California senator unveils bill to give health care to undocumented immigrants

A plan to provide undocumented immigrants in California access to subsidized health care has been spelled out in Senate Bill 1005 by Sen.Ricardo Lara, a Democrat from Bell Gardens.

Undocumented immigrants are excluded from the federal Affordable Care Act that is now offering legal residents the ability to purchase health insurance through government-run marketplaces.

Lara's bill would create two avenues for Californians who are in the country illegally to seek health care. The state would expand Medi-Cal to include undocumented immigrants whose incomes are under 138 percent of the poverty level -- about $32,000 a year for a family of four. And for undocumented immigrants who make more than that, the state would create a marketplace to sell insurance products.

The marketplace would be similar to Covered California -- the state's exchange that was created to sell insurance under the federal Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare.

The bill does not spell out a cost for California to extend health insurance to undocumented immigrants.

"We are doing the number crunching now," said Anthony Wright, executive director of the Health Access advocacy group that is supporting Lara's bill.

He said the goal is to provide health insurance for roughly 3 million Californians who don't have health insurance and cannot get it under the federal health program because of their immigration status.

"The idea under this bill is to extend the same level of help that the Affordable Care Act provides but to all Californians," Wright said. "It's about fairness and inclusion for all Californians."

Currently some California counties provide health care to undocumented immigrants but the offerings vary greatly among counties.

PHOTO: Senate President Pro Temp Darrell Steinberg, D-Sacramento, speaks with Senator Ricardo Lara, D-Bell Gardens, in the Senate chambers in March 2013. The Sacramento Bee/Hector Amezcua

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Don't get too worked up over today's big ObamaCare deadline

Monday is the last day to sign up under ObamaCare for coverage that kicks in January 1... sort of.

Yes, most people must sign up by 11:59 p.m. Monday night to have coverage in place at the start of next year. And as such, the cutoff is being trumpeted as a major hard deadline for the president's health care law.

Yet due to a number of administration-mandated tweaks and delays, the deadline is actually kind of squishy, and thus more symbolic than anything.

Last Thursday, the administration announced that some of the hundreds of thousands of people who had lost their existing health care plans because of ObamaCare could be exempt from the individual mandate's penalty. The "hardship exemption" written into the mandate stipulates that someone may be considered exempt if there are "financial or domestic circumstances…that prevented him or her from obtaining coverage under a qualified health plan."

That means people who have unexpectedly been dropped from their existing plans do not necessarily need to find new ones just yet. And as the Wall Street Journal noted, there are 14 specific ways people can qualify for the "hardship exemption," some of which require little to no documentation to prove. In other words, there are more than a dozen ways around the December 23 deadline, including one specifically made available to a group of people who have become a political flashpoint for the health care law.

In addition to the new hardship exemption, the administration had already this month extended the deadline from December 23 to the end of the year for people to make their first premium payments for new coverage. And more recently, it urged insurers to retroactively extend coverage to people who sing up by the 23rd but do not make their first payment until January 10.

There will also reportedly be a "good faith" exemption for others who try but are unable to enroll by the Monday deadline, something that will further soften Monday's supposedly hard deadline, according to Reuters. As you may recall, the federal exchange marketplace functioned so poorly in the early going that it effectively prevented people from getting coverage even if they wanted to.

Then there's the fact that the original "hard" deadline was December 15. But when Healthcare.gov crashed in the early going, the White House extended the deadline to the 23rd.

The White House had hoped to enroll 3.3 million people in new health plans through the federally run marketplace by the end of the year. They've so far enrolled about one-third that number. And though the pace of enrollments is trending upward, polls continue to find the law deeply unpopular; a CNN survey released Monday found a record low 35 percent of Americans supported the law.

Still, there's plenty of time for people to find coverage in the new year before they'll be penalized for going uninsured. Due to another extension, the uninsured have until April 1 to enroll in coverage before they'll be hit by the individual mandate's penalty.

So in that sense, the hard deadline for the law itself is April 1 — or, given the numerous delays to date, it's the law's hard deadline for now.

via http://theweek.com/article/index/254543/dont-get-too-worked-up-over-todays-big-obamacare-deadline

This Christmas, give the gift of ... health insurance?

Forget the Xbox One, Ugg boots or that "Keep calm and kill zombies" hoodie.

California officials are urging you to consider gifting that special young adult in your life something a bit less tangible: Obamacare.

Covered California, the state health insuranceexchange, on Thursday launched its "Give the Gift of Health" campaign aimed at families, principally mothers and grandmothers (for the latter, apparently a $5 bill no longer cuts it).

Officials estimate roughly 1.8 million residents aged 18 to 29 are eligible to obtain health insurance through the exchange or qualify for free or reduced Medi-Cal, the government program for the poor and disabled. About 2.6 million Californians - many of them under 30 - will qualify for a federal subsidy reducing their monthly premium.

The holiday campaign - Wednesday was the last night of Hanukkah - includes a website atCoveredCA.com/pledge, where one can "pledge" to cover the cost of insurance; e-cards containing information about covered options and tips for starting a discussion about the importance of getting insured.

Claire Lipschultz, the mother of two twenty-somethings, acknowledged parents can't force medical decisions on their adult children. But they can help get them affordable insurance, said Lipschultz, the state policy advocate for the National Council of Jewish Women-California.

"Young adults tend to think that nothing will harm them," she said. "Moms know you are healthy until you are not. So, be sure your loved ones are covered."

Editor's Note: Post updated at 3 p.m. to reflect the last day of Hanukkah.

PHOTO: Emanuel Jumatate of Chicago, hugs his new Xbox One after he purchased it at a Best Buy in Evanston, Ill on Nov. 22, 2013. Microsoft is billing the Xbox One, which includes an updated Kinect motion sensor, as an all-in-one entertainment system rather than just a gaming console. AP Photo/ Nam Y. Huh

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Blue Shield gives California policyholders three-month reprieve

Roughly 113,000 Californians whose individual health plans were set to expire at the end of the year will be given the option to extend their coverage though the end of March.

Those with individual plans issued by Blue Shield of California Life & Health Insurance Company will be allowed to retain their plans for an extra three months regardless of whether they purchased coverage before the March 2010 passage of the federal health care law - the cutoff for "grandfathered" policies.

State officials estimate upward of 1 million Californians were receiving cancellation notices. Nearly 600,000 residents who buy their own health insurance are bracing to pay more for new plans in large part because of the federal health care overhaul. Blue Shield had given a three-month notice to 119,000 subscribers that their plans would be withdrawn from the market and replaced with new compliant policies.

Insurance Commissioner Dave Jones suggested the cancellations required a six-month warning and threatened legal action if existing policyholders were not allowed to retain their plans until March 31.

"Our action today is solely related, as it should be, to the question of whether Blue Shield complied with the notice requirement. They did not," Jones said. "We told them they needed to comply, and we reached this agreement with them."

The cancellations have enraged customers nationwide and caused headaches for President Barack Obama, who last week was forced to walk back repeated assertions that Americans who were satisfied with their health plans could keep them.

Stephen Shivinsky, a spokesman for the company, said it was able to accommodate Jones' request because the insurance plans in question are regulated by the Department of Insurance. New plans offered on the state insurance marketplace, Covered California, are regulated by the Department of Managed Health Care and are bound by the model contract between the exchange and insurance companies.

Blue Shield is mailing letters to 80,000 households informing them of the change and letting them know that they would have to ask to extend their coverage in their current plan. The deadline to retain current coverage is Dec. 6.

Still, Shivinsky said the company is warning customers that an extension is not without complications. Significant risks include: Having to pay a deductible twice in one year; missing tax credits and cost-sharing subsidies for plans that meet new requirements of the federal health care overhaul and are purchased via the exchange; and needing to enroll in a new plan by March 15, 2014 to avoid a gap in coverage after March 31.

"We are providing a lot of cautions to our subscribers if they choose to extend their coverage," Shivinsky said.

PHOTO: Then-Assemblyman Dave Jones, D-Sacramento, holds a news conference to announce legislation on March 13, 2009. The Sacramento Bee/Brian Baer.

Editor's Note: Updated at 11:30 a.m. to reflect comments from Jones.

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