When I was a little boy growing up in the 1960s, there was an elderly widow who lived next door to us whom all the kids loved. Miss Elaine had been married to an Army staff sergeant who traveled the world with her in tow. She was a tough cookie! She taught all of us kids to play poker and pinochle (her favorite) and was constantly giving us advice in her raspy, smoky voice (about two packs a day by my recollection).
Early in 2009, my boss directed me to become an expert on the ongoing negotiations in Washington, D.C. that eventually became the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA), signed into law on March 23, 2010.
Fourteen years ago, I was working for a collapsing telecom company that had just shut down the division I worked for and laid off about 70 of us. Three months later, I began my career here at Blue Cross, and as a cancer survivor, you might imagine I was VERY interested in getting health insurance coverage.
I’m always in awe of the intelligence and credentials of the people I work with on a day-to-day basis at Blue Cross. A great example is Dr. Vindell Washington, our chief medical officer.
As I sit here in mid-April, I can’t help but think of all the times in the past four years I’ve been confronted by folks who got HUGE tax bills at the end of the year because they bought their health insurance on healthcare.gov, made some errors computing their income and got hit with a surprise bill. This is a great time to review how the Advanced PremiumTax Credits on healthcare.gov work and how to avoid getting nailed with a huge tax bill at the end of the year.
Age is a big factor in how much medical care people are expected to use. But the ACA made the ratio between how much we are allowed to charge a 64-year-old versus a 21-year-old too small. Mike Bertaut breaks it down in this new video that helps explain why young people are being priced out of the market and driving up costs for everyone else.
