Why can’t we stick with the topic of 2017 ACA? The open enrollment period for that ends at the end of January, right.
Then start a thread about how to change the ACA.
I keep checking here to see if others are having 2017 sign up issues, or whatever…and instead, I’m seeing this debate…pages and pages of it.
Eh. The problem with retirees isn’t Social Security. It’s Medicare. Social Security cost increases per person are pegged to the cost of living. Medicare costs are rising much faster than the cost of living. When I have a constant multiplier and an exponential, I worry about the exponential. Tinkering with Social Security will deal with the Social S problem for many decades. Medicare increases loom.
“Why can’t we stick with the topic of 2017 ACA? The open enrollment period for that ends at the end of January, right.”
Deadline is Thursday if you want coverage starting 1/1/17. Just completed my enrollment today. I have to say that the website and tools work so much better than they did several years ago.
Agreed. I walked my roommate through it a few days ago because he recently aged off his parents’. So much nicer and friendlier than the first year or two.
My son said the process was smoother as well. It he did have to wait longer to get the billing info email…took over a week.
My daughter didn’t have to do anything as she buys directly from Anthem…and was not changing plans…no subsidy. All she has to do is continue to pay her bill (which now $375 a month…up,from $275).
Aetna (my insurance company in 2016) has withdrawn from the ACA exchange in North Carolina, leaving only Blue Cross Blue Shield NC. We received a letter in the mail telling us not to worry, that we would be switched to a specific BCBSNC plan that was close to what we had with Aetna. Not so coincidentally, we had already figured that out by ourselves and had signed up for that exact plan for 2017. It was fairly easy and went smoothly. So that’s not much to talk about. Much more compelling is the question of whether we will be able to stay in this plan at reasonable cost for all of 2017! (And what my wife will/should do in December 2017 when she turns 65)
She may want to start reading before she has to make any Medicare-related decisions:
https://www.medicare.gov/people-like-me/new-to-medicare/getting-started-with-medicare.html
My son re-upped with no problem. Mr. Fang’s and my insurance sent us a bill for our same plan, but at a much higher premium. We moved down from Silver to Bronze. It was pretty routine.
No problems for D or DH. They got letters with the proposed renewals, they were satisfied, no action necessary except payment of the January premium, easily done online.
We had bought off-exchange plans for the past several years, but for 2017 we bought an exchange plan because the premiums were much lower for similar coverage and networks. On our state’s exchange website, we had all sorts of problems completing the application (kept getting a server error message), so DH and I went to the insurer’s storefront where they were helping customers sign up for insurance. We got the same error message there. The customer service rep called the exchange and was told (by the 2nd person she talked to there) that they were having computer issues. We did our application over the phone with a very bad connection. We were relieved when we could finally log in a few days later to see that our application was submitted correctly.
This was more difficult and time-consuming than I would ever have expected.
MODERATOR’S NOTE:
As a reminder, this thread is about the 2017 ACA; all posts should be somewhat related to that topic.
We just received notification that our primary care physician will not be in the BCBS HMO in 2017. I’m finding it difficult to find which plan he will be in. The letter said the change is taking effect February 2017. At the BCBS site, he is still showing up in the HMO. I’m going to call the office and see if they can give us any more information.
Sigh.
Our local hospital is not in network on any individual plan. So if I am taken there in an emergency, I will have to be transferred elsewhere once I am stable. Being treated as an in-patient would not be covered at all.
We signed up, officially.
We were at $760 per month in 2016, for two early-50s adults, a BCBS HMO.
Switched to a different BCBS HMO (in 2017, this HMO is $40 per month more expensive than other HMO), lower individual deductible ($2600 v. $7150), lower PCP office visit copay ($30 v. $50) and lower specialist copay ($50 v. $100) and a different physician network (what the heck, our former PCP has moved on), and we’re at $1088 per month for 2017.
Plus, paying for student insurance for two kids away at college.
I can’t wrap my head around it being MORE expensive next year, and the next year…
Cheer up, Midwest97. You might not have to deal with a premium that’s more expensive in 2018. We have no reason to think any insurers will be in the individual market in 2018.
I am not without hope.
It was that article in the NYTimes that discussed what the insurance lobby and hospital lobby LIKE about the ACA.
There are market forces that do not want to go back to the bad old days of uninsured people flooding the ERs for basic care. If they can make money, the health insurance companies LOVE having all those new customers, yes?
The problem is, it is easier to snipe at the many things that do not work or are undesirable than it is to design something that will be better and convince all of the various interest groups to go along with it.
Congress is planning to repeal the ACA in 2017, so I’m saying this right on topic for ACA 2017.
If the ACA is repealed next month, effective, say, January of 2020, but there is no replacement, then nobody will know what will happen to the individual market. The repeal will get rid of the individual mandate and the subsidies for low-income people, but it likely won’t get rid of the part of the law that requires insurers to offer everyone of the same age the same premium, regardless of their health status.
So insurers will be faced with losing all those previously uninsured low-income people. They won’t be able to afford insurance, so they will go back to being uninsured. Meanwhile, the people like Romani and the Fang family, who previously wouldn’t be able to buy insurance because of pre-existing conditions, will continue to buy insurance at the same rate offered to people who don’t have lupus, asthma, Sjogrens or autism.
The actuaries for the insurers, who already got burned the first time by not knowing how to price premiums in the uncertainty of the ACA, aren’t going to have an easier time this time. Moreover, they have no reason to trust Congress’ promises. Humana just took a $591 million writeoff on the risk corridors, because Congress refused to pay them what the US owed according to the ACA. Aetna also got burned. The US owed over $2.5 BILLION to the insurers for the risk corridors that didn’t get paid.
Insurers will have no idea what will be in the replacement bill that Congress claims it will pass. They’ll head for the exits.
“The actuaries for the insurers, who already got burned the first time by not knowing how to price premiums in the uncertainty of the ACA, aren’t going to have an easier time this time. Moreover, they have no reason to trust Congress’ promises. Humana just took a $591 million writeoff on the risk corridors, because Congress refused to pay them what the US owed according to the ACA. Aetna also got burned. The US owed over $2.5 BILLION to the insurers for the risk corridors that didn’t get paid.”
Wow! I did not know the insurers weren’t being paid! That makes the likelihood of the indy market going away much, much greater. Plus, why wouid these insurers come back into whatever the replace plan is by a Congress controlled by the same party who didn’t honor their contracts once already.
Indy plan holders are going to have a lot more to worry about then their plans not be accepted by certain providers or their premiums being to high.
The insurers were paid for the subsidies. They were stiffed on the risk corridors.
The House has sued to also stop paying insurers for the cost-sharing reductions, where people under 250% of the poverty level get extra subsidies on their deductibles, copays and coinsurance. If the new President stops defending against this suit, the US will stop paying for these cost-sharing reductions, but the insurers will still have to give the reductions to people who qualify for them.
That is, the insurers expect to have to offer these freebies to low income people and not get paid back for them.