19 days and dwindling on health insurance

Only 19 days remain for individuals and families who want health insurance in 2014 to sign up for coverage through the Affordable Care Act-created exchanges.

March 31 is the deadline for the initial open enrollment period under “Obamacare.” Uninsured, unexcused Americans after this date will be hit with the law’s individual-mandate tax, and because ACA exchanges will be closed, most people will be unable to receive subsidies if they decide to purchase health insurance for 2014 coverage.

The federal government facilitates Louisiana’s health-insurance exchange, in which two insurance companies – Blue Cross Blue Shield Louisiana and Louisiana Health Cooperative – offer coverage to Tri-parish area residents. The exchange is online at healthcare.gov.

Via the marketplace, Louisianans can research their options, compare costs and coverage tiers from insurers head-to-head and learn whether they qualify for government subsidies. Or they can circumvent the exchanges and purchase plans straight from the insurer.

Heralded as a way to reach younger, healthier Americans and for making it easy to compare insurance plans, the healthcare.gov website was one of the keystone pieces of Obamacare. But glitches plagued its introduction, making it difficult and time consuming for people to sign up for plans independently.

Insurance agents, as well as federally funded navigators, are available to help guide people through the law’s requirements offline at no cost to clients. For those without an already established agent, a list of local agents trained to sell insurance in the Louisiana marketplace is available at bcbsla.com.

“I think the first thing I would do as a person looking for health insurance on or off the exchange is to contact their insurance agent,” the Houma-based agent Martha Walker said. “Insurance agents in this area are very well attuned to what’s going on.”

Monica Folse is another one of those listed agents. She estimated her company Houma Health Insurance Service has helped 35 clients through the purchasing process.

“I have been in this business for over 25 years, doing health insurance as an agent, and I have never seen a process so difficult,” Folse said. “It’s frustrating on our part that we’re not able to help our clients … I think it’s a disaster.”

Many of those clients have to make multiple trips to Folse’s office to complete their purchases, Folse said, as healthcare.gov still isn’t operating consistently. Although some sign-ups have lasted only 30 minutes, more are closer to two hours, she said.

Some people who are uninsured after the open-enrollment deadline will be eligible to access the exchanges during special enrollment periods, which require a person to have undergone a specific life event in order to qualify. Examples of these experiences include changing jobs, residency (to a new state) or family size. Hardship exemptions are also available for people in dire circumstances.

But the vast majority of individuals who remain uninsured in 2014 will be assessed a penalty when they file federal income tax returns in 2015. That per-person penalty this year the greater of $95 or 1 percent of his or her income. The penalty baseline is set to grow to $325 the year after and to $695 for 2016.

As of Feb. 1, 85 percent of the 33,000 Louisianans who enrolled through the “Obamacare” insurance exchanges qualified for federal assistance toward their premiums, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

Prior to ACA implementation, 795,000 Louisiana residents were uninsured and eligible to purchase insurance through the marketplace, according to an HHS estimate.

Insurance plans offered to businesses are not sold during specific periods, so the March 31 deadline does not apply to employers. Individuals, however, are running out of time to comply with a law that has withstood U.S. Supreme Court scrutiny and dozens of attempts by Congressional Republicans to have it repealed.

The Affordable Care Act’s aim was to reconstitute the health-insurance landscape to make insurance available and affordable to all Americans, regardless of household income and pre-existing medical conditions.

Critics have said the law is costly to businesses small and large and claim its ambition has fostered burdensome, confusing requirements while limiting individuals’ autonomy in making health-related decisions.

The next open enrollment period is scheduled to run from Nov. 15 through Feb. 15, 2015. Coverage will be offered then for the 2015 calendar year.

“My response … was that’s not enough time,” Folse said. “Three months is not enough time for getting everybody on board.”