Your Health Insurance

With less than a year to go before the full rollout of Obamacare, many business owners are still scratching their heads over what it will mean for them.

Economist says people are surprised income guidelines go so high

A total of 237,310 San Diego County residents will qualify for a health insurance tax credit in 2014, according to a report last week by the nonprofit health advocacy group Families USA.

Families USA this week published a report that identifies that in 2014 nearly 3 million Californians will be eligible for premium tax credits that will help them pay for health coverage.

Nearly 25,000 people in Solano County and some 9,200 in Napa County will be eligible for California’s new health insurance tax credits under health care reform, according to a health care consumer advocacy group.

Los Angeles, California – New study shows that even high deductibles don’t motivate patients to shop around for the cheapest medical services.

Consumer-directed health plans (CDHPs) offer low premiums but high deductibles on the premise that patients who are faced with deductibles of $1,000 or more for individual coverage (or twice that for family coverage) will shop around for the best price for the health care.

In practice, however, that’s not the case, according to a new study by the USC Schaeffer Center for Health Policy and Economics and the RAND Corporation.

Ex

Many California residents gave their HMO plans good or excellent scores for providing health care but assigned lower scores for the plans’ access to care, according to a statewide report card from the state Office of the Patient Advocate, the Ventura County Star reports.

Report Card Details

The annual report card scores HMO and PPO insurance plans that cover a total of 16 million California residents (Kisken, Ventura County Star, 3/27).

It ranks health plans depending on how well they meet 40 quality measures (Kleffman, Contra Costa Times, 3/28).

 Health care has become, by most measures, the largest single piece of the California economy, well over 10 percent of its $2 trillion output of goods and services — and destined to grow as the state extends medical insurance coverage to millions of Californians under the federal Affordable Care Act.

Nevertheless, a new nationwide study finds that as large as it may be, the health care spending in California has been relatively small, compared to other states.