The Affordable Care Act completely changed individual and family health insurance plans for almost every person so enrolled in Nevada. One notable exception is for those who have grandfathered health insurance.
Loosely described, grandfathered health insurance has a coverage effective date is prior to March 23, 2010 (when the Affordable Care Act was signed by President Obama) and for which no major change in benefits has occurred since then. These plans are being allowed to continue into 2015 and are the only plans for which the statement “If you like your health insurance plan, you can keep it” now applies.
Why would anyone want to keep their Grandfathered plan and not sign up for an ACA plan? It is because most grand-fathered plans have been less expensive than ACA plans.
Something that you need to watch out for is premium increases.
Recently some health insurance companies have notified our individual and family clients that their rates are going up a lot. In some cases, the rates have more than doubled. This may put you in a position where getting a new ACA plan costs less for comparable coverage than your grandfathered plan.
It does present an excellent opportunity for us to re-evaluate your current plan, its benefits and cost to determine if this is the best match for you. This is something I recommend my clients do annually. If your grandfathered plan is still the best, great, but, if there is something else that has better benefits or costs less, this will be the time to make that change.
I will provide you with all the information you need consider a new plan or stay with what you have. I can then complete your enrollment or renewal. As always, there is zero cost to you for my services.
Open Enrollment, the time during which you can re-enroll and freely change plans if you want to, begins 11/15/14. I will have information on 2015 plans in October. That would be an excellent time for us to look at your situation. We can then talk about the best options for you. Put a note on your calendar for early to mid-October and let’s have that conversation.
