With the Supreme Court Ruling, which upheld President Obama’s Healthcare overhaul law, saying its requirement that most Americans obtain health insurance or pay a penalty, California is in full swing to prepare for California Health Exchange in 2014 and with that a new way to find affordable health insurance in Santa Monica.
In 15 months uninsured California residents will shop online on California Health Care Exchanges to purchase their health insurance. The poorest residents will receive Medi-Cal. Those above the poverty line will find a menu of subsidized private options at different prices, from a “platinum plan” with higher premiums but lower deductibles down to a “bronze plan” that has a lower premiums but requires the policy holder to accept higher risk .
California expects that the Exchange will connect about 2 million Californians with health insurers by 2019 . It is a vehicle to deliver subsidized care to people who earn income up to four times the poverty level, currently $ 92,200 for a family of four. The most important thing to keep the Exchange as an viable option is to attract healthy Californians and not only the uninsurable clients. The exchange will target working poor and middle-class Californians who earn too much to qualify for Medi-Cal but generally lack access to health coverage at work.
The implementation of health care exchanges is one option to insure that all Californians have health insurance and with that premiums should decrease over all, making it a viable tool to find affordable health insurance in Santa Monica.