priced proposals or those which did not provide adequate selection of hospitals and health care providers.
The good news is among those who were accepted are major Insurance companies such as Kaiser Permanente, Anthem Blue Cross, Blue Shield and Health Net. The state insurance regulator is still to approve these proposals. Other companies such as regional insurance providers were also among the major companies approved. These companies do provide services to low-wage earners.
The proposed premium rates vary and they included $117 a month for a catastrophic plan for a 25-year-old, and a comprehensive plan around $150. Those who earn less than $45,600 a year would also benefit from other subsidies, and many in California would also qualify for federal income tax credits. These credit will help with cost of private insurance. For example a 40-year old policy holder who has less than $2000 a month wages could only pay a $90 a month for a Health Net HMO plan. All and all the future of healthcare in 2014 does not look as grim as some politicians would have like the public to think and most assessments that Californians would end up paying higher rates next year was faulty and inaccurate. It seems that most Californians would have access to insurance and medical care for less than $4,000 a year which is just over $330 a month.
