First, if the Act was intended to provide health care to all Americans, it was doomed from the start because its focus is not health care, but health insurance and there is a difference. The only way to provide health care to all Americans is through some form of national health care program. The US is the only modern country in the world that does not have this protection for its citizens, but the political climate makes this a non-starter for our country. That said, then what was the purpose of the ACA?

First, it was supposed to make health insurance more affordable and available to all citizens. It was supposed to do this by offering tax credits to those households earning between the poverty level and 400% of the poverty level. For those under the poverty level the ACA originally mandated that the states would broaden their Medicaid eligibility rules so that a household below the poverty would have access to Medicaid for adults and children. And the ACA imposed tax penalties on households that elected not to get insurance at all. So how did this work?

The Supreme Court weighed in with two major decisions. The first was that the ACA was legal with regard to penalizing people for not having insurance. The second decision, however, said that the federal government had no authority to force the states to change their Medicaid eligibility rules. In what was primarily a political gesture, 22 states elected not to expand Medicaid thus closing the door to health insurance for lower income households. In those states, a family of four earning $24,000 can get substantial assistance to purchase health insurance, whereas the adults in a household earning $22,000 get nothing. This weird circumstance has baffled and angered many people this past year. Some of those states opting out in 2014 may change their minds as their citizens discover that the decision has cost those states millions in federal tax dollars.

Another major effect hoped for by the supporters of the ACA was that the Act would stabilize rates by increasing the size of the “pool”. All insurance works on the law of large numbers in that the more people you have paying premiums, the more money is available for claims and therefore individual claims don’t drastically increase rates. The theory is that by forcing everyone, including the young and healthy people into the insurance pool the rates would stabilize somewhat. My feeling is that we won’t know whether this theory works out for about 5 years, and only if the plan is not tinkered with in the meantime.

It must be said that, rather than revolutionizing health care in America like a national health care plan would have, the ACA is a bandaid on a broken system. It will cause some improvements here and there but whether those improvements will justify the confusion and bureaucracy it also created remains to be seen. I remain hopeful.

This year, Idaho is running its own marketplace, Your Health Idaho. For those who are exploring the possibility of lowering their premiums with the use of Advance Premium Tax Credits (APTC), you must submit financial information to the Idaho Department of Health and Welfare (H&W) as part of the sign-up process, and here’s the rub: The review of your financial information can take 2-5 days. After that, H&W will notify you and Your Health Idaho of the credit they have calculated, if any. Once you have that, you can go back into your account, see how much that credit will reduce the premiums of the various plans and make your selection. That final selection must be completed by December 15 if you want the coverage to start on January 1.

Open enrollment does continue until February 15. Those submitting applications by January 15 will have a February 1 effective date and those submitting by February 15 will have a March 1 effective date.

So, as you can see, the very latest you should begin the process of signing up for health insurance is around December 10 if you are anticipating qualifying for Tax Credits and you want a January 1 effective date. If you are not interested in the Tax Credits, then you won’t experience the delay caused by the review of your financial information. And, for those who not only do not want the Tax Credits but also don’t want to enter a bunch of information into an online account, you can always sign up for an ACA approved health plan “off exchange” with a very simple and short paper application.

You can do all of this yourself, without an agent, by starting at the website of Your Health Idaho. Many people find the process intimidating and confusing, while others simply want advice on which plan to choose or prefer to sign up off-exchange. For those people, contact North Idaho Insurance or any of the other local agents who are certified to offer assistance on Your Health Idaho. You can locate an agent simply by going to the Your Health Idaho website.

This past couple of weeks have seen some tremendous windstorms in our area and this question, or different versions of it, have surfaced several times. At first it just seems to make sense that if your neighbor’s tree falls on your garage, then he or she is responsible for it and the neighbor’s insurance should pay for it. That assumption, however, fails to consider the meaning of “negligence” with regard to liability coverage.

While the neighbor might feel terrible about the tree falling on your garage, from an insurance and liability perspective, the question is whether it was the neighbor’s negligence that caused the tree to fall on the garage. The key to liability is negligence. That simply means that there was a condition over which the neighbor had control that created a dangerous situation, causing the tree to damage your garage. But, if it was a perfectly healthy tree that was blown over by a 60 mile per hour wind gust, that’s not something over which the neighbor had any control.

Many people think this is the “act of God” exclusion they have always heard about. However, in over 30 years I have never seen that wording in a Home Owner Insurance policy. The fact is that some “acts of God” are covered and some are not.

In most cases like this, it is the insurance of the person with the damaged property that will respond to the loss. Most Home Owner policies have a provision for Additional Structures that would cover such damage to a garage.

Now, not to confuse the issue, but there certainly can be situations where the neighbor might be considered negligent, might be liable, and where his own Home Owner liability insurance might come forward and pay for the damage to your garage. Did you notice a series of the word “might”? That’s because this type of situation, while not unheard of, is rare. If, for instance, the tree was obviously diseased and unhealthy and especially if this condition had been pointed out to the neighbor in the past, then the possibility of negligence exists. The burden, in a case like that, would be to prove that the neighbor was aware of the dangerous situation and chose to do nothing about it.

As I looked around our neighborhood over the past couple of weeks, I saw neighbors out helping neighbors clean up all sorts of debris and fallen trees. Hopefully that’s the sort of neighborhood you live in and there aren’t any disputes over whose trees damaged what.

The National Insurance Crime Bureau reports that the downward trend in motorcycle thefts continued in 2013, but there are certain trends worth noting. Although thefts declined in 31 states, those other 19 states that saw increases in thefts included Idaho, Washington, Montana and Oregon.

The most thefts occur exactly where you would expect them, California and Florida, because those states have larger populations and longer riding seasons than most so the bikes are available to steal more often. The most often stolen brand is Honda, probably because of the sheer volume of motorcycles they sell. The most stolen models are not Hondas, however. The top two stolen bikes are the 2007 and 2006 Suzuki’s respectively.

Enjoy your ride this summer but pay attention to how you secure your bike. The Motorcycle Safety Foundation has these tips to help you avoid becoming another theft statistic.

Recently the online social financial network WalletHub conducted a study to see just how much credit mattered with different insurers and in different parts of the country. They selected five large auto insurance companies and then went to all fifty states and the District of Columbia to get auto quotes for their two sample shoppers. Both applicants had exactly the same automobile, age and driving record, but one had an excellent credit score and one had no score at all.

The difference between the five companies was substantial in all states, with the two applicants getting quotes differing from 45% to 116%, depending on the company. Also revealing was the difference between the various states.

Of the states that use credit as a rating factor, the difference between the two applications ranged from a low of 18% in Vermont to a high of 126% in Washington, DC, with an average of 65% across all of the states. In our area, Idaho rates are less affected by credit at 45% while the Washington rate differential of  74% ranked above the national average.

The use of credit to help determine insurance rates will continue to be debated for years, but if you live in a state that allows the practice, it will save you money if you can improve that score. Here is an article from Forbes magazine that offers several suggestions for how to do just that.