During these unstable times, (at least until all the dust settles), we highly recommend that you keep your existing grandfathered plans as long as the Affordable Care Act allows you to or until you get a rate increase which may force you out of it. The entire system for next year is very dysfunctional at the present time. If we encourage you to leave your grandfathered plan, you can't get it back. Being unsure of the stability and security of the system going forward creates an uneasy environment which we are reluctant to encourage you to embrace.
Right now, the Government is trying to figure out whether they will delay this new health care system for what could be up to another year while they work out the bugs or scrap the entire program as there are many things wrong with it and is losing support every day. The first priority for each state right now is to work with the President to try to prevent the cancellation of 13 million policies (1.2 million in CA). Under the law, all of these policies (the non-grandfathered policies) don't meet the requirements next year and must be canceled. The President has acknowledged his mistake where these policies were concerned and is working to fix it which he has now put that decision on the plates of each state and their insurance companies. Unfortunately, none of the insurance companies want to be the bad guy and allow those policies to cancel but the insurance companies based their rates for 2014 on all of these people losing their coverage at the end of this year and rolling into the new plan offerings in 2014 that have higher rates. Most of these people have much lower rates now than what is being offered next year so by not allowing these policies to cancel, these individuals will maintain their lower rates and since there are so many of them, it will make rates even higher next year for most non-grandfathered plans (which includes the new exchange plans for next year). There are also technical challenges for the insurance companies that would have to be overcome within the next 30 days.
So with the above being said, we encourage you to stay with your grandfathered plan for now while we wait for guidance from our State. There are too many variables going on right now to even make a personal recommendation.
