Jan 1 Deadline is Today

Jan 1 Deadline is Today. Attention last minute health insurance shoppers you have until midnight to purchase a policy on the Health Exchange.

NYS Health Exchange is down again. Not surprisingly a large volume of late comers trying to beat t0morrows deadline for Jan 1, 2014. Last week a 34% enrollment spike in 1 week alone. Despite the 1 week extension the enrollments are still falling short of the original 600,000 projection. A significant percentage have instead been qualified under expanded Medicaid in NYS. At the same time many New Yorkers have had sole prop and husband/wife groups shut out of the small group market place. In addition, popular programs such as Healthy NY have been increased by 25-35% and new $600/single or $1200/family deductibles.

Facts:

Some people mistakenly believe they have until Dec. 31 to enroll in a plan that takes effect on Jan. 1. Others don’t realize they could pay a federal tax penalty if they don’t have health insurance in place by March 31.
Under the Affordable Care Act, most adults will pay a $95 penalty — or 1 percent of income — in 2014 if they don’t have health insurance coverage. The penalty rises to $695 — or 2 percent of income — by 2016.
To avoid the penalty, people must enroll in a plan by Feb. 15 or qualify for an exemption from the penalty.
Consumers who sign up by Dec. 23 and pay the first month’s premium by Jan. 10 will have coverage on Jan. 1, the industry group America’s Health Insurance Plans announced Wednesday.
If you make under $45,960 or your family makes under $94,200, you could get a real break on health insurance costs More low-income people will also be eligible for free coverage under Medicaid For those eligible, the subsidies will cap the amount you pay for your exchange policy at between 2% and 9.5% of your income (on a sliding scale, based on your income). To find out how much you would pay, estimate your income for this year and plug it into any health subsidy calculator. You can also see estimate subsidies with these ”health subsidy charts”.
Health Exchange Marketplace Top Ten List

More information

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Important: If the web site is down we can sign up via paper application to avoid the penalty. A surge of 34% enrollments in one week caused some technical delays last week.