Obamacare Scam Sites
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he Better Business Bureau recently released a warning that scammers posing as government representatives have been phoning people who are eligible to take advantage of the medical insurance health exchanges and asking them for sensitive information, both personal and financial. The BBB says you should never share this information. They urge Nebraskans who receive these types of calls to ignore them because any details provided could be used to steal your identity or your money. With the new healthcare law, come many different websites designed to help consumers work their way through the health insurance marketplaces. Unfortunately, because individuals have to share personal and financial information to obtain a new health insurance policy, the playing field is ripe for scammers to try their best to access and steal this information. One way would-be scam artists have been trying to do this is by creating dummy pages or sites that look like the real thing. In fact, a story run by the Associated Press talked about an Arizona company that built a website that was misleading those shopping for healthcare because it looked a lot like the official New Hampshire marketplace. That particular business was sent a cease-and-desist letter and the site was taken down. And it wasn’t just New Hampshire. Washington state and Pennsylvania have had to make similar requests to private agents who were running sites that might mislead consumers to think they were on websites administered by the government. So how do you know if the website you are accessing is legitimate? Dell.com explains you can tell a site is fake if it: n Uses a public Internet account—If the email is from a public account, but claims to be a government-run site, do not trust the email. n Includes misspelled words—If a health insurance marketplace website misspells “insureance,” this is a pretty good clue that you’ve stumbled upon a phishing email or fake website. Mistakes are generally caught before emails are sent to you. n Is not a secure site—Legitimate sites use encryption, or scrambling, to help insure that your payment information remains safe. Clicking on the lock symbol in the browser window allows you to verify that a security certificate was issued to that site, a sign that it’s a legitimate, trusted website. Still not sure? You can Google any website name with the word fraud or scam after it and see if any complaints pop up. Many scammers use common misspellings of company names to draw people in so if you’re unsure how to spell the name of a particular company, double check that information before visiting any website. Knowledge is power. The best way to protect yourself and your important information is to educate yourself and report any website or email that doesn’t appear to be on the up and up. A few extra steps today may well prevent a large headache tomorrow.
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NOV. 21 - 27, 2013
| THE READER |
M
uch like when you buy a car, there are certain options that are not optional. Brakes, headlights, windshield wipers - these are items that come with every vehicle purchased and similarly, with the Affordable Care Act (ACA), all policies must now include 10 essential benefits. Included in this list are services that have always been part of health insurance coverage - emergency services, hospitalization and outpatient procedures. New to the list with the ACA are benefits including maternity and pediatric dental and vision care. One of the reasons for the new law, said Tom Gilsdorf, director of product development for Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Nebraska, was to ensure all Americans have access to the coverage they need. By including maternity and pediatric care services on the list of essential benefits, the ACA is spreading out the cost beyond those who use those services. “What we found is that plans providing for those benefits on an optional basis is that the costs were 20, 30, 40 percent higher,” Gilsdorf said. “What the law has done...they didn’t want to create an inherent disadvantage for young families or young females looking for coverage. They’ve made it a standard benefit across the board and now all people are covered.”
So, while a 25-year-old male will not need maternity services, his portion of that cost helps make it available to a woman who does need access to that benefit. The pediatric services were included, Gilsdorf said, as a way of heading off health problems later in life. “For pediatric I think it was really focused on the statistics and reports saying we need to make sure kids get in for routine dental cleanings and vision benefits,” he said. “It was based on expectations that children get checked out, they have the right care at a young age to prevent future problems down the road.” With the ACA, health insurance is no longer an a la carte menu, but a complete list of services that every American can access if needed. “All policies have some factor in their plans for maternity (and pediatric services) so those who do purchase it do not have to pay a higher premium,” Gilsdorf said. “They’ve removed the options; it’s not a menu, you’re not going to pick and choose the coverage you want. When you do that you start to segment enough that people who do need those services, it becomes cost prohibitive.” Whether you are a man or woman, young or old, under the new healthcare reform law, we all help to pay so everyone has access to the same essential benefits, including maternity for women and pediatric benefits for children.
The Nature of Insurance – Why You Pay For Maternity and Pediatric Dental