Health law subsidies present calculation challenges

Aug 31 2013

The Wall Street Journal reports on the challenges of calculating future income and health insurance subsidies -- both of which will have an impact on the health law's new insurance marketplaces. Meanwhile, The Washington Post reports on how executive-branch and legislative-branch employees will have different experiences with the overhaul.  

The Wall Street Journal: Subsidies for Older Buyers Give Health Insurers A Headache
But the federal subsidies that make this possible for older people are causing headaches that insurers are struggling to understand. The programs reverse a long-standing tenet of the insurance business: That riskier customers pay more. The subsidies can be far more generous to older people than younger ones, the analysis of Ohio's marketplace shows (Weaver and Radnofsky, 8/29).

The Wall Street Journal: A New Kind Of Insurance Head-Scratcher: Estimating Future Income
Under the health law, millions of Americans will face a new test of their fortunetelling skills: precisely predicting their next year's income. The federal health-care overhaul creates a potentially rich new class of benefits for people -- namely, federal subsidies they can use to buy insurance on the new marketplaces created in each state. Eligibility for subsidies is based on income (Radnofsky and Weaver, 8/29).

The Washington Post: Obamacare Affects Executive And Legislative Employees Differently
Executive-branch employees won't automatically lose their existing health coverage when they become eligible soon for the insurance exchanges forming under President Obama's health care law, according to the federal personnel office. Agency officials began driving that point home this week amid continued confusion and concerns about how the so-called Obamacare legislation will affect health-benefits for federal employees (Hicks, 8/30).