Insurance Blog

If you are a person who don't trust banks or don't want to deal with their unreasonable bank charges like overdrafts then you are in trouble, you can't pay your health insurance without a bank account.

Next January federal health law will require Americans to carry health insurance, but most health plans accepts credit cards for first month's premium then pay the succeeding monthly premiums with check or an electronic funds transfer from a checking account. To those who don't have bank accounts this will be a real problem.

I think the government should require the health insurance providers to implement a reasonable payment options for everyone.

You can read more about it here. http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2013/05/17/184814772/latest-health-hurdle-buying-insurance-without-a-bank-account

The federal health law that will take effect next year is expected to raise insurance premiums, especially for people who purchase their own insurance, expert said.

The law will mandate that plans increase their minimum benefits, and it will ban insurers from weeding out people already diagnosed with illnesses.

Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said to reporters that "Some people purchasing new insurance policies for themselves this fall could see premiums rise because of requirements in the health-care law."


Her remarks come weeks before insurers are expected to begin releasing rates for plans that will start on Jan. 1, 2014, when key provisions of the health law kick in.

Some insurers have already begun signaling that they could dramatically increase prices for people buying policies in the individual market to compensate for restrictions on how they treat consumers, as well as new fees and requirements that they provide bigger benefits packages, reported by The Wall Street Journal last week.

The Society of Actuaries also issued a warning that the cost of medical claims in the new individual-insurance market could rise by an average of 32% per person over the first few years the law is in place.

The Wall Street Journal reports that a number of companies would rather pay government's penalty to break the law and it will be cheaper for them than following it.

Under the Obamacare provision that goes into effect next year, employers with 50 or more full-time workers will be required to provide coverage for employees who work an average of 30 or more hours a week in a given month. An alternative to that mandate is for business owners to pay a $2,000 penalty for each full-time worker over a 30-employee threshold.

Rick Levi owns Consolidated Management based in Des Moines, Iowa that runs cafeterias at schools, offices and jails in 10 states. The law would require him to offer insurance to all of his 102 full-time employees starting in January. Assuming all of them take the coverage, Mr. Levi says the cost of premiums could exceed $500,000 per year if every employee takes the insurance plan. The penalty will cost him around $144,000.

"I've never made a profit in any year of the company that has surpassed that amount," says Mr. Levi, 62 years old. "I don't make enough money."

He says it makes more sense to drop insurance entirely and pay a penalty of about $144,000.