So how'd you do?
If you've made it to this page, you likely completed our Obamacare quiz and now seek answers to what you nailed and what you missed. (If you haven't, click here).
Here are the answers:
1. What’s this October 1st deadline all about?
A. It’s the day that people can enroll in health insurance exchanges. Happy Obamacare Day to you!
2. What is a health exchange?
A. A website where you can shop for insurance, click a button, and buy a plan. Some of these sites will be run by the states, while others (Texas and 26 other states) will be run by the feds.
3. Do I have to buy from the exchange?
B. No, not unless you want to. Exchanges are for people who want to apply for subsidized coverage. Otherwise, you can still get coverage through your employer or straight from an insurance company.
4. Who’s eligible for subsidies?
A. People with family income between 100 and 400 percent of the poverty level. That’s up to $45,960 for a single person and up to $94,200 for a family of four.
5. What’s the difference between the health insurance marketplace and the health insurance exchange?
A. Nada. Same thing, different name.
6. Who runs the insurance plans in the exchanges?
B. Private companies. Originally, there was a plan to create a government-run health insurance company, but the “public option” didn’t make it into the final bill.
7. How many more people will have insurance due to the ACA?
C. 25 million. Fifty million people in the US are currently without health insurance. It’s estimated the ACA will cut that number by about half over the next ten years.
8. How does the Medicaid expansion part work?
A. It expands coverage to people earning 138% of the poverty level -- $31,800 for a family of four
9. What did the Supreme Court decide in regards to the ACA?
B. The states don’t have to expand Medicaid if they don’t want to. The Court upheld the individual mandate but found the Medicaid expansion to be unconstitutionally coercive, giving states the option of whether to accept that coverage.
10. So how many states are rejecting the Medicaid expansion?
C. 22. 26 States are going for it (and accepting billions in federal funds to do so), 22 won’t expand, and three are still debating.
11. My state isn’t accepting the Medicaid expansion. What now?
D. All of the above.
12. From now on, insurers can’t deny coverage or charge higher premiums based on health status except for:
B. Smokers. Insurers can charge up to 50 percent more in premiums for tobacco users. Also, you should really stop smoking.
13. Starting in 2015, businesses with more than 50 employees have to provide health insurance, or...
A. Pay an annual $2,000 per-employee fine. Some business owners have said they’d rather pay the $2,000 penalty than the cost to insure employees (Average premiums were $5,615 for single-person coverage in 2012).
14. What if you don’t want health insurance?
B. A little irresponsible, but not a problem, just pay a tax penalty.
15. Just how much is this penalty going to be next year?
C. Either one percent of your annual income or $95 per person for the year (whichever is higher). But this fee will increase every year. In 2016, it will be 2.5 percent of income or $695 per person, whichever is higher.
16. OK, I’ll pay the penalty and take my chances. What happens if I get sick?
B. You pay 100 percent of the medical bills. Take those vitamins. If you choose not to get coverage through the marketplace by the end of open enrollment on March 31, 2014, you are responsible for your medical bills and can’t get health coverage through the Marketplace until the next enrollment period.
17. Can immigrants in the country buy insurance through the exchanges?
B. No, sorry.