The health care reform package the House passed last weekend and President Obama signed into law on Tuesday has many Americans wondering if -- and how -- their coverage will change. Here are some frequently asked questions and answers from readers on health care changes.
When can I add my older children to my FEHBP coverage?
The new health care reform law gives insurance companies six months to change their policies and begin extending coverage for children up to 26 years of age. So by mid-September, people should be able to add dependents to their Federal Employees Health Benefits Program plan and stop worrying their kids will be vulnerable if they are unable to find employer-provided health care.
One thing to keep in mind is children of FEHBP enrollees who do have employer health insurance will not be immediately eligible for FEHBP coverage, but will qualify in 2014. For now the provision is designed to fill a gap in health care coverage rather than to create an additional choice for dependents.
What happens to current and future retirees who have carried over or will carry over their health insurance, especially Blue Cross Blue Shield Standard Option?
Coverage under the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program is employer-provided health insurance, whether you're a current employee or a retiree. If you retire under one of the retirement systems for federal employees and have been enrolled in FEHBP for five years preceding your retirement, you're eligible to continue your health benefits. Nothing in the health care reform law will change that.
If the Senate passes the fixes to the new law, the Blue Cross Blue Shield Standard Option will be used as a measurement for other parts of the health care law. If the plan's costs rise faster than the rate of inflation, then the price threshold that other insurance plans have to rise above to be subject to a tax will increase as well. But using the Standard Option as a measurement tool doesn't mean altering the plan itself, or changing eligibility.
That said, the Standard Option, like all the health plans offered under the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program and elsewhere, will be subject to new rules for insurers. Within six months, insurance companies will be banned from refusing to cover children with pre-existing medical conditions, from setting lifetime limits on how much money they'll pay out to cover individual enrollees diagnosed with an illness that is expensive to treat, and from reducing coverage as a result of an illness or disability. If you're a retiree, that last provision in particular seems like a welcome change.
Has anyone checked to see which of the current FEHBP plans would be subject to the excise tax?
Because it's impossible to know how much costs for individual FEHBP plans are going to rise between now and 2018, (the year the tax kicks in), it's impossible to know right now which plans are going to be subject to the excise tax, especially since the excise tax threshold could rise. But FEHBP enrollees have plenty of open seasons during the next eight years to switch to a lower-cost plan if they're worried about getting hit with the excise tax.