Questions abound as health care enrollment begins | The Augusta Chronicle

Cassandra Bryant’s husband is offered health insurance through his job as a cook at a Huddle House restaurant but they can’t afford to take it.

“It’s so high with the money they make he wouldn’t bring anything home,” she said outside the Medical Associates Plus at Belle Terrace clinic in south Augusta. She’s heard she will have to have insurance next year but like her cousin Lena Cunningham they are unclear how to get it or again how to pay for it.

“If you don’t have an income then how can I pay the premium?” Cunningham said.

Open enrollment in the new Health Insurance Marketplace in Georgia begins Tuesday as the biggest and most significant piece of the Affordable Care Act. The Department of Health and Human Services said that premiums in the exchanges are actually lower than expected in Georgia and nationally are about 16 percent below what was projected. And many families will qualify for tax credit subsidies.

But even those charged with implementing the enrollment and the new coverage acknowledge the launch is likely to be bumpy. Some expect that it will be similar to the beginning of the last massive federal health benefit program, which was the Medicare Part D prescription drug coverage that began in January 2005. Many people did not have their cards, help lines were jammed and pharmacists were frustrated in the early going.

via Questions abound as health care enrollment begins | The Augusta Chronicle.