En Español: Esta es una carta solicitando una donación para el trabajo que hace CCHCC. Si tiene preguntas sobre esta carta, o para mas información sobre donando a CCHCC, llame a (217) 352-6533 y pregunte por Chris o Adani.
Medicare and Marketplace Open Enrollment Periods are right around the corner! And there is good news: changes have been made to make health insurance more affordable, and to reduce your out-of-pocket expenses. Champaign County Health Care Consumers (CCHCC) is here to help you with Open Enrollment!
CCHCC staff are the most experienced enrollment counselors in Champaign County for Medicare, ACA Marketplace, and Medicaid insurance plans. Our services are provided for free to community members. With your support, CCHCC can provide free, vital direct services to keep our community covered.
Health insurance enrollment – We’ve got you covered! Health insurance enrollment work requires increasingly specialized knowledge and skills – whether for Medicare, or for the ACA Marketplace and Medicaid. Our federally-certified staff are the most experienced enrollment counselors in our community. This means that anyone – young or old or in between; employed or unemployed; retired; low-income, middle-income, high income, or no income; currently insured or uninsured – can contact CCHCC and we will help them figure out what coverage is available to them, and we will help them get covered!
Medicare Open Enrollment – from October 15 through December 7. If you would like to change your Medicare Advantage plan or Part D prescription drug plan, you will have the opportunity to change for the 2025 plan year, starting October 15, until December 7, 2024. CCHCC staff can help you compare plans and complete those enrollments. Even if you already like your plan, it is important to review it carefully during Open Enrollment to make sure it will remain the same for the following year and will continue to cover your prescriptions and providers.
Will you be enrolling in Medicare coverage for the first time? If so, CCHCC can help! Many people who are new to Medicare get overwhelmed by the process of signing up to begin Medicare coverage. CCHCC’s experienced staff can help you learn about Medicare and help you choose the kind of coverage that best meets your needs.
Good news: The Medicare Part D Coverage Gap known as “The Donut Hole” will be eliminated for the 2025 Plan Year! Most Medicare Part D prescription drug plans have a coverage gap, known as “The Donut Hole”, which means that there is a coverage gap when plan members hit a temporary limit on what their plan will cover for their prescriptions. The Inflation Reduction Act signed by President Biden in 2022 will eliminate the Prescription Drugs Coverage Gap (known as “The Donut Hole”) for Medicare beneficiaries in 2025. In 2024, “The Donut Hole” gap is a whopping $8,000! However, beginning in 2025, the new cap on out-of-pocket spending for Part D prescriptions will be a maximum of $2,000. Other beneficial changes have been made as well! CCHCC can help!
Programs to make Medicare coverage more affordable. In addition to helping people sign up for Medicare coverage, CCHCC can also help evaluate each client for their eligibility for programs to help make Medicare coverage more affordable. Both the Medicare Savings Program and the Medicare Extra Help Program are underutilized, as most people who qualify for these programs do not even know about them. CCHCC can help screen individuals for eligibility for these programs, and help with the applications.
Affordable Care Act’s Marketplace Open Enrollment – November 1, 2024 through January 15, 2025. The ACA Marketplace (healthcare.gov) Open Enrollment period is from November 1 through January 15, for people who are seeking an individual health insurance plan – usually individuals who do not have coverage through their employer – and for those who need to renew their Marketplace plan.
Even if you have a Marketplace plan that you like, CCHCC encourages you to review the plan for the coming year, to make sure it continues to work for you. We also encourage you to update your information on the Marketplace, since income guidelines for subsidies, which make the plans more affordable, change from year to year. Fortunately, the COVID subsidies are still in place for plan year 2025, which makes insurance on the Marketplace even more affordable!
Good news! The “Family Glitch” in the Marketplace has been fixed! The so-called “family glitch” was a rule saying that family members of employed people are considered to have an offer of “affordable” employer-based coverage – and so are ineligible for financial help from the Marketplace – if the employer offers “affordable” self-only coverage to its workers but contributes little or nothing toward the added premium for family members. The federal government changed this rule last year. For 2025, families who are offered dependent coverage are now able to get subsidies if their premium is considered unaffordable – for the dependents! CCHCC’s federally-certified application counselors can help!
Medicaid enrollment is open year-round. Unlike Medicare and the ACA’s Marketplace, there is no open enrollment period for Medicaid coverage. Medicaid is open year-round, so people can apply for Medicaid at any time in the year. CCHCC helps community members with these applications on a year-round basis. And if you are unsure whether you qualify for Medicaid, or a Marketplace plan with a subsidy, CCHCC can help you sort it out!
CCHCC needs your financial support, and your active and ongoing involvement in our efforts to help our community members get covered. Please help spread the word about our services, and/or make a contribution to help support CCHCC’s ongoing advocacy and organizing efforts, as well as our enrollment work.
We thank you for your commitment, and for your ongoing support and involvement!
Sincerely,
Claudia Lennhoff
Executive Director