HHS Relaunches Website to Help Uninsured
- By BSTQ Staff
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has relaunched its website to attract the 43 million uninsured Americans needed to make the healthcare law work when open enrollment in state and federal healthcare exchanges begins in October. Enroll America, a group designed to promote the exchanges, aims to ensure that those who can be helped by health coverage understand what exchanges are, how much insurance will cost and the benefits it will provide. The new HHS website (healthcare.gov) helps to provide consumers with this information by allowing them to easily compare benefits and costs of health insurance plans. Along with the revised website is a new, consumer-friendly name for the federal exchange: the “Health Insurance Marketplace.”
For the health law to function, the uninsured will be required to purchase a bronze, silver, gold or platinum plan from private insurers. Beginning in 2014, insurers will be required to offer health benefits to all Americans regardless of their health status, and the plans must be based on upfront costs vs. out-of-pocket costs. Tax credits also will be offered to help families within 400 percent of the poverty level to afford insurance. And failure to buy insurance will result in fines up to $95 for adults in 2014, $325 in 2015 and $695 in 2016.
