Based on the context provided, here is the transcribed townhall segment with speaker names: **[0:01] Joe Wicklund:** Hi everyone, Joe Wicklund with the City of Hermantown. We're talking MNsure and insurance and open enrollment again with Michelle Babcock, our embedded MNsure navigator over at the YMCA at Essential Wellness Center. Michelle, we've covered that everybody really should connect with you. We've covered the importance of open enrollment dates, which wrap up on December 22nd. We've covered how folks can connect with you safely during the pandemic. But let's today really turn the whole stage over to you and talk about really the three kind of programs in which almost all the work you do falls. **[0:49] Michelle Babcock:** Yeah, that sounds great, Joe. So just to recap things we've already learned about MNsure. So we've learned it's kind of an online store or marketplace. It's not the insurance itself. We learned that there's those **[1:05] Michelle Babcock:** three programs that are all determined by income or household size to get you into the right program. MNsure serves all Minnesota residents. It is for people who generally maybe buy their insurance rather than getting it from an employer sponsored insurance plan, for example. And it's also for people who qualify for the Minnesota state health care programs. So that's what we know about MNsure. And like you said, there's those three different types of coverage. So that's what I want to touch on today are those three different types. So the first one, Minnesota Medicaid or often called the state ma program. It is for no to low Minnesotan families or individuals. There's no monthly premium here if there's a copay it's usually very very low. And so there's that income guideline chart that I think I've shown you in the past and that's available online shows the levels, the income levels per household members to be able to qualify for that program. **[1:47] Michelle Babcock:** Same thing for the next program, MinnesotaCare. This is for that low to middle income bracket. Again, these are mostly people or families where they can't get employer sponsored insurance for whatever reason. Here there is a lower monthly premium. It's based on a sliding scale based off of your income. So really great opportunity to get those lower to middle classes covered. Then finally we've talked about QHPs or those private health care plans. These are those UCARE, Blue Cross Blue Shield, Medica plans that you hear about. We'll dive into the APTC or the Advanced Premium Tax Care tax credits as well. However, There's 13, what I want to focus on is **[2:32] Michelle Babcock:** there's 13 commercial plans in St. Louis County. This is important because it's geographical. We have different facilities here than they do in the metro area or down in Rochester. So the plans that are available in St. Louis County are really focused on the facilities and the physicians and services here. So there's 13 commercial plans. And when you go, when we do a screening and we talk about eligibility, again, even the QHPs are based on income and household size. And based off of that information, you may qualify for advanced premium tax credits. And really what that does is it becomes kind of an amount that you can take off of your monthly premium. It does get reconciled during tax time, so you do have to be a tax filer and we'll get more in depth about that, you know, as I'm talking to somebody individual about **[3:21] Joe Wicklund:** that. But definitely a great way to get that insurance coverage and to possibly save some money as well. When we think about not only the reasons to connect with you and we've talked about the you know too often people just say I'm not eligible for MNsure and we need to kind of change that default setting to I have a great resource in Michelle and I should talk to her That's where you're going to be able to tell which bucket folks go into. They don't need to, you know, define their income level, even when they see it on those charts to to connect with you to find out if there is a piece after the fact that that really changes that number changes what that income number means or or changes that income number reacts when you talk about family size or other factors. **[4:07] Michelle Babcock:** Yeah, I'm glad you brought that up. I mean, there's no two situations similar. There's so many different factors that come into it. And especially for people say, well, I don't qualify. And that may be true. Not everybody's going to qualify for Minnesota Care. Not everybody's going to qualify for the advanced premium tax credits. But we really want to have that screening, that conversation, and make sure that we have calculated everything accurately so that if you are eligible, you are able to receive that. It's a great way to save money. **Joe Wicklund:** So we've been super focused kind of appropriately on open enrollment, November 1 to December 22. And I don't want to shift the focus too much, but insurance doesn't end on December 22. And the processes you do don't. At least touch a little bit on how there is opportunities and things certainly changing people's lives after December **[4:52] Michelle Babcock:** 22 a little bit. Right, right. So the open enrollment right now, whether it's QHP or what have you, is all effective January 1, 2021. That's the focus for open enrollment. This is going to affect a lot of people who maybe have been on MNsure before and they're doing renewals, or maybe they haven't been on MNsure before and they just don't have insurance. we can get things going during this timeframe for the start of the year. However, there is year-round enrollment opportunities. Any of the state healthcare programs such as MA or Minnesota Care do have year-round enrollment. **[5:29] Michelle Babcock:** There's also... major life changes that could affect your eligibility. You might qualify for a QHP or that private health care plan now. However, possibly you lose your job or you have a large income change. reporting that information to MNsure could bump you into a different program and give you different eligibility. And that's kind of takes me to my last takeaway about this is really the big thing about all of these programs is reporting your changes. That's the best thing that you can do to make sure that you have the most accurate information at MNsure to make sure that whether it's a contact information change, maybe a new address, especially if you move to a new county, household size, a tax filing status, anything from birth, adoption, **[6:16] Michelle Babcock:** marriage, divorce, all of these things dramatically or could dramatically affect your eligibility. So it's always, not only are you required required to report the changes you really want to for your own benefit. And best of all, you can always use a navigator to do this. This is what we're here for year round. **Joe Wicklund:** When that's you beat me to the point I was going to make, which is all of these changes and there's it seems like now, especially in the pandemic, you talk about job changes and family changes and all kinds of things. But it just seems like the variables are so great right now for change. that this is going to be a factor in more people's lives maybe than ever before. And you don't need to do anything different about it. You don't need to be really, really worried about where to report those changes or how to do it correctly. You just have to track down **[7:04] Joe Wicklund:** your MNsure navigator. Michelle up at the Y at the Essential Wellness Center, other folks in Duluth and surrounding areas. There's a whole host of folks that you can connect with free of charge and easy to connect with to get support on these things. **Michelle Babcock:** Yep, absolutely. If you go to www.insureddiluth.org, you will find navigators around the community at various trusted organizations, just like here at the Y. **Joe Wicklund:** Cool. We're a little bit biased to you as our favorite MNsure navigator, but we imagine that they're all just as amazing as you. Michelle, we've covered a lot of ground today and we're going to kind of... dive deeper into these buckets in future discussions, but I do want to shift us back to like the first piece we talked about, Hey, it's open enrollment. **[7:49] Joe Wicklund:** Um, and November one to December 22, reach out to Michelle. Her information is available on our website, uh, hermantownmn.com. Uh, outlining all of the different things that we have going on, including this campaign with the Essential Wellness Center, and to kind of move your feet and make sure you can get on that sooner than later with that December 22nd date coming up. I'm excited to talk to you more about some of these individual programs, but my biggest hope, Michelle, is obviously that folks pick up on this and reach out and start exploring it at their speed. **Michelle Babcock:** Yes, absolutely. That's what we're here for. Whether it's just a question, conversation, or a full enrollment, give us a call, reach out anytime. **Joe Wicklund:** Fantastic. I look forward to talking to you about this again soon, Michelle. Thank you.