North Bay Business Journal

A Sonoma County-based nonprofit and several others with ties in the North Bay are among 48 organizations across the state to share in $37 million in outreach and education grants from Covered California, the state’s online health exchange developed under health care reform.

Petaluma-based Redwood Community Health Coalition received $830,000. Catholic Charities of California, which has a presence in Solano, Napa, Sonoma, Lake and Mendocino counties, received $859,000. California Rural Indian Health Board, which has a presence in Sonoma and Mendocino counties, was given $300,000. The California NAACP, which has locations in Sonoma and Solono counties, received $600,000 and the Asian Pacific American Legal Center in Solano County received $100,00.

Business owners, particularly in the wine industry that makes up a significant proportion of the North Coast economy, need to pay attention to major health care insurance, tax and estate law changes this year to avoid steep noncompliance penalties and mitigate significant tax increases, according to local tax-planning and insurance experts.

Health insurance brokers, employers and individuals are all eagerly awaiting full-scale implementation of the California Health Benefits Exchange, a centerpiece of the Affordable Care Act, but it’s still anyone’s guess as to what it will look.

While details of what the exchange, also known as Covered California, will look like have emerged recently, a key piece of just how effective it will has not yet been determined: the monthly premiums for plans that will be offered to individuals and employers.

Partnership Health Plan of California, a Fairfield-based managed Medi-Cal plan, has petitioned the state for further expansion, hoping to include Lake and six other Northern California counties, in addition to the six North Coast counties already in its network. …

Woodruff Sawyer & Co. of Novato is holding an seminar to discuss health care reform for employers, with subject matter including compliance with the Affordable Care Act, the California State Exchange and private exchanges, benefit design strategies, major employer issues for 2014, and other matters. …

Kristina Keck has joined Woodruff-Sawyer & Co. in the firm’s employee benefits practice as account executive, retirement plans. …

Covered California, the state’s insurance exchange set up under health care reform, plans to provide grants totaling $43 million for community groups to help spread the world of the exchange and how it will work. …

Insurance experts have questioned whether the penalty levied on individuals and business for not obtaining health insurance as part of the Affordable Care Act would be enough of an incentive, but a recent report in the Journal of the American Medical Association found that would be. …

As full-scale implementation of health care reform nears ever closer, looming heavy on the minds of employers, insurers and health care providers, questions continue to swirl around numerous key issues, with California’s online health exchanges high among the heart-burn causing measures.

Dennis Lum is vice president of channel strategy, sale operations and performance for Kaiser Foundation Health Plan. His current areas of focus include broker strategy, broker development, and execution for health care reform and private exchanges, among other areas. He began his career with Kaiser by managing the Proposal Development Department for Northern California.