Morning Update - May 26
Health insurance and unemployment updates, and a word about online reviews
Good morning,
I hope everyone was able to enjoy their holiday weekend a bit. The pace of news that had made writing daily morning updates feel so urgent at the beginning of the crisis is definitely slowing down now. I’m not sure that’s a good thing – small businesses are definitely not out of the woods. Instead, we’re really just barely starting to enter the woods. Nonetheless, the flood of new programs and supports for small businesses has slowed, even as many businesses still wait for permission to re-open or struggle to reimagine a feasible business model that can address capacity restrictions and fewer tourist dollars flowing into the state. So I’ll keep writing morning updates, but more on an as-needed basis to keep up with developments as they occur. As always, if you have questions, please use my legislative email address to reach me. Often your questions have sparked the content of these updates, and I expect that to continue to be the case going forward.
This morning, I will just circle back to two things that I’ve written about many times before: health insurance and unemployment.
Affordable Health Insurance Is Available. No Really, It Is!
As we approach the end of another calendar month, more and more Mainers are losing their employer-sponsored health benefits due to layoffs. For many people, continuing on your employer’s plan (an option called COBRA) if you have to pay out-of-pocket, is probably not financially feasible. Fortunately, it is not the only option available. Thanks to MaineCare expansion, many more Mainers are eligible for health care coverage than ever before. There is no asset test for eligibility, and MaineCare will look at your current income rather than your past income to determine whether you qualify. Additionally, the $600 federal unemployment payments do not count toward MaineCare income limits. Filling out the application can be daunting – it asks a lot of questions to see if you’re eligible for other types of support as well, so there are questions on the application that are not relevant to MaineCare eligibility. It is worth it though. MaineCare provides excellent health care coverage with little to no out-of-pocket costs for most needed health care.
If you are over the income limit for MaineCare, there are other affordable options as well. Through Maine’s marketplace, you can buy coverage for yourself and your family. Depending on your income (again, your current income, not your past year’s income), you may be eligible for substantial subsidies that will reduce the premium and even the deductible for the health care plans.
If you are uninsured or about to be, please call Consumers for Affordable Healthcare at (800) 965-7476 or go to CoverME.gov to learn more. Don’t wait. There is a 60-day window for signing up for some of these programs after you lose your employer-based coverage.
Department of Labor Updates FAQs
The Maine Department of Labor has recently updated its FAQ documents on regular unemployment and the Pandemic Unemployment Assistance program. If you’re struggling with unemployment, it’s a good idea to read through them both. The documents don’t answer every question that is coming up often, but they are more comprehensive than they were two weeks ago. If you have a question that is not answered or an issue with stuck processing on your individual account, the best technique for reaching the DOL has been to start calling 1-800-593-7660 at a few minutes before 8 a.m. and then hit redial continuously until you reach someone. If the first person you speak with cannot resolve your issue, you can request (politely) to speak with a Tier 2 representative. Folks are having good success now with this method. Additionally, you can reach out to me and I can flag your claim for resolution, but I will admit that folks who use the redial technique to contact the DOL themselves are having faster results than those who are requesting help through my office.
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As a small business owner, I have a love-hate relationship with online reviews. It feels amazing to get positive feedback on your service and your product from strangers online. On the other hand, it feels terrible to get negative feedback. When it is justified – we’re not perfect and our service and product fall short from time to time – those reviews sting because you just maybe wish the customer could have alerted you to the issue privately or in the moment so that it could have been rectified right away. But it’s a third kind of review that truly drives businesses crazy: getting criticized online for things that are entirely beyond their control. In pre-COVID times, it’s the one-star review that complains about the weather on a rainy day. As reopening safely post-COVID becomes the focus of every small business owner in the state, I fear that the absurdity of the online reviews will grow exponentially. While the weather is quite obviously beyond our control, the virus and the restrictions and rules that will come with it are even more so. Those rules will undoubtedly rub some customers the wrong way because they are unfamiliar and uncomfortable. Others will criticize that the restrictions implemented by a particular business haven’t gone far enough. This will be the-rock-and-the-hard-place of reopening. And in an age of internet reviewing, it’s enough to make your head spin.
Here’s my little prayer: if you love what a business is doing, tell the world. If you feel that a business is doing something wrong, let them know – privately – and see how they respond. If they make it right, then you’ve just helped lots of future customers in important ways. If they don’t respond (after being given some time to do so) or aren’t helpful, then that might be a reason to let other folks know about your concerns. But if you’re really just frustrated that life isn’t the way it used to be, please don’t take that out on our small businesses online. We’re all in this together and just trying to figure out a way to make it through.
Be well.
With love,
Heather
P.S. You can reach me at heather.sanborn@legislature.maine.gov.
P.P.S. You can subscribe to these updates at heathersanborn.substack.com.
Thats a reasonable request re on line reviews. In that regard are there unreasonable requirements in the Reopening Guidelines placed on businesses like yours? Maybe there are other ways to reach the goal of protecting customer and employee?