<p>I agree Calmom. Totally different animal. If mine wasn’t so cheap and bundled with my medical insurance, I’d probably not even have it.</p>
<p>I just read a piece from USA Today which pointed out that there is no need to be first in line to buy insurance. They’re not going to run out. In fact, the piece advises that you may want to wait until the inevitable first-day-first-week bugs are ironed out a bit. And for those who haven’t shopped for insurance before, it’s probably smart to take some time to mull the choices and figure out what type of plan is best for you.</p>
<p>There’s no rush. Insurance purchased on the exchange will not be effective until Jan. 1, whether you sign up now or in December.</p>
<p>I agree that there is no rush – I’m planning to sign on just out of curiosity to see how it goes. (Plus it will be fun to report back here, one way or another. ). </p>
<p>I don’t really have any shopping to do, though – there is only one plan that makes sense for my situation. If I do nothing at all, my insurance company will automatically roll me onto that plan – but in order to be eligible for a tax credit or subsidy I need to get the exact same plan from the exchange instead. As I am self employed with a somewhat variable income, I’d be crazy not to go to that route. (Even if it turns out that I make too much to qualify for the credit, I doubt that I’ll have any way of knowing for certain until October or November a year from now.)</p>
<p>I’m assuming that medigap coverage is not available on the exchange? I’ve googled this and searched all the sites I’m aware of but can’t find a definite answer. We get coverage through my husband’s employer, but for one, it’s a company I’m not fond of, and secondly, we pay the premiums and I’d like to be able to compare policies. I’m not eligible for Medicare yet, but he is. So our policy covers me and he has a medigap policy.</p>
<p>“but in order to be eligible for a tax credit or subsidy I need to get the exact same plan from the exchange instead.”</p>
<p>Why don’t people get the same tax break in all plans?<br>
Will employers increase premiums in order to get people to go to exchanges?</p>
<p>I tried about an hour ago to sign on and get an account for S1. When it got to the page to set up security questions, the dropdown boxes for the 3 questions were blank – no choices were offered and you couldn’t write your own questions in the spaces. But to progress through to the next page you had to input answers for each of the 3 nonexistent questions. So I put Answer 1, Answer 2 and Answer 3, which allowed me to continue. THe next page said that an account was being set up, please wait. I watched the spinning icon for about a minute until it finally said that the system was unavailable and I should try again later.</p>
<p>Sigh…</p>
<p>Ri site is a mess…keeps spitting back invalid date of birth format when the date entered is correct</p>
<p>mnsure (MN) site is not ready yet, but is supposed to start working this afternoon. We shall see.</p>
<p>patsmom, thanks for the tip! LOL, proceeding with “answer1” “answer2” “answer3” but we will see how far i get.</p>
<p>oops… not very far, system unavailable. Not at all surprised. Expected the website to be overwhelmed, not to mention the possibility of cyberattacks… no, really? who would do such a thing? :D</p>
<p>And the Live Chat feature is now coming up as unavailable. Earlier when I tried it, it opened a chat window for me and said to wait until they could get someone to help. I waited and waited and waited and finally gave up. Now it won’t even do that much.</p>
<p>What a disaster. As a formal federal employee, though, I’m not surprised.</p>
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<p>I also have questioned the reasoning behind this particular restriction. My guess is that the exchanges are only a first step. Although the policies offered by the exchanges are through private companies there is much more governmental involvement because of the potential subsidies. As more and more people figure out how to fit into the subsidized class the proportion of insured in government subsidize plans will grow as the proportion of those in the ‘private’ market falls. My guess is when a certain critical mass has shifted to the exchanges another major change will be imposed. I’ll leave it up to the imagination what that change may be…don’t want to venture into politics…</p>
<p>It would depend upon the doctor. I do try to go in network as much as possible, but I am fortunate to be able to afford to pay the difference most of the time, and make it a priority. I am having a lot of dental work done, and am going to dentist who take no insurance, as they are very, very good, and I have phobias about dental work, sensitive roots and some issues from prior work done years ago over seas that is not familar to most endontists. Also for bridge work, inmplants and any specialty work, it’s not a bad idea to go with someone who is supposed to do exceptional work. It’s a priority to me, and I do the extra and pay the extra.</p>
<p>My pediatrician is well connected, very smart, very responsive and I work well with him. If I need something in a crunch, I know he will move quickly and get the best for me. So, yes, if ended up out of network, I’d likely pay the difference for him. For my personal doctor. Nope. Have had a few of them in the last 10 years, in fact, and they are clones in the way they operate and wouldn’t pay a dime more to keep any of them. Would move out of network even in an instant if I could find someone like my pediatrician. My mother speaks broken English, and I would pay the extra to have a doctor that speaks her language fluently and is from her country, due to the comfort level it provides her. We are fortunate that we found one in network for her, but absolutely, I would pay the difference for her unless we truly could not afford it. I’d cut a lot of other things first.</p>
<p>When I go to healthcare.gov and click on “See all health plans available to you,” it says, “Error - this dataset is currently private.” Great. I tried several times from different web pages. I have a bad feeling about this.</p>
<p>I suspect most of the web pages are overloaded–try later tonight, tomorrow, into the weekend and the sites will probably be much more functional. Think of it like an iPhone release–how many times did the Apple/AT&T/Verizon sites crash during each of those openings?</p>
<p>[Insurance</a> markets open to surge of new customers - Times Union](<a href=“http://www.timesunion.com/news/medical/article/Insurance-markets-open-to-surge-of-new-customers-4858594.php]Insurance”>http://www.timesunion.com/news/medical/article/Insurance-markets-open-to-surge-of-new-customers-4858594.php)</p>
<p>Sounds like most sites are overwhelmed with customers. I find this surprising as I keep hearing everyone hates ACA.</p>
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<p>Them, and the curious who couldn’t get any concrete info before today. </p>
<p>I’ll hang on a week or two to go see. We have insurance at the moment.</p>
<p>Yep, like any other well publicized launch the sites are overwhelmed. But there are 3 months to make the selection before coverage begins in Jan. Just wait a few days.</p>
<p>I just want to find out the bad news as soon as possible. Maine is reported to have the fourth highest premiums in the country. Figures.</p>
<p>overwhelmed with customers…doubt it…more like people checking in to see how high the premiums will be.</p>
<p>Agree with geeps! With all the ballyhoo, many want to see what the facts are that have been hidden for so long!</p>