ObamaCare!
Yes, I am trying to get your attention.
Most of us see “ObamaCare” and we have a reaction. The reaction can range from, “Hallelujah! This is a good step in the right direction and will probably do me and/or mine some good,” to “This is terrible! BAD for America, BAD for me and it shouldn’t be happening!” As is almost always the case, most of us fall somewhere in-between.
But whatever you think of it – Whatever I think of it! – It is going to happen; so, since I’m about the fine art of “What is” (as opposed to “What Isn’t” or “What Should Be” or What-Not), let’s talk about this for a minute.
A few of us may actually be able to recall 6-7 years back, when Medicare Part D was about to roll-out (roll over us?), and there were similar, widely divergent reactions to it; actually, there still are and so be it – But the fact remains the fact: It is happening, so attempting to ignore it is rather like standing in the railroad tracks and saying, “I don’t like freight trains so, therefore, there’s no freight train coming at me.”
Right: Doesn’t work; at least, not very well for very long.
So, back to it, “ObamaCare:” What most of us mean when we say that word now is the implementation of the health insurance mandate – YOU HAVE TO GET HEALTH INSURANCE, OR ELSE! Well, yeah, OK.
Others of us think in terms of the “Health Benefits Exchange,” which “goes live” on October 1st of this very year; well, yeah, OK.
Others of us just get a headache and try not to think about it at all, because it’s yet another thing we’ll be required to NOT understand, but have to do anyway – Well, yeah, OK!
Let’s try this. Let’s all stop thinking whatever it is that we’ve been thinking and try thinking about this:
Yes, there is a health insurance mandate (YOU HAVE TO GET HEALTH INSURANCE!) that kicks-in on January 1, 2014, more-or-less, mostly, depending…Basically, it says that if you don’t have health insurance, you have to get it. Stop here:
If you are on Medicare, you have health insurance, so this has absolutely nothing to do with you.
NOTE: The already-confusing will be made more-confusing by the unfortunate fact that “open enrollment” for “ObamaCare” will run from October 1, 2013, through March 31, 2014, while the usual Medicare Part D/Advantage Plan “open enrollment” will run (as usual) from October 15, 2013, through December 7, 2013, so we’ll be hearing about both at the same time and thinking, “WHAT?!” So, allow me to knowingly repeat myself:
If you are on Medicare, you have health insurance, so this has absolutely nothing to do with you.
OK? Now, if you have TriCare or VA or fair-to-decent health insurance through your employer (or whatever), then you have health insurance, so this has absolutely nothing to do with you; in other words, if you have health insurance, you don’t need to get health insurance.
Now, it’s true, that if you have “minimal” (meaning, “pretty crappy”) health insurance, you may have to get better health insurance, but for most of us, we will not be forced to go get something that we already have.
Comforting? I thought so.
Now, the “Health Benefits Exchange” is the “thing” (entity, agency, bureaucracy, etc) that ObamaCare invents in every state to be the “marketplace” for finding said health insurance; in Washington, the Health Benefits Exchange is called the “Washington Health Benefits Exchange” – Catchy, huh?
And the Washington Health Benefits Exchange is in the process of inventing the “Washington HealthPlanFinder,” which is a web site we can go to, put in some info about ourselves and find out what the best deals for health insurance for ourselves and our families might be, and whether we might be able to get some help paying for it; THEN, if so inclined, we could enroll in said health insurance plan right then, from right there – But we won’t have to. We will be allowed to think about it.
Occasionally, thinking-about-it is good.
You cannot do this now, because it doesn’t work yet, and YES: We’ll be talking a lot more about all of this, and YES: We will be glad to help you do this (for free) when it’s time to do it, if you want or need help.
If you are on Medicare, you have health insurance, so this has absolutely nothing to do with you. YES, I do know that I already said that – Twice! – But that doesn’t mean that you heard it.
So, what about the “OR ELSE” part? The “you-HAVE-to-get-health-insurance” part? Well, yeah, OK: This is a “mandate,” so if this applies to you and you don’t do it, you could get slammed with a tax penalty OR a penalty of up to about 1% of your income, whichever is greater. What is also true is that there are a whole lot of details that we just don’t have yet (after all, it’s only early August), so try to relax. If you can’t relax, call any of the numbers at the end of this column and we’ll try to help you relax and/or tell you what we know, but remember that there is a whole lot of stuff that nobody knows – Yet.
I personally know a number of folks who will be considerably better off because of all this. I can also imagine that there might be some folks who won’t be (or won’t feel like they are), but I also have to remember that I don’t know what I don’t know.
There’s nothing any of us need to do right now, except for those of us who are eager to do all kinds of research on the subject – And if that’s you, have at it! For the rest of us? Try to relax, and remember that if it looks like a freight train and sounds like a freight train, it’s probably a freight train.
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