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Posts Tagged ‘Health Insurance’

Tax Credits for Businesses That Provide Health Insurance to Employees

01 Jan

Starting today, January 1, 2010, small businesses may qualify for tax credits by giving their employees health insurance coverage. Small businesses can get this tax credit by providing health insurance to their employees. The tax credit they can receive can be as much as 35% of the total premium cost they pay out for the entire year.

To be eligible for the tax credit the business should:

  • shoulder at least 50% of the health insurance premium of each employee, with the premium computed based on single rates.
  • have at most 25 full time workers or 50 part time workers
  • pay at most an average of $50,000 per annum in wages

This piece of news is definitely a win-win situation for employers since it will lower their insurance benefits costs, allowing them to give better benefits to employees, and thus enabling them to recruit and retain higher quality workers.

 
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Posted in Uncategorized

 

CHIPRA Award of $72 Million Goes to Nine States

18 Dec

Early this year, the president signed a bill reauthorizing the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP). What this means is that the program, which provides low-cost health insurance coverage for children in families whose income levels are high enough to disqualify them from Medicaid, but not enough to affor private health insurance, will continue to be covered under CHIP.

The new bill, called Children’s Health Insurance Program Reauthorization Act (CHIPRA) also allowed for $100 million to be awarded over 5 years in order to push for more innovations in children’s health care.

As of today, Secretary Kathleen Sebelius has announced that $72 million is set to be awarded to 9 states have made significant progress in enrolling children in health coverage through Medicaid and improving access to children’s coverage through Medicaid and CHIP. This award came from CHIPRA funding. Hopefully, other states will follow suit, ensuring that more children will have health insurance coverage.

 
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Posted in Children's Health and Insurance

 

Options for Pregnant Women with No Insurance

05 May

About 13% of pregnant women in the United States do not have any coverage. Because of this, women end up not going to prenatal checkups. If you are one of those, there are actually some things you must know that might help you.

The first option you should look into is Medicaid. Contact you local an Resources Department or Social Services to see if you qualify for Medicaid. Make sure that you keep all medical receipts while waiting for new from Medicaid since they will reimburse you if you are approved.

If you do not qualify for Medicaid, the next step is to try to get group insurance. Note that even if you are pregnant, under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996, health insurers cannot consider pregnancy a preexisting condition. This means that they cannot deny you coverage because of the fact, however, if you are well into your pregnancy the waiting period to be covered due to other pre-existing conditions might rule this out for you since it might even exceed the date of delivery.

In this case, the best thing to do is contact your local hospital to ask for different packages and payment plans. Many hospitals offer packages wherein all pre-natal visits, tests, procedures, delivery charges, and post-natal visits are included for a much reduced cost.

 
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Posted in Womens Interests

 

Alternative Long-term Care for those without Health Insurance (Part 2)

05 Feb

Some of the more affordable alternative long-term care choices for the elderly who have no long-term health care coverage and is not eligible for Medicaid include:

Community services- This includes adult day care, senior centers, friendly visitor programs, and more.

Accessory Dwelling Units – If the family agrees, add a separate living unit, which can be attached to the house or just on the same lot. You can even just convert the basement or another floor, thus ensuring privacy and independence while being close enough to ask for help if needed.

Group Living Arrangements – This can come in the form of board and care homes, which usually affordable and covers not just the rent but meals and other necessary services. This can also come in the form of assisted living facilities and retirement communities.

Subsidized senior housing – Look up Federal and state programs that could help subsidize the rent for senior housing. In some cases, these housing facilities even include basic services.

 
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Posted in Seniors Health and Insurance

 

Long-term Care without Health Insurance (Part 1)

10 Jan

There are three ways people pay for long-term care: using their long-term care health insurance policies, Medicaid, and their own funds. So what do you do if you, or a loved one, do not have have an insurance policy that covers long-term care and are not covered by Medicaid?

If you have either of the two, a nursing home can be an affordable solution. However, with neither to cover the cost of care, good nursing homes can be way too expensive. Home care is possible but the truth is that if you need special help from a caregiver, home care can also be just too expensive.

The good news is there are plenty of sound alternative choices for long-term care. These choices range from free to entailing some expense, however, relatively to an unsubsidized nursing homes, they are definitely more affordable. On top of that, a level of independence is retained, which is important to most people who refuse nursing homes as a form of long-term care.

 
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Posted in Seniors Health and Insurance