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Understanding the variables and how they will impact your health insurance coverage under Obamacare is crucial to limit your costs. The following breakdown is only for those consumers who purchase plans on the individual market through exchanges; this information does not apply to individuals with employer-sponsored health plans.
Income: One of the primary factors determining how much you will pay next year is your income. This is because subsidies are available to consumers with incomes of up to 400 percent of the poverty line or roughly $45,000 for an individual and $92,000 for a family of four. Roughly 57 percent of enrollees will receive subsidies, and those subsidies will cover roughly two-thirds of the premium according to the Congressional Budget Office.
Age: The Elderly will typically see their premiums decrease, because they will be placed into a risk pool with the younger (or healthier) generations. Moreover, Obamacare imposes limits on the amounts insurers can charge older enrollees to three times the amount charged for younger buyers. It is now commonplace to see the elderly charged five times more than younger buyers.
Gender: Currently an insurance company can charge premiums based on gender. Males typically pay less than woman, since they typically visit the doctor less frequently. Under the new Affordable Care Act; however, insurers are not allowed to charge different rates to women and men.
As a result of this information, it can be assumed that younger males (between the ages of 25 and 36) will see their rate increase by as much as 50 percent; however, women of the same age will only experience a premium increase of around 5 percent.
Amount of Coverage: Uninsured individuals will of course see their payments rise because they currently do not pay for insurance. Moreover, those individuals with catastrophic coverage or high-deductible plans will most likely see their premiums increase.
State of Residence: Some states in the U.S> currently require some of the same protections as those provided by the Affordable Care Act, which increases costs of individual market plans for residents today. These areas include Maine, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, and Vermont. Premiums may drop in these states because younger and healthier people are likely to enter the market.
That being said, insurers—and seemingly everyone else—are just guessing as to what premiums should be.
Source: whitehouse.gov
Syracuse and Princeton have joined a growing list of universities in the United States that cover transition-related medical costs for transgender faculty and staff under their health insurance policies.
Effective July 1, Princeton University’s employee health plan will provide coverage for all forms of gender reassignment surgeries and operations. Many officials and the school’s newspaper have reported that talks of a similar change to the student health care plan are still ongoing.
A comparable expansion of transition-related coverage for transgender faculty and staff was implemented at Syracuse University late last month. According to the Transgender Policy and Law Institute, roughly 19 universities or colleges in the United States provide some level of transition-related medical coverage for employees, with a more expansive list providing coverage for gender reassignment surgeries and/or hormones as provided by their student healthcare plans.
These inclusive alterations at universities and colleges throughout the United States mirror the progress in corporate America. In the 2013 Corporate Equality Index, a record 287 prominent companies reported coverage for transgender-inclusive health plans.
In 2009, the Human Rights Campaign announced that earning a score of 100 percent on the Corporate Equality Index would require employers to provide at least one firm-wide available health plan that provides coverage for medically necessary transition-related assistance or care. Partnered with consultative and intensive educational efforts, these criteria led to a five-fold increase from 2009 to 2012 in the number of prominent U.S. employers providing transgender-inclusive health coverage.
Source: Human Rights Campaign