<p>So people who have no need to buy insurance on the exchanges are going to the exchanges to see what the rates are even when it’s nothing they need to purchase? That’s bizarre. </p>
<p>What facts have been hidden?</p>
<p>emilybee, there are some who MIGHT purchase insurance – for example, small businesses. They MIGHT want to switch to the SHOP exchanges, even if they have other insurance now. So it’s not a NEED, but a MIGHT WANT. The PREMIUMS are the FACTS which have been hidden until today for MANY of the exchanges.</p>
<p>It’s very nice for the folks who have great taxpayer-subsidized fed, state, or local government employer policies, but not everyone has that kind of plan. I think it’s bizarre that such folks can be so out of touch with the private sector.</p>
<p>^^Why would curiosity about a massive national program be bizarre? Perhaps the politicians prefer the electorate to be ill informed and not paying attention, but I prefer people to be as knowledgeable as possible. This affects us all.</p>
<p>Plus, even if one is currently insured by their employer, they could lose their job or their employer could drop insurance and just pay the fine.</p>
<p>emilybee…millions of people are self pay or own a small business…of course they will check the exchange rates to compare to there provider rates. In RI, I already know the answer, the exchange rates are higher.</p>
<p>Info on ACA has been available online for months and months. Plan rates have also been available. I find it very weird that people are going online online en masse this morning if they do not need insurance. </p>
<p>Of course there are some who might need to purchase insurance and want to get the information as soon as possible and see the marketplace - but that is not what Geeps said - he said, “overwhelmed with customers…doubt it…more like people checking in to see how high the premiums will be.”</p>
<p>Again, if one is not a customer or at least a potential customer, why would the be checking out the websites - especially on the first day when there is bound to be gliches. Just makes no sense to me.</p>
<p>“In RI, I already know the answer, the exchange rates are higher.”</p>
<p>So why did you try to go on the RI exchange this morning?</p>
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Plan rates have NOT been available in MY state.</p>
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<p>I wanted to see if it is going to be as low as advertized. In my area a 40 year old male (or female) platinum rate was advertized as $197 per month without any subsidies. The deductible for this plan is $1000 and out of pocket maximum is $1000, after that 100% is covered.</p>
<p>The family coverage was advertized as $603 ($3000 deductible/out of pocket maximum).</p>
<p>These rates are dirt cheap - cheaper than what I pay at work for what appears to be worse coverage ($3000 family deductible, 80/20 coverage after that).</p>
<p>I suspect there are also those who are checking out the premiums with the potential subsidies TODAY…because then they have a full 3 months to figure out how to manipulate their AGI…;)</p>
<p>“Plan rates have NOT been available in MY state”</p>
<p>I have no problem with people who need insurance or might need insurance in the near future going online to their state’s marketplace. I simply do not understand why anyone else needs to look - just for the sake of looking - today. It seems bizarre to me that people would waste their time. But if that is what floats their boat…</p>
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<p>I don’t understand why people would NOT want to look. It is an implementation of a major law. I want to see if we were sold a bill of goods. What’s is bizarre about wanting to be informed?</p>
<p>The marketplace is just one part of ACA. Most of the information on the law has been available for eons already with many of the laws already implemented. </p>
<p>If it was so important to everyone then why has virtually no one taken the time to read the bill or even know the basic ABC’s. </p>
<p>I think most of the lookyloo’s are just going on hoping that the websites fail so they can say - “see, even the websites don’t work.” I don’t think most of them care one bit about what the plan rates are.</p>
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<p>You are entitled to your opinion. </p>
<p>In my state we knew it is not going to be on-line on October 1st, because of cyber security concerns. I am shocked that they told us that it will be available this afternoon. </p>
<p>My H owns a small business (I help him with financial stuff), exempt from being required to offer health insurance. However we do offer it, because we think it is important for people to have access to it. We’ve been offering it almost from the beginning (3 months after opening) - 8 years now.</p>
<p>We don’t like the new law, but we will take an advantage of it, like everyone else is going to do. If we can offer decent insurance to our employees through the exchange, while getting tax deduction, we will. That being said, we are not convinced it is a good idea to go through exchange, as a network even with the best plan is really small. So, we are looking, but not necessarily to buy.</p>
<p>P.s. The same goes for our personal insurance that we now get through my regular work.</p>
<p>Yeah, people are spending hours of frustration punching numbers into the website, just to slow it down. It’s not that the system wasn’t completely ready for the users, or there’s more interest than expected, because most everyone would want to know if the marketplace offers a better deal than they have, or they want to know their options just in case…it’s those inconsiderate lookyloos that are trying to make it crash.</p>
<p>Actually, I believe most people going on the marketplace sites are customers or potential customers and only some, like Geeps, are going on the marketplace so they can report that the sites aren’t working. </p>
<p>I believe most people who don’t need insurance are not rushing to look at their state’s marketplace since there is no reason for them to. I think the sites are overwhelmed because a lot of people are desperate for health insurance.</p>
<p>Well, College Confidential usually crashes on April 1st, and I see we’re all still here. Having a site go down during heavy traffic really doesn’t much of anything other than that there was heavy traffic.</p>
<p>Covered California was up but the health plan booklets were not available. I’m assuming that’s where you’d find out which providers are in which plans. A most critical piece of information without which you really can’t choose a plan.</p>
<p>Well, I looked last week- but didn’t assume what they printed then was necessarily the final numbers. I imagine people are trying to inform themselves. And, I won’t go back and confirm my numbers for a few more days, at least. Maybe longer. I have an idea mine will be good.</p>
<p>Actually, I’m finding Covered California too slow to work with. </p>
<p>I did expect this though. If it is a load problem, it may be unavoidable. There are ways to scale up to handle surges in web traffic, but it can get very complicated when you need to be pulling from a database and using encrypted (secure) data entry protocols. It’s one thing to use a distributed network and cloud computing to serve up your images, quite another when you have users filling out forms where they will be required to input their social security numbers. In that respect, the informational part of the Covered California web site is working fine — it’s the application site that is overwhelmed. </p>
<p>The 800 number reports hold times of more than 30 minutes. (Could be a lot longer – I certainly am not hanging on the line to find out). </p>
<p>I called one of the insurance companies and found something similar. They put me on hold briefly to be put through to a sales agent, and then after about 5 minutes came back and said that there would be a very long wait time and that the agent would call me back within the next 2 days. </p>
<p>Ill try again in a few days. ;)</p>
<p>Yes, they could have made adjustments to handle an initial heavy load- but we can all also pace ourselves, as ^ suggests. I’d find this different if we were up against the closing deadline.
And, even if there are lookyloos, I think the interest is good.</p>