Hope Everyone Was Safe
That Team Up North = State Down South, no?
CNBC Gets It Right on Health Insurance
Not bad (click here to read the cnbc.com article). But they buried the lead, as expected.
Facts:
The Build Back Better Act means that the ACA subsidy (APTC) extends through 2025, not 2022. This is a huge difference, even more so if there is someone that is attempting to get inexpensive health insurance (who isn’t), prior to reaching Medicare eligibility.
If your employer offers health insurance as an employee benefit, then you cannot apply through heatlhcare.gov or your state-specific exchange, unless you have a special exemption. For example, YOUR premium share cannot exceed 8.16 of your income, and you need to fill in an extra form in order to get the exception (not fun, but likely worth it).
December 15th is the deadline for insurance to begin on January 1. That is the important deadline.
Dear Fed Chair: Your Timing Isn’t Great
On TOP of comments yesterday (omicron vs seasonality), it is very notable that interest rates are sharply lower today, despite the fact that the Chairman Powell says that tapering is likely sooner rather than later, which “should’ve” pushed interest rates higher. The net result: investors flocking to bonds away from stocks and that is overwhelming the seasonal effect or the speculation that omicron symptoms are less severe, etc (I am not an immunologist).
The point: you are looking for NET clues on volatile days, we have ours here. We actually saw it yesterday: stocks higher, but bonds were not notably lower. There is a reason for my mantra: stocks for show, bonds for dough. The larger market is telling you that uncertainty is runnin’ the joint, and you can read old emails over the past couple of weeks, about the fact that I have noted that bond volatility vs equity movements was a bit strange. Uncertainty running the joint, ‘til proven otherwise.
New York (State) & Medicare
New York is a very highly-regulated state when it comes to insurance. Many policies don’t exist in NY State, as they do in other states (non-health insurance). Note: there are other states with special “carve-outs” to provide extra enrollment rights, more examples will be forthcoming.
For Medicare, the following.
a. Part B Excess charge is disallowed. That means: Medigap Plan F & G do not have the value that I normally assign it. Paid subscribers know this: my informed opinion is that people who suggest Plan N as the best value do not fully understand the inherent probability or volatility functions that exist within Medicare. I am not apologizing for the fact that other YouTube people claim that Plan N is superior. If this is my hill to die on, so be it.
Back to the point. since NY doesn’t allow the Part B Excess, then there is no reason to pay for that coverage, which will be expensive. That is true in most cases.
b. NY has year-round Medigap Open Enrollment. So, let’s say I am completely wrong (I’m not), and you have Plan F and change to Plan N (which is fine in NY because of point a). In that instance, you can literally send an email here and we can arrange to switch you back, to any Medigap plan at any carrier in NY, effective the 1st of the following month.
c. Points a&b will have very powerful implications for those people in excellent health and that want to aggressively save money. You can certainly save on 3 months of Medigap premium by enrolling in Medicare Advantage (with Rx coverage), for the first three months, use the federal Medicare Advantage Enrollment Period (which lasts from Jan through March), and revert back to Medigap and Part D, without questions.
d. This also means that you can use point b to switch to a Medigap plan of your choosing if you decide to move out of NY State.
These points are very specific to the Empire State. DO NOT ATTEMPT TO USE THESE SUBPOINTS IN OTHER STATES, and the idea that you would do any of this unassisted? Nope.