California regulator assails Obamacare cancellations

[PoliticAverse]

California's health exchange is violating the law by canceling private coverage for up to 95,000 people because they might qualify for Medi-Cal, the state's insurance commissioner says.

At issue is health insurance for some of the poorest Californians whose incomes aren't high enough to even qualify for subsidized policies in the Covered California exchange.

The state marketplace is notifying thousands of policyholders that their federal premium subsidies for Obamacare coverage will end Dec. 31 and their private health plan won't be renewed starting in January. Instead, these people will be put into Medi-Cal, the state's Medicaid program for low-income residents.

California Insurance Commissioner Dave Jones has been urging the exchange to reconsider. "The law is very clear. They can't cancel people," Jones said in an interview.

Read the rest at: http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-exchange-medi-cal-20141225-story.html

[flamingdem]

1. Covered California was very aggressive with this move and it didn't make sense

Instead of asking people about their income for the next year and giving information about guidelines for eligibiity they cancelled and scared people.

Utterly stupid.

[daredtowork]

2. They need to educate people, too

It was all but impossible to get on Medi-Cal before you got SSI up until lat January, so a lot of people don't know what that means. I already disabused a couple of people of the notion that it means you can't chose a doctor and/or they wouldn't be able to get a doctor at all (but then, they lived in the Bay Area - it's probably easier to get low income medical care here.). Anyway, this shouldn't be sink or swim.

IMHO the "choose an HMO" layer is adding too much complication to the lives of people who are at a place in life where they need to pare down the complexity A LOT. If you want to lift these people out of poverty, try to reduce their interaction with the "system" as much as possible. Connect services as much as possible, keep records on behalf of the patient, and make sure the patient gets what he or she needs, as doctors prescribe. Why even bother with annual renewal for Medi-Cal? Wouldn't it save a lot of paperwork to just keep people on there until tax documents say they DIS-qualify?