"If they haven’t checked the box on healthcare.gov giving the site access to their tax information, they could lose their subsidy and end up with a bill for their full premium for Jan. 1. They can fix this in January, but the subsidy won’t be retroactively applied – which could cost them hundreds of dollars."You have five days -- until the Dec. 15 deadline for making changes effective Jan. 1 -- to make sure you've covered this base. This applies to people who are continuing 2014 coverage and those who have bought for the first time in 2015 (and of course it applies to people who chose Coventry or UnitedHealthcare plans as well as Blue Cross).
A couple more reminders from Blue Cross for people who got policies in 2014: If you don't update your information to calculate a 2015 subsidy, the 2014 information will carry over. If the 2015 subsidy would be lower, that means you're paying more than you need to.
And if you do nothing by Dec. 15, your policy will continue, but this kind of "passive renewal" can lead to delays issuing ID cards and customer materials.
All this is in addition to what journalists and insurance experts have been saying for weeks: Log on to see if there's a better deal than your current policy (remember that you need to look at physician networks and out-of-pocket costs as well as premiums). Switching may seem like a hassle, but defaulting to last year's choice can be costly.