ObamaCare brought a slew of new legislation. About 1/25th of the ideas were good in my humble opinion. The rest were not properly thought out. Last spring the “overage dependant to age 26 law” took effect. Most carriers simply allowed dependants to stay on the policy if they already were. If the dependant had been off the parent’s plan the carriers made parents wait until the company plan had an open enrollment. We went through a month of confusion with all of that.

School documentation was no longer required. The child did not need to prove that they were dependant on the parent or even live at home. Some smaller companies benefited from this because their employees could stay on their parent’s group plan and not enroll in their own company plan. This was supposed to happen but who is watching? No other dependant program from the State or Federal government matches this liberal treatment. The commercial market is the only reciepient of the law. Consider the foster care program. As soon as the foster child is 18 they are encouraged to apply for Medi-Cal and can be enrolled in Medi-Cal until age 21. Healthy Families allows a child to remain on their low cost program until they are 18. I don’t think of myself as a conspriracy theorist, but I do find it interesting that non-publically funded programs have been selected for this ObamaCare law.

The ripple effect is larger then one thinks. Consider the fact that the dependants can have children while covered on the plan. Those children may not be automatically added to the parent’s plan but they are as a Cobra member. Cobra members add to the burden of the employer through evaluations called utilization. Fancy way to say that it could cause the employer’s plan to be rated up. July 2011 brings a variety of increases. The highest increases so far have been given to employee and family or employee and children. Anthem has given one of my clients a 29% bump on their employee and family premium.

One can only imagine that out of 2,000 pages, something valuable was contained within the Patient Protection Act. Quite frankly I am pleased that Emergency Care allowed for benefits to be met as “in-network”. The only carrier in California that did not allow for this was Anthem Blue Cross. This out of network detail was a nasty little downgrade Anthem implemented a couple of years back. When I asked my agent compatriots about it, they did not know. If you were unfortunate enough to be hospitalized with a non contracted hospital, Anthem would only pay $750 a day. See why I call it the nasty little downgrade? I have always felt that these nasty little secrets accumulated to the great dissatisfaction that lead up to the Patient Protection Act also known as ObamaCare.

Hang in there. We are a nation of the most imaginative people with the finest government in the world.  We have our fights over left and right.  That helps keep us from being dominated by total corruption.

My New Years Wishes for all of us.

Health: Strive to a healthier place. Lose some weight and get more active.

Honesty:  Work on personal integrity each day.

Pay it forward: Do something good for someone without being noticed.

You can make yourself dizzy looking up all the time tables for when your new health insurance benefits will enhance your plan. Insurance companies are varied in their approaches to providing benefits outlined in the Obama-care legislation. The edges to the mandates are fuzzy. Whenever an insurance company ponders the rule, they will enact the lowest cost approach. Why shouldn’t they? They can’t print money when they lose money. When they lose money they increase our insurance premiums.

Just a few things will cost the premiums to increase by 30 to 40% in the next 12 months.  I will bet anyone a glass of water on this. Here are a few benefits that are pretty expensive to offer: No co-pays on well person colonoscopy, unlimited dollar amounts on  physical therapy, unlimited prosthetic allowance, unlimited durable medical equipment, dependant coverage to age 26. You might want to think about cost for a minute.

Colonoscopy at your local outpatient pavilion: $1,600,  Physical Therapy Apt. $ 200 heat pack: $150 , State of the art prosthetic leg: $48,000, Therapy equipment for shoulder surgery: $300 day, Dependant daughter has normal delivery childbirth: $35,000. .. 100% coverage: PRICELESS…almost.

Theoretically compare your car insurance plan to health insurance. If you purchased a plan that paid for your oil changes, new tires and engine maintenance, would it be more expensive? Of course it would. Use that logic with health insurance.

 We all need to make a lot more money to pay for our new and enhanced health insurance.  Perhaps we should invest in a company that makes durable medical equipment. Do be careful about making too much money….more on that later.

What do we do?? Vote in November and please listen to your legislator. If they brag about Obama-care you should consider their flawed logic.