Clark County Certified Application Counselors for Explain the Affordable Care Act, Part 1
Wednesday, December 18th, 2013 -- 9:24 AM
-The Affordable Care Act is highly controversial item, as is health care in general, and it can be very confusing at times.I spoke with Shauna O?Keefe and Amber McNeely, Certified Application Counselors for Clark County, about the ACA. They told me when people need to be signed up for coverage.
Shauna said, "The deadline for open enrollment is March 31st. But, you'll need to seek coverage and pay your first premium by March 15th to have coverage for April and avoid that fee. You are allowed to be without coverage for the first three months of the calendar year."
Both Shauna and Amber acknowledged the rough start Healthcare.gov experienced when it went live on October 1st, but they said it has improved immensely in the past couple months.
Shauna said, "I can completely understand the public's frustration with it. I know that it was frustrating at times for us as well. It had been completely reformatted over Thanksgiving weekend and it has been working beautifully. Hopefully that continues. I think the only problem that we've still seen is that it can only hold about 50,000 users at a time and when there are millions of Americans that need insurance and need to go through the marketplace, there are still times when we receive a notice that says, 'please wait there are too many visitors here right now.'"
If you have any questions on the ACA or would like to enroll through the federal website, Shauna and Amber would be happy to answer your questions. You can call them at 715-743-5264 and 715-743-5261. There are also two enrollment sessions scheduled on January 14th at the Abbotsford High School and another on February 4th at the Greenwood High School.
Feel free to contact us with questions and/or comments.