Health Care Thoughts: PPACA Health Exchange Oops
by Tom aka Rusty Rustbelt
Health Care Thoughts: PPACA Health Exchange Oops
On March 1, 2013 employers were supposed to notify employees in writing of information relating to the health insurance exchanges, including a 1) description of services, 2) employee eligibility for a premium tax credit IF the employee purchases an exchange insurance product, and 3) the downside of the employee purchasing through the exchange.
On January 24th the Department of Labor announced the suspension of the notice rule, because there is very little guidance currently available, as the feds are behind on implementation actions and exchanges are still in a confused infancy.
It is possible the DOL will require the notices to be issued in late summer or fall, ahead of an October (?) startup.
I am now putting the probability of a major delay of exchange start ups at 30%.
Rusty
I think I see an aspect of “excessive government regulation” here which you may agree with.
I am no longer an employer, but I know that I would resent having to do the government’s paperwork for it by “informing my employees…”
Seems to me the government should be doing the informing directly.
But these days I can’t even get the government to send me tax forms. And apparently the government can’t send people Social Security estimates without hiring a private company to manage the chore.
I find it difficult to believe this is “cost effective.” I think it’s just the result of insane ideology. Oddly enough though, it is “anti government” insane ideology.
Thank you, Coberly, for pointing out the idiocy of contracting out jobs that are better done in-house. No one has yet offered me a (reliable) explanation of why it is cheaper for a company that must make a profit and often satisfy shareholders with dividends, to provide a service than to have your own – usually less well paid – staff do it.
The real reasons are no doubt about cutting costs of government while filling the pockets of the private sector. From the Republican POV, it’s a twofer, at the very least.
“I am now putting the probability of a major delay of exchange start ups at 30%.”
I can’t tell if you’re an optimist, off-market, or have a very loose definition of “major delay.”
More likely: 30% chance of not having a major delay. As soon as Republican Governors hit critical mass–Jan Brewer is the sane one(!)–roll out wasn’t going to be on time.
At this point, the median case is that HealthCare IT personnel will be working on initial implementations until 2018-2020.
Or are you seeing a scalable solution coming out of DC that isn’t getting coverage anywhere else?