So the Exchange is broken – let’s go to the individual insurance companies and ask for a quote. I know now from listening to the WFAE-FM show this morning that the purpose of healthcare.gov is to funnel people through that think they want “help” from Federal Government to pay for the premiums. You can still go directly to the insurance company to apply for a policy (with guaranteed issue and no rating surcharge) – but just not get the subsidy set up through the mess that isn’t working. The subsidy is only a prepayment of the tax credit you may get when you file your 2014 taxes in 2015 – your insurance company doesn’t even need to be involved.
North Carolina has only two companies in the exchange – Blue Cross/Shield and Coventry. Conventry doesn’t offer policies in the entire state (they don’t cover the coastal plains where people are mostly poor and black). I asked Conventry for an online quote and was informed I would have to call the 800 number to get a quote for 2014.
BC/BS did give me an online quote with a variety of options, ranging from about $500/month to $750 – the bronze option has basically a $5,700 deductible – they pay nothing until I’ve paid the entire out of pocket deductible. Anything beyond that is 100% covered (except the things that aren’t covered!). That’s less than I was paying in Connecticut and similar to what I have now in the HIPAA ICHIP plan.
(So where do poor people get the $5700 to pay the deductible?)
Illinois has more competition
BCBS of IL is offering me lower prices than NC – the low end plans with the $5k deductible are around $320/month… the platinum plan with low copays and no annual deductible are around $750.
If I go to the wonderful GetCoveredIllinois.Gov web site – after answering all of the qualifying questions that HealthCare.gov is going to ask again, all the web site does is direct me to the totally broken healthcare.gov web site.
Coventry of Illinois – after giving my zipcode and DOB, declares there are no plans available. I conclude they have no plans, but are just fishing for leads – or are generally backing away from offering coverage.
I know from reporting that Humana and Kaiser are also offering coverage.
Kaiser claims to not offer coverage in my zip code (I’m in the City of Chicago, remember)
Humana (who turned me down cold for an individual policy a year ago) is showing me rates based on the ACA framework…
With a bronze policy with a $6,350 annual deductible (I pay that before they pay the first cent), the monthly cost is $354.10. $6350/12 = $529 a month – so you are betting you won’t get sick.
If I go for a $4600 deductible silver plan, the premium rises to $525.24 (12*(525-354)= $2052 more in premiums to lower the deductible by $1750.
Go with Gold and a $2,500 deductible, and the premium is $604.78 (12*(604.78-354.10)) = $3008 in monthly premiums to lower the deductible by $3850
If you’re one of those rich people who want only the best (or want you employer to buy it), the platinum plan has a $1000 deductible with a $1,500 annual maximum out of pocket. You have a 20% copay on most things. The monthly premium is $681.85 (I’m a 57 year old male non-smoker if you’re playing along at home). The absolute best plan that is not an HMO/PPO and lets me go out of network is $916 a month.
Health care is 17% of GDP in the United States. If I’m paying $7k a year, that equates to roughly $42k in income, which is roughly where the ACA cuts off the subsidy.
Welcome to your “Free Obamacare”
With three years to do it, why isn’t there a healthcare.gov “app”? The Obama folks are technophiles after all.
I don’t know the answer, but I have a clue:
http://crackberry.com/president-obama-still-using-his-blackberry
So what is there NOT to love if a person is on SS at $10K to 15K per year income who could get subsidized pretty heavily by me, you and others who earn a median household income?
We are subsidizers – the ones providing the subsidy.
“(So where do poor people get the $5700 to pay the deductible?)”
The poor would have the $5700 after just 10 months of not paying the $320 per month for Obamacare.
Opps- I meant to say 18 months 😉
But if they save more than $2000, they lose their Food Stamps. The Democratic Party social model relies on people living from check to check and never acquiring enough savings to buy their freedom from indentured servitude
Yes. That was the reason to push for higher housing prices since 2008 – otherwise, homes would have been affordable and the would have had trouble justifying the ongoing affordable home programs.
$5700 deductible. BS ! yeah this was written by insurance companies for insurance companies. That’s why they they fought Senator Tom Coeburn so hard on not allowing the companies to sell across state lines. That may have actually reduced cost and helped someone. Dingy Harry is worthless.
saw this on another message board:
“Negotiating with Obama is like playing chess with a pigeon.
The pigeon knocks over all the pieces, shits on the board and
then struts around like it won the game!”
I can see that
parrott
After getting up to speed, there seem to be two primary objectives – reduce utilization by ending first dollar coverage replaced with high nnual deductibles – and strongly pushing more people onto Medicaid with a -temporary- federal subsidy.
Insurance companies but mainly pharmaceutical companies that sell drugs in the USA for many times the price they sell the same drug in Canada or Mexico- they worked with the administration to ensure that patients could not purchase drugs online from neighboring countries.
Insurance companies like the fact that it is against the law for people not to buy their products and that the law requires them to purchase all kinds of bells and whistles that they would not ordinarily purchase.
Regarding the across the state line issue – it would be a major project. Most national companies sell the same branded product nationally but the product is actually very different state by state due to state laws. For example, some states mandate that people purchase policies with a certain number of pills per month for ED, others don’t, or have a different number. Same for fertility treatments which are extraordinarily expensive. Lastly, doctors in different states are compensated different amounts – it would be hard to offer NJ residents the same price as TX residents when they are not likely to be seeing TX doctors.
hence why Medicare expansion is an attractive idea (relatively speaking). It is already a nationwide health insurance product with a standard benefit list.
United Healthcare – went to uhone.com and they gave me 2013 quotes starting with a catastrophic only plan @ $262 a month and a $10k deductible. With a $10k plan with no copay, it is $406/mo (this is NC)
If I go to a $5000 deductible HSA account, it is $577 with 30% copay or $599 with no copay.
It looks like United Healthcare doesn’t write individual coverage – which is why they are MIA. Down in the fine print, it mentions these are actually policies from Golden Rule, the same plan my Allstate agent once suggested
Reading further – united healthcare owns golden rule – that happened in 2003
Maybe I should create a directory that lists all the companies in a state that offer indivual health unsurance policies. I’m thinking that healthcare.gov is failing because they are trying to be a pricing aggregator like Expedia or Hipmunk for air fares – pulling in data real time – but that technology took 30 years to mature and agreement of the airlines to a common way of giving price quotes.
Good idea!
Today’s update – getting to my profile is getting easier – however, when I click on “Show me the cheeze!”, I still get a blank page. Online Chat is still down.
I called the 800 number on the “chat is down” thingy, and much to much surprise, after an initial couple of voice response questions, a human answered right away. I explained that I had an application ID, but all I got was a blank page instead of my free cheeze. She is so sorry, but the web site has been acting up. That’s pretty much all she has been telling people all day long.
Healthcare.gov status – “The system is currently shut down”. Regular maintenance is being performed.
Uh-huh.
This supports the idea that it was never meant to work, the states were meant to be the main gateway to acquire health care.
I did confirm that if you go to healthcare.gov and choose California, it forwards you to the state run exchange, so that’s why people in California were able to register.