Come October 1st, individuals, the self-employed, and small businesses (less than 50 employees) will have new options for their health insurance. The Health Insurance Marketplace and the Small Business Health Options Program (the SHOP Marketplace) will be open for enrollment. In addition to these new marketplaces, there are also small business health care tax credits and possible financial assistance.
If you want all of the details, you can read the entire Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, and the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act.
If that’s too much, you can also get information without reading hundreds of pages.
Individuals who want to learn more about the Health Insurance Marketplaces for them and their families can look at their home state options.
If the wealth of information there doesn’t answer your question, you can use the Live Chat to get specific answers. There’s also a wizard to check if you might qualify for coverage at a lower cost. Visit HealthCare.gov for more information.
Businesses can go to a one-stop website for information on the Affordable Care Act. The site has a wizard to enter information about your business – size and location – so you can get information that is specific to your business. It can also connect you to details on small business tax credits and other provisions of the law from the Small Business Administration, the Department of Health and Human Services, and the Treasury Department.
There are also websites with information tailored to narrower groups. One example is our military veterans. While Veterans already enrolled in VA health care don’t need to do anything additional and those Vets not enrolled can apply at any time.
Another example is AARP which has educational fact sheets by age groups (50-64 and 65+), family caregivers, LGBT, rural residents, women, those with limited or moderate income just to name a few. They are in several languages.
There are also state specific resources.
In less than two months, the doors to health insurance marketplaces will open. As the days of summer begin to wind down, it is a good time to get a tall glass of iced tea and school yourself on the health care changes ahead for many of us.
