Affordable Healthcare Options for Artists Highlighted at the MICA Conference

Just one of the many amazing workshops at the Maine International Conference on the Arts (MICA) is one which introduces affordable health insurance options for artists and employees of cultural institutions. It is not enough to visit a website, so why not come to this workshop, learn what is available and then ask your questions. One-on-one assistance is just another benefit of the MICA conference, and if a workshop and Q&A session is not enough, then how about two days to speak with these experts on your own schedule. We are facilitating the exchange room where you can discuss the issues of your choice with experts, such as the ones presenting the workshop on affordable health care options. Read their introduction below and register today. The conference is only $90 for two days of professional development, and it includes your meals.

Anyone paying the escalating costs of insurance premiums knows the challenge of affording health insurance coverage. To maintain affordability, many Mainers have resorted to increasingly limited coverage – or no coverage at all. Fortunately, new health insurance options are available in Maine, thanks to the Affordable Care Act (ACA) and its creation of a new type of non-profit health insurer called a Consumer Operated and Oriented Plan (CO-OP). Maine Community Health Options, Maine’s new nonprofit CO-OP health insurance company, will have a booth in the Exchange Room throughout MICA. There will be information available and staff on hand to answer your questions about the health plans available for individuals and businesses on the new Health Insurance Marketplace. You can get specific guidance on the plans that are best for you.

As a new health care payer that is nonprofit, Maine-based and member-led, Maine Community Health Options (MCHO) operates with the conviction that we must do things differently to achieve different results than what we’ve experienced over the last decade: a doubling of health care costs in Maine and reduced access to many. Our newly-created, Value Based Insurance Design model for both individual and small group plans reflects this conviction. Value Based Insurance Design boils down to paying for what matters, and tending to fundamental health concerns before they cause more problematic and expensive conditions. This is hard to do in our stress-filled and busy lives, and so we’re taking out some of the financial barriers to timely care in the hope that it will allow for better and earlier access to intervention and better health outcomes. In order to help make coverage possible for all people, those with incomes up to four times the poverty level ($45,960 for an individual and $94,200 for a family of four, currently) can get reduced premiums for coverage purchased through the Marketplace. Additional cost sharing reductions are available for those with incomes less than two-and-a-half times the poverty level.

So come and talk with MCHO staff and find out what will work for your lifestyle, your budget or your business. There will be MCHO staff that can answer both individual or small business questions. You can actually sign up for the new plans at the MCHO table or get the information you need to do it on your own at home. Enrollment opened on October 1, 2013 and the plans begin on January 1, 2014.

To register for the Maine International Conference on the Arts, visit MaineArts.com today!