<p>I tried to do what you suggested last night, interesteddad. The site crashed on me. I will try again. </p>
<p>Anthem told me they were going to cut the amount of policies offered and maybe the company did. There is something like 5 bronze plans offered. Anthem said they are going to sign me up for one of the more expensive ones if Inertia takes over and I do nothing. :)</p>
<p>Because I live near SF, there are a decent amount of plans offered. I am not in love with the pricing, but I understand. There are built in price increases coming in Cal. Healthcare inflation plus 2.5 percent a year or so for aging. I am thinking increases of 7.5 percent a year going forward… Maybe a little more if the ACA policies are priced too low. Of course, the policies could be priced too high and will come down in price. That is probably a dream. :)</p>
<p>“Maybe a little more if the ACA policies are priced too low. Of course, the policies could be priced too high and will come down in price.”</p>
<p>I wonder when we/the insurance companies will know?</p>
<p>I’d assume that the next pricing schedule will be out about this time in 2014. By which time the insurance companies will only have a partial year of data, and the most complete data is likely to come from the Jan 1st people who really planned on using health care and the more causal users have until March. </p>
<p>So next August/September the companies have to figure out what they think they know about this potentially stinky risk pool. </p>
<p>And the stick doesnt even come about until taxes are done in 2015.</p>
<p>I know what an actuary needs. If you get away from politics and personal biases, and listen to people in the industry It is going to take about 3 years to get things running well. </p>
<p>We have a long way to go. There is going to be incomplete info and things are going to be bumpy at first and then smooth out. </p>
<p>You have insurance companies that aren’t playing or have priced policies pretty high expecting the unhealthy to dominate the exchanges. There is a supply of insurance out there that can still come into the exchanges when there are more knowns.</p>
<p>What data do you have about people who by definition havent been in the insurance market?</p>
<p>Out of that entire pool what information do you have about which subset will sign up?
What will be the usage behavior of that group be on gaining access to insurance?
What percentage of the ‘cash cows’ will sign up?</p>
<p>^^concur about the patience thing, but then I believe in a really low bar, so I had no expectation that this thing would be ready for prime-time. Just too many disparate government data bases to link, all the while maintaining security. </p>
<p>The faux-paus, IMO, was that, when the system failed the basic stress test in late Sept, the delay/extension should have been automatic. (Throwing good code on top of bad code rarely yeilds a good result.)</p>
<p>I can’t figure out why people are so concerned about the insurance companies.</p>
<p>Look, the insurance companies had a part in writing this. They have professionals who assess this risk better than almost anybody.</p>
<p>When the ACA website was found to not be working, the ONLY people the president met with to discuss the issues was the insurance companies.</p>
<p>I’m not worried about the insurance companies.</p>
<p>Also, they are smart men and women in that industry. The proverbial writing is on the wall: they can either find a way to make this work, or the whole thing is going to single payor and they can kiss their 15% goodbye.</p>
<p>SOME of the people who voted on it were very clear about not having read it, and that includes people who voted against it as well as people who voted for it. </p>
<p>But that’s no different than any other major piece of legislation. Do you think every member of Congress reads every line item in the federal budget before voting on it? No way. Do you think every member read all 1,300 pages of the Clean Air Act when it was enacted? Not a chance. They read summaries, analyses, committee reports, and memos from their staffs. They hear about it and get briefings on it from lobbyists on all sides of every issue. They talk to their colleagues, some of whom are quite knowledgeable about the legislation because they’ve sat through committee hearings and heard the bill dissected and were involved in negotiations concerning amendments and perhaps offered some amendments of their own; or introduced their own bills; or had portions of their bills incorporated into the bill being voted on. This is just how the legislative process works. Yes, it’s messy, yes it’s unseemly, but it’s the process we’ve got, and it was no different for the Affordable Care Act than for any other law enacted by Congress.</p>
<p>As Otto von Bismarck is reputed to have said, “Laws are like sausages; it is better not to see them being made.”</p>
<p>And what’s the alternative? Before legislation, we had laws made by autocratic fiat. I don’t think that was a superior system.</p>
<p>dstark, I am having the same problems as you. Can’t figure out which providers are on these plans and I need to make a decision by Dec 15, so I have insurance on Jan 1. I can’t wait 3 years before this is figured out.</p>
I will try again. </p>