Exciting news WordCount fans! I’ve been invited to participate in a conference call tomorrow, March 12, with other BlogHer bloggers and U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius on changes to health care insurance under Obamacare.
It’s a rare opportunity to ask a top White House official about health care topics that freelancers and other self-employeds and small business owners care about.
Nationwide, enrollment in health care exchanges rose to 4.2 million by the end of February, with close to a million people signing up last month. About 83 percent of people who’ve enrolled received some type of subsidy, Sebelius said Tuesday on a call with reporters, according to NPR.
The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office estimates 6 million people will sign up for the exchanges by the end of the open enrollment period at the end of March 2014, down from an earlier estimate of 7 million, according to the NPR report. The drop is primarily due to ongoing problems at state exchanges (including here in Oregon) that delayed or stopped people from signing up.
So what do you want to know? Would it be why it’s been difficult to enroll in the health care exchange in your state? Or would you like a better understanding of why your long-time doctor or health care provider isn’t included in the network on your new exchange?
Send me your questions and I’ll do my best to ask them during the call.
What freelancers want to know about Obamacare
I put out the word earlier today and already got questions from freelancers and other sole practitioners or self-employeds. Some of them include:
- If you’re self employed, is eligibility to receive subsidies based on gross income or net income?
- Why do the healthy pool of people who rarely use their insurance suddenly see premiums spike, deductibles crank even higher, coverage lowered (or things you don’t use anyway added) to cover the cost of the unhealthy and the cost of administering the program?
- Are there any efforts in the near future to shift toward preventative measures rather than (or in addition to) treatment?
- If I’m 59 and my husband is 61, why do we have to pay for services that we don’t need, like maternity or pediatric care? Is that why our monthly premium went from $800 to $1,800?
- If you have an extremely low income, should you estimate it higher to qualify for Obamacare in states where Medicaid was not expanded, i.e., is it possible to make too little to qualify?
Let me know what you’d like me to ask by leaving a comment or writing me at wordcountfreelance@gmail.com.
Thanks to BlogHer for organizing this opportunity. Fnd out more about the women’s network here: BlogHer or follow it on Twitter, @blogher.
Look for my report tomorrow afternoon Pacific time.
[Flickr photo by US Department of Education]