From the Desk of Bob McNett……..
Latest Insure Oklahoma Income Guidelines Attached to this Email…….
For those McNett Agency group medical insurance clients taking advantage of the Insure Oklahoma program to assist them in paying group health insurance premiums for lower-income employees, I have attached the latest income requirements of this program.
There was a time some months ago when the adminstrators of Insure Oklahoma put out some information that gave income requirement figures that confused everybody. This confusion was later remedied by publishing corrected guidelines.
Open up the attachment to see the latest figures.
For those of you that may not be totally familiar with the Insure Oklahoma program……it is a plan sponsored by the state of Oklahoma that reimburses 60% of the premium of employees meeting income requirements. This reimbursement is made to the employer, not the employee. Reimbursement for dependent coverage is also available.
A common misconception is that Insure Oklahoma is an actual insurance program. It is not. It only reimburses premiums paid by the employer that sponsors a plan through a participating insurer such as United Healthcare, Blue Cross, CommunityCare or Aetna. The plan cannot have a maximum out-of-pocket to the employee of more than $3,000 per year.
The funding for this program comes from tobacco settlement money paid to the state.
Not all employees need to qualify income-wise for an employer to use the Insure Oklahoma program. For example, an employer might have a total of fifteen employees, and only four qualify for the program from an income standpoint. The employer can sign up for Insure Oklahoma and be reimbursed for premiums only on the four employees that qualify income-wise.
Insure Oklahoma is still alive and well! Most of the health insurance community thought that it would go down with the advent of Obamacare. However, it received a special waiver at the time from the Dept of Health and Human Services because it was considered to be such an effective program. Hopefully, it will be continued into the future as the healthcare and health insurance landscape continues to form.
Robert K. McNett, LUTCF
The McNett Agency
918 294 3712 Fax 918 494 6725
Toll Free 1 866 497 7119