Thank you for hosting a call in show on this topic.

I have several questions:

1) I am trying to figure out what a waiver is versus a certificate of exemption.

To figure out if I would be eligible for a waiver I would first need to examine the affordability schedule. If there is no plan available with a premium that is considered affordable, then I am eligible for a waiver, right? The waiver will protect me from paying any penalty for not having health insurance. In order to get a waiver I just fill out a schedule with my tax return and this is how the waiver will be processed. Is this correct?

2) Is a certificate of exemption what I would need to complete if there were plans available that are considered affordable in my income bracket, yet I have dealt with financial hardship this year and because of my personal circumstances I cannot afford the insurance?

3) For the certificate of exemption, can these be submitted at any time? Where can I find these forms? Where do I send them? My understanding is that if I don’t have insurance next year and there is an affordable plan out there for me, I will accrue a fine each month. If I don’t complete a certificate of exemption until after I have been without insurance for several months into the new year, will I have to pay a penalty for the months that I have been without insurance, or if I am granted the certificate of exemption, will these fines be cleared?

4) Also, will people who are eligible for waivers and certificate of exemptions be eligible for the Health Safety Net funds?

5) If there are insurance plans offered through my work place, but the premiums are more expensive than I can afford, could I enroll in a Commonwealth Choice plan, that has lower premiums than the plan offered through my work? Or if I am offered any insurance plan through my work does that automatically make me ineligible for Commonwealth Choice?

Thank you for your time.

Can you speak about the Medicare Savings Plan. Do you know why some states are denying to allow people to sign up for this program, when they qualify?

[...] Tuesday the 18th between 1-2pm, WBUR will host another live call-in show on the MA health reform law. You can post questions in advance on WBUR’s CommonHealth blog — click here. [...]

What is the exact mechisism of administering the penalties?

Will I pay it monthly, will they bill me directly, take it out of my bank account, garnish it from my pay check or what?

The question of affordibility is very subjective. I had been paying my own monthly premiums for the last 2 years 698 then 750 this year. For the upcoming year it was to become 890 a month. This program did not include prescription. The commonwealth connector with prescription was to be 905 a month. Our total visits for the year was 2 for each of my 4 children, my wife and myself. My wife and I ask our care providers what the cost of visits and it turned out to be only 115 a visit. I have one monthly prescription of $43 and a few for my children totaling less than $100 for the year.

This plan was supposed to reduce premiums with all of the extra people enrolled. It does not seem to have worked. What are the insurance companies doing? They seem to have not incentive to reduce their premiums.

Why should we pay for this when our usage is minimal because we have a healthy family and do not visit the doctor for every little runny nose that we might have. We can place that monthly premium into a savings account and have 10,000 in savings by the end of the year. As we continue to build this we can easily have a large saving for emergency use.

What are the ways to opt out?

Of the people newly insured under c. 58’s individual mandate, what shares purchased the policy with the broadest coverage ( lowest out of pocket costs), the policies with the intermediate coverage, and the policy with the narrowest coverage ( highest oop costs)?

Thank you for the opportunity to pose these questions. I hope they will be answered thoroughly. From talking to countless people across Massachusetts I know that lots of others think this law is deeply flawed, and are wondering about these same questions.

– What do you have to say to the many people (including myself) who say: “This mandate law is mostly just a give-away to the insurance industry”?

– It either is or should be illegal for the government to force people, under threat of financial penalty executed by the Dept of Revenue, to purchase a private product. Is it illegal or were existing laws changed to make this “landmark” mandate law possible?

And please don’t give the car insurance example; people can choose not to own a car but having a body is not optional.
In the case of this law the private product is expensive health insurance that is of questionable value.

– Isn’t the “penalty” for not having insurance actually a “TAX”? After all, it will be carried out by the Dept of Revenue as a mandatory component of our state tax returns, right? Then why isn’t it a tax?

– What will happen to the people who refuse to go along with this inappropriate intrusion via the state tax system into our personal health care affairs?

I am one of many people who believe that this law is extremely misguided and will harm many people, and that it is already wasting HUGE sums of taxpayer money by appeasing the private insurance industry and failing to create a more streamlined way of paying for universal health insurance.
Many state residents, in all corners of Massachusetts, have decided that we cannot in good conscience complete the new tax form “1099-HC” that the state is planning to use to carry out the mandate law penalties.

Thank you in advance for your time and effort in answering these questions.

TWO STEPS QUALITY and EFFICIENT HEALTHCARE

1. Add 1 or 2 years to Medical school and eliminate PreMed. This way student learn the material better at younger age and get to market faster at less expense so we have more better doctors.

2. Eliminate the middleman insurance and make the Hospitals or hospital group reponsible for screening and qualifying their affiliated Doctors and prescribed Medications. Then they can determine their fee based on their performance such as number of patients treated, rejected, died or developed complications in the hospitals.

Dara Pourghasemi

COBRA to UNINSURED
If one has COBRA and it expires after December — will Health Care Connector and other plans for low/moderate income still be open for enrollment?– or is it December or nothing.

(Also: I think it cannot bear repeating enough that the Health Care connector plans don’t cover children! People need to be aware that some other arrangement has to be made for their kids.)

oops that bit about kids is in relation to Commonwealth Care

How can the insurance accurately be called “Affordable” when the law’s affordability definition neglects to factor in out-of-pocket expenses (beyond the monthly premiums) such as co-pays, deductibles, and so called “co-insurance” costs?

Are there any community groups “still supporting the law” who have not received funding from the MA Blue Cross Blue Shield Foundation?

The issue is not about insurance. It should be about controling healthcare costs that have outstripped inflation for the last 20 years by about 1000 percent. Until we control costs, all the insurance in the world will not provide us quality, affordable health care.

It is cheaper to stay at the Four seasons Hotel, hire nurses 24 hours a day, for a week than to stay one day in the hospital (non-intensive care)!

Why is there no movement by the government to control costs of care and drugs?

I agree with Tom Garvin’s post. How can the government possibly make healthcare affordable without taking into consideration our High RENT or our high Credit Card balances. I think this new law is TERRIBLE and it breaks my heart to think that I no longer have a choice in the matter. This is the WORST law ever mandated for the middle class.

My situation is exactly the same as Angel’s… I have been in Massachusetts for about four months, I have a MASS drivers license, I am a PHD student who will also have to file in NY. Will this new law effect me as well? Can you give Angel her answer online so I can also hear the response?
Thanks

Would you please ask the panel to address this situation:

I am self employed, but have not had income in the past 4 months. I can no longer afford to pay even the minimum premium of $286 per month, so have canceled my policy through Blue Cross. The tax penalty of $219 is more affordable then a monthly premium. I’ve been on the web sites provided all morning and talked to several representatives, but can not find an option that will satisfy the law and be affordable at the same time. Please help!

My boyfriend and I are self-employed and live in Fitchburg, MA. Not only can we not afford health insurance, we were incredibly discouraged after watching Michael Moore’s film, Sicko. Have your guests seen the film? And if so, what did they think of it?

I haven’t been to a doctor or had health insurance in 10 years. Do I have to buy $100,000 worth of health insurance retroactively?

If one has out-of-state insurance (from an out-of-state employer) but one is a Mass resident, what sort of documentation will be required?

Given that monthly health care costs can run into the hundreds of dollars and the CEO of Blue Cross walked away with a 20 million dollar bonus. Has the panel considered allowing people to open special investment accounts that can only be used for health care costs?

Will uninsured non-Massachusetts (NH,RI,CT,NY,etc) residents be required to pay the cost of catastrophic, urgent or emergency medical care that they may receive from Massachusetts providers? If not, won’t that cause a greater disincentive for companies to hire Massachusetts citizens?

My wife and I work in the Child care field. We make just over the amount to get subsidies. The affordability tool calculates we can pay $320/month. The lowest amount for coverage is $855/month, and it is the bare minimum. What do we do about insurance, and what about dental coverage?

I missed this very important show. Will you be re-braodcating or providing an archived audio stream? Please…

So many good questions posted here that didn’t get answered – yet. At least that question from Korea was taken!

Maybe Mr. Kingsdale whose salary is paid by MA taxpayers (>$200,000 I recall, along with more than 10 other Connector staff who we pay more than $100,000 each) can take some time and post answers to these important questions.

For blog readers, here’s specific information on efforts to bring positive change to our state healthcare system and to fix much of the mess in this mandate law.

Many groups who work on health system reform in MA but do not get funded with hush money from MA Blue Cross Blue Shield are supporting legislation that will go far to ADDRESS COST CONTROL THAT IS LACKING IN THE MANDATE LAW.

The MA League of Women Voters is among these groups. Its board recently voted to support the below bills that are being considered by the legislature. The bills are designed to contain the cost of health care in our state. To help support these cost control efforts you can call Governor Patirck’s office as well as your Senator and ask them to pass these bills.

The State House switchboard is 617-722-2000.

* Senate Bill 699, “An Act to Reduce Health Care Costs and Improve Patient Care”
(Seeks to create one uniform billing form for all providers in the state to use. Aims to reduce administrative costs.);

* Senate Bill 411, “An Act Establishing the MA Prescription Drug Fair Pricing Program”
(Seeks to use existing state authority to bulk purchase prescription drugs and negotiate lower prices.);

* Senate Bill 593, “An Act Relative to Promoting the Efficient Use of Health Care Revenues”.
(Seeks to require state health insurers to spend 90% of premium dollars on care. Aims to reduce non-clinical spending and reduce costs.)

* Senate Bill 703 “The Massachusetts Health Care Trust”.
(Seeks to create a streamlined financing plan and program to guarantee affordable universal coverage for all residents – often called “Single Payer Health Care”. Would largely eliminate private insurance companies and use those administrative savings to finance universal healthcare.

The last two bills above would likely prohibit more of the $20Mil retirement payouts that Bill VanFaasen, the outgoing CEO of Blue Cross Blue Shield (a state public charity who we taxpayers heavily subsidize, by the way) was recently paid…

Is there a way to make the comments readable? The type is so small I cannot read them. I am very interested in this topic.

Diane -

Internet browsers let you change the size of type for most web pages.

If you’re using Windows, hold down the control key and press the “Plus” sign on the numeric keypad. Each time you press the plus, the type should get bigger (press the minus to make it smaller). Another method is to use the view menu at the top.

yes Diane,
click on TOOLS on top of this page.then click on FONTS then choose the size that you can see.then click on ok.hope this helps.