Back in March, NAHAM News reported that the draft Health
Insurance Marketplace application ran 15 pages for a family of three, with some
versions going as many as 21 pages. (See the original article here
) Responding to feedback, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS)
released a shortened form on Tuesday, running just five pages for a single
applicant and beginning at 12 for families.
According to an article in the Washington Post, the new form “essentially scaled back [the] draft application that
could cover all applicants to one that covers the most common, basic cases of
those who apply for insurance assistance. Different forms will be available for
the more complex cases.” The form also includes a page of instructions and
another page if the applicant wants to designate someone to help them.
The revised form has won over groups who
criticized the first version, such as Families USA, but there are some
expectations that it will not be used much. A lot of the applicants will
probably apply online, where information will be collected in a different
manner. Others may utilize customer navigators who are tasked with helping
applicants figure out which insurance option suits them the best, according to
the Post.
This comes in the wake of a poll also released Tuesday by the Kaiser Family Foundation that found that
42 percent of Americans thought that the Affordable Care Act was no longer law.
Included in the 42 percent are 12 percent that believe the law was repealed by
Congress, 7 percent that believe it was struck down by the Supreme Court, and
23 percent that didn’t know the current status of the law.
Open enrollment for all uninsured citizens is set
to begin in October, with coverage to begin in January of 2014.
No comments:
Post a Comment