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<p>We were discussing this scenario yesterday. It just shows that this is a logical conclusion on (then rumored and now proposed) fix.</p>
<p>Well, I do think the insurance companies are upset about this debacle. They should be. Everyone should be.</p>
<p>"We were discussing this scenario yesterday. It just shows that this is a logical conclusion on (then rumored and now proposed) fix. "</p>
<p>One would think they would take a breath, wait a day and come back with, “sorry fellas, we tried, the numbers just don’t add up.”</p>
<p>Makes me wonder if everyone is reading our little thread here, or are we really that good at predicting things?</p>
<p>Ha! Logical ppl come to the same conclusion, Tex. the only real solution was to say we aren’t ready. To start the next year. </p>
<p>As the Lao tsu says. The wise man is as careful at the end as he is at the beginning.</p>
<p>Was there anything keeping any of the insurance companies from cancelling/changing these plans before ACA? Any law on the books that prevented them from doing that?</p>
<p>I wonder if the administration and the insurance companies already collaborated about this and agreed to allow the insurance companies to take the hit for Obama. I guess you could accuse me of being a conspiralist.</p>
<p>If it’s obvious to us that insurers will hate this idea (justifably) it’s more obvious to insurers.</p>
<p>Insurers hate it because although the regulations make sense politically they make no sense as policy. Kind of like voting to defund Obamacare forty times. It’s about politics, not policy.</p>
<p>I doubt that purveyors of real insurance will uncancel any policies. Why would they? Scam artists selling junk nonsurance will jump on the chance to keep cheating people though.</p>
<p>Was there anything keeping any of the insurance companies from cancelling/changing these plans before ACA? Any law on the books that prevented them from doing that? </p>
<p>I don’t understand this. Is this suggesting that all these people would have lost their insurance, anyway. Because it was the ACA regulations that made these plans go away. The writers of the law have acknowledged that their intent was to move the individual market into the exchanges. The prices may have been going up but they would not have doubled or tripled without the new law.
They are businesses. They need customers.</p>
<p>The Washington state and Arkansas insurance commissioners have said they will not uncancel the former policies.</p>
<p>Actually I think there were provisions of HIPAA that prevented health insurers from cancelling policies under certain conditions.</p>
<p>No, I just want to know if pre ACA there was anything preventing insurance companies from cancelling plans or changing them. </p>
<p>Personally, I think one of the only reason they offered many of these plans was that they were cash cows. Money in - no money out. Now that they actually have to cover things they, obviously, have to charge more.</p>
<p>“I know that this concept continues to elude you, but those figures are based an averages – you have been paying preferred, below-average rates for years.”</p>
<p>Calmom, when Peter Lee announced that Covered Ca plans were 25% cheaper than existing plans, he conveniently omitted that he was comparing the new plans to small business group plans with far greater coverage, instead of individual plans with comparable coverage. Look it up.</p>
<p>“Actually I think there were provisions of HIPAA that prevented health insurers from cancelling policies under certain conditions.”</p>
<p>So, when it was time for your yearly renewal, they had to give you the exact same plan you had? I don’t think so.</p>
<p>I expect that some of the problems are related to processing problems on the back-end rather than the website creation itself. Think of how much information the website needs to collect from various sources in order to provide the service to the user. When you think of the age of many of the government computer systems and the software programs that the federal and state governments work with, and the chances of the new software being in sync with the old across the states, with all the insurers and whatever other administrative services are accessed, it makes me wonder if it’s even possible to “fix” this at all.</p>
<p>My Dh has said in the past that when his company tries to hook directly into information from another company to provide information to a client that both companies want to integrate, there are always glitches. So many systems just aren’t compatible, or are just older, and don’t work well together. </p>
<p>This must be a huge technical mess, or it would be fixed.</p>
<p>Emilybee, in a free market, carriers are competing(yes some states, not so much). They are in business to make money, without customers, how do they do that? Are you suggesting the insurance companies goal was to just keep raising premiums or to come out with worse policies each year so that all their customers would just go away?</p>
<p>Personally, I like having to decide if I need to go to the doctor enough to pay $150. It keeps me from wasting health care resources (and dollars). For example, my doc wanted to check my levels three months after changing a prescription. So he ordered the blood test and scheduled a follow-up appointment. I got the blood test, logged on to the lab’s website, got the results, saw that the new prescription had brought me smack dab in the normal range, and cancelled the appointment. I don’t need to pay $150 to have my doc look at the same lab result and say, “looks like it’s smack dab in the middle of the normal range”. That’s just a total waste of money and resources. Since it’s coming out of my pocket, I’m not doing it. I’m sorry that he doesn’t get the billing, but I didn’t set up the system.</p>
<p>Having the consumer removed from the pricing structure is one of the reasons our health care is so expensive.</p>
<p>^ If they were not increasing their premiums over the last few decades on a regular basis, then indeed, they were offering lesser plans. Probably doing both, imo.</p>
<p>Interestedad (clapping hands) could not agree more. What other product do consumers buy without knowing the price? Employer based insurance has brought us to this point.</p>
<p>Just got a reminder from BCBS that December 15 is the deadline for making changes that will be effective Jan 1. Here is another bold prediction: The Healthcare.gov website (assuming they get it to work before December 15) will crash on or about December 14, and they will blame all the people waiting until the last minute to sign up for insurance. As if you had a real choice.</p>
<p>interesteddad, I agree with you on that and I think it is so important. Zero copay to see a doctor is the dumbest thing imaginable. (In my opinion). I have heard stories of elderly going to the doctor out of sheer boredom because it costs them nothing. I also had to weigh the value of a diagnostic test this year. I had to do a lot of work to determine the actual cost to me (around $900 which would be paid by me going against my $2500 deductible). I had to seriously think about what additional information I would learn from these tests - most likely nothing - and decided to give it a pass. If my insurance had covered it 100% it would have been, sure, why not? what me worry?</p>
<p>I don’t want to live in a society where people don’t go to the doctor because they can’t afford to pay the $150 it costs. I don’t want them to not have the necessary tests needed to make a diagnosis because they can’t afford the $900. But that’s just me.</p>