It’s February 5, 2014, and the Affordable Care Act is still here.
There have been lots of changes over the last few weeks, in a few different areas:
- Marketplaces pushed back the deadline to enroll in a Marketplace plan for coverage to December 23, in order for coverage to begin on January 1. And some states went even further!
- Marketplaces have pushed back payment deadlines (allowing people more time to pay their January premiums). For example, California’s Marketplace pushed back the payment deadline to January 15. Some health plans are also deciding on their own to give people more time to pay.
So, check with your marketplace or your health plan for your own specific deadlines.
And two weeks ago, the U.S Department of Health & Human Services (HHS) announced that people, who have health insurance coverage through the Pre-Existing Condition Insurance Plan (PCIP), can now keep their plan through March 31, 2014. These plans were originally supposed to end on December 31, 2014. However, HHS wanted to give people more time to find a new plan in the Marketplace. For more information, click here.
If you are on a PCIP plan and want to move to a Marketplace plan before your coverage ends on March 31, then you need to sign up for a Marketplace plan by March 15, in order for your new coverage to begin on April 1.
And for those of you who want some light reading and desperately want to know what a “Risk Corridor” is or who a “Dual Eligible” might be, visit this Affordable Care Act dictionary!
This post originally appeared on The Triage Cancer Blog on January 16, 2014. Triage Cancer is a national, nonprofit organization that provides education and resources addressing the continuum of cancer survivorship issues to survivors, caregivers, and health care professionals. For more information please visit their website.
