<p>LOL! </p>
<p>After waiting all this time I gave up, made a new account, and identity verified right away. I wonder if I could’ve done it for the last few weeks. Will keep everyone posted about how this experiment goes.</p>
<p>Also, I’m going to use the 138% of poverty number.</p>
<p>ETA: OK, submitted, currently “in progress”. Any idea how long they take to process?</p>
<p>Busdriver, you are essentially gloating: you work for a company that has a self-funded, top-of-the-line insurance plan. Ha, ha. You get super wonderful insurance and your company doesn’t pay all that much to provide it, or charge you anything. </p>
<p>You apparently don’t know much about what it has been like buying insurance on the individual market in the past. I do. The point isn’t to try to compare what is available under ACA to top-of-the-line employer benefits – it’s insurance, it is keyed to a risk pool. Mini is saying the premium levels are better than what was available in Washington before. That is consistent with my experience – my son had excellent insurance from his employer, but had a tough time finding anything that offered realistic coverage or was remotely affordable after he got laid off from his job. </p>
<p>Covered California is set up to calculate subsidies based on a questionnaire that asks for monthly income. I believe that is done in order to screen for Medicaid eligibility, which is determined based on monthly rather than averaged annual income. </p>
<p>Subsidies will be reconciled with tax returns, and people who received more than they were entitled to will have to pay back the difference. There is a lot of information given about that during the signup process. No one in 2013 can know what their exact income will be in 2014, so it is obvious that some people will get less money than they are entitled to in advance credits and some will get more. That’s simply how the system is structured.</p>
<p>“So if this is what you consider to be working well, (is it?), yep, Washington state ACA is working great!”</p>
<p>Never said great. I did say I am more concerned about what will happen when the ACA is working than what is happening now. It took a year for RomneyCare to work out its kinks, and two years for Medicare to do so. The question is whether it works after the kinks are worked out. (I have grave doubts.)</p>
<p>In the meantime, I read the national stories - but I have yet to read a story in Washington State of someone who applied for coverage under the ACA and would have preferred to keep their old coverage. I’m sure they exist, but I haven’t hear of or read of one. The politicians in Washington State who opposed enactment of the ACA are now virtually silent.</p>
<p>(I expect they won’t be a year from now.)</p>
<p>Meanwhile, the refugee who lives with us can now risk getting a job!</p>
<p>Washington website did have a problem which they claim to have fixed. It is old news (10/25).</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>[Healthcare.gov</a> is ‘fixable’ by the end of November: White House](<a href=“http://www.cnbc.com/id/101128768#_gus]Healthcare.gov”>http://www.cnbc.com/id/101128768#_gus)</p>
<p>Romani, did the site explain what “in progress” is? Have you gotten to the point where you selected a plan?</p>
<p>I wanted to try out healthcare.gov just to play with it, but I live in California so I can’t. I’m interested to hear others’ experience.</p>
<p>That Washington bug (which only affected 8000 people) sounds like a run-of-the-mill bug. It’s bad, but they found it quickly, it’s so simple to fix and it sounds like it has been fixed. If that’s the only problem the Washington exchange has, they’re doing fine.</p>
<p>No, it didn’t, CF. I I did submit it though- signature and all. Let me go look and see if it has an explanation anywhere.</p>
<p>ETA: Oh snazzlefrazz… the system is down from 1AM-5AM. I forgot. I’ll look in the morning. </p>
<p>I did the whole enter your information, confirm identity, etc and got through. Then I submitted an app with questions like am I pregnant? is anyone disabled? how big is the household? and how much I think I’ll make next year (I put 16.5k). Then it had me sign electronically and hit submit. Now, I guess, I wait. No plan comparisons or anything though.</p>
<p>The plan that I want is ~$190 pre-subsidy, ~$67 post-subsidy. I’m actually surprised by how low the price is pre-subsidy. It’s a silver-tiered plan (<a href=“For Members: Individual and Family Plans | BCBSM”>For Members: Individual and Family Plans | BCBSM). The one that they were going to enroll me into (a catastrophic plan) is ~$120 is only $15 more per month than I’m currently paying AND covers doctors visits, prescriptions, etc- more than my last one did. It really doesn’t seem like BCBSM’s prices went up all that much… they actually seem pretty comparable to what I was looking at when I was shopping this past March/April.</p>
<p>An update from texaspg’s link. </p>
<p>Progress…</p>
<p>[HealthCare.gov</a> handling more volume, Zients says](<a href=“http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/11/15/increased-volume-aca-website/3584797/]HealthCare.gov”>HealthCare.gov handling more volume, Zients says)</p>
<p>“This week, we’ve driven the error rate down to 1 percent.”</p>
<p>I wonder what the definition of an error is.</p>
<p>Hopefully ML is reading!</p>
<p>Nevermind - system is down.</p>
<p>Romani - We pay 550$ in health fees (separate from if we bought insurance from the school) to the university apart from employer based insurance for our kid. So $800 annually sounds like a good deal.</p>
<p>Romani, if you get a silver plan, you also get subsidies for your copays. You probably already knew that, but just in case you didn’t…</p>
<p>CF, no, I actually don’t know much about that :o</p>
<p>I had heard about it (from this wonderful thread!) but I assumed it was already built in to the plan’s subsidies. </p>
<p>Do you know how that works? (Sorry for being dense 
)</p>
<p>I actually pay a <em>very</em> small health fee to U of M so a LOT of their services are provided free of charge:
I’m almost wondering if I even need a plan as high as silver because of that. Granted, it does only cover me from September-April, but post-surgery most of my medical problems have cleared up. Also, chances are I’m going to be out-of-state (or country) from May-August for an internship so all the plans I’m looking at only cover emergency care (when out of network) anyway so it’s kind of irrelevant whether I’m covered by the student fee between those months.</p>
<p>You have the subsidies that you know about-- your premiums are lowered, as you know.</p>
<p>But also, when you have medical treatments that normally require copays, yours will be less. According to this Kaiser article, it’s done automatically.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>[In</a> Addition To Premium Credits, Health Law Offers Some Consumers Help Paying Deductibles And Co-Pays - Kaiser Health News](<a href=“http://www.kaiserhealthnews.org/features/insuring-your-health/2013/070913-michelle-andrews-on-cost-sharing-subsidies.aspx]In”>In Addition To Premium Credits, Health Law Offers Some Consumers Help Paying Deductibles And Co-Pays - KFF Health News)</p>
<p>Oh, interesting. That’s good to know, CF. Maybe I’ll just stick with silver.</p>
<p>Romani – stick with the Silver plan – with the subsidies at your level it is better all around.</p>
<p>Calmom, are you saying that Covered California plans are better and cheaper than the current individual plans for the majority of unsubsidized, underwritten Californians? The individual market may not be a picnic in the park, but right now it is like comparing a Volkswagon Beetle to a Rolls Royce and the Rolls Royce is cheaper.</p>
<p>Romani, I specifically asked BCBS about the copay, deductible, and OOP reductions for those subsidized. Was told they’re only available with silver, so PLEASE stick with the silver.</p>
<p>At you income level, you’ll be on what’s called a 94 plan, which means you’ll only pay about six percent, roughly, of the deductible and OOP, and your copay will be 90/10. This cannot be beat with any employer-based plan…my own broker has confirmed this. This means minimal financial risk annually for you. It is the one good and true thing about this whole legislation 
People starting out, or without means, or with large families and a sole earner, are truly protected from financial ruin and crippling medical debt.</p>
<p>The rest of us are paying mortgage like premiums (though for me that’s not new :)) in order for this to be so, so while its frustrating to navigate the system, take a deep breath and be happy that your generation may have a shot at avoiding at least one pitfall that has historically caused financial hardship for many :)</p>
<p>We need you to be happy about it because we need to live vicariously through you ;)</p>
<p>Yes. This is the stuff I want to hear about. I want to hear about families and people like Romani who are getting affordable coverage. For me, that makes it feel better. </p>
<p>I hate that it is one more tax on income and not assets, but I think the capital gains tax and RE tax balances that a little more than usual.</p>
<p>PG, I hope you are right that cg tax and re tax balances out. With cg/re tax, you can lower the tax with planning. That’s can’t be done with the income tax and it will hit the middle class. We may like to think it’s our humanity that brought on democracy and open society we enjoy today. But it’s really the economy, isn’t it? Without strong middle class, I just wonder where we are going.</p>
<p>There are two challenges to this program 1. The fact that it is so big the cost will hit much lower than usually happens. 2. Insurance company profits paid by taxpayers mandatory participation. Oh, make that three: doctors. Not enough. And not making enough money for their required upfront investment to be worthwhile.</p>