<p>Then there is not much of an access to medical care issue, I guess.</p>
<p>We talked about clinics on the first thread. In the hospital footprint or adjacent. Someone comes in with the flu, redirect them to the group with the lower operating costs/overhead. But in this thread, someone came back with immediate comments about funding, lobbyists who oppose and, of course, this notion you’re going to wait for hours or all day. Doom-tude.</p>
<p>Any of us can run into an access issue, depending, I couldn’t get my mother on my doc’s patient list. She found one, horrors, that none of us knew, who is very good. Most of us either advance schedule our annuals or call later and have to wait, unless a slot just opened up.</p>
<p>Here’s an interesting fact for our kids to be aware of: in some cases, it’s cheaper to go with Bronze than to go with a catastrophic plan. If a person is eligible for subsidies, the subsidies don’t apply to catastrophic plans, but they do apply to metal tier plans.</p>
<p>I discovered this when I was looking at prices for a hypothetical 26-year-old earning $30K a year in San Francisco. Bronze would be cheaper for her than a catastrophic plan.</p>
<p>So if your invincible child just wants to buy a catastrophic plan, and they are subsidy eligible, tell them to check again. They might find good news.</p>
<p>LF</p>
<p>The ACA is about changing our current system to ensure that every American has access to care. Talking about how things may change is not “doom-tude,” it is smart. </p>
<p>If our current system is already serving 99% of access needs, according to CF, that is news to me. Now I won’t worry about seeing a doctor when I need to post-ACA, at least relative to the way things are working now.</p>
<p>As a Kaiser member, this is the model I have, now. </p>
<p>What is a huge hassle is location of clinics/med centers, and long wait times. They have closed down urgent care clinics in Socal area, instead of building more. </p>
<p>Even though Kaiser thinks more urgent care centers are the solution…they have closed several in last few years. Which is weird. </p>
<p>[Yeah</a>, Those Emergency Rooms Are Crowded? - Kaiser Health News](<a href=“http://www.kaiserhealthnews.org/Columns/2010/October/102110pollack.aspx]Yeah”>Yeah, Those Emergency Rooms Are Crowded | KFF Health News)</p>
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<p>Depends on whether you think bringing your kid to the emergency room because he can’t breathe is just the same as getting him regular treatment for his asthma. Both of them consume about the same amount of care, but the amount of care is not the entire story. We also need to determine what appropriate care is, and we’ll agree that keeping a child’s asthma in check is better than bringing him to the emergency room because he’s turning blue.</p>
<p>Giving regular care to people with chronic diseases like asthma and diabetes doesn’t save money. It probably costs a bit, and that’s probably where the 0.6% increase in usage mostly comes from. But shifting care in this way saves health.</p>
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<p>If we are planning to shift care, then won’t it have an impact on our current availability of non-ER doctors (which are the ones that people who currently have insurance use), thus increasing wait-times? That is what started this line of discussion, and you seemed to be saying it wouldn’t have a significant impact. So which is it?</p>
<p>I’m not saying it’ll have no effect. I’m saying it will have a small effect.</p>
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<p>according to the CBO’s May report, only 25 million of those will be covered by 2023, (leaving 31M un-covered, which includes illegals). And over half of that covered 25M, or 13m, will be added to the Medicaid rolls.</p>
<p>So a lot of this bother could have been avoided by convincing Mexico to expand their Out-of-Network coverage…</p>
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<p>Looking forward, there are two possible reasons for the surprise cost differential…one is that historically, those in an HSA are generally believed (by group brokers anyway) to be savvier healthcare shoppers because they have their “own” skin in the game until they’ve hit the deductible. Usually that means lower overall costs for the insurer.</p>
<p>A second difference might be IF one is a PPO and one might be an HMO…the PPO will be more expensive typically. Have you been able to read summaries on each plan? I’ve been noodling through same. I’ll keep you posted if I have an epiphany :)</p>
<p>Argbargy…or for northern folks, Canada 
Back in the day, Canada had to implement a healthcare CARD system to stop Americans from crossing the border in areas like Detroit, Niagara Falls to use the free healthcare. The gov figured out it was spending millions covering surreptitious American visitors It was cheaper to create a whole new department to generate healthcare cards issued to every citizen than to continue to subsidize American healthcare at the borders :)</p>
<p>GP, I noticed on Friday that my out of pocket maximum of my current plan is 19,000. </p>
<p>Let’s keep the complaining over here… ;).</p>
<p>^^^^^^</p>
<p>In network? For the entire family?</p>
<p>So you’re going to take advantage of the 2-month extension?</p>
<p>I wasnt even thinking about the two month extension.</p>
<p>I was thinking of signing up for a new plan.</p>
<p>I thought you said in the other thread you were keeping your out of state plan for two more months, which allows your kid to get medical care in NY?</p>
<p>Spent hours on the website today. Still glitchy. I answered “who is helping you” with “none of the above” and it came back with "you told us you are being helped. Enter a question and answer for us to verify " bla bla bla. Ugh. Also, with a self-employed H and commission based sporadic income, we have to mail in forms to verify 2014 income. (Yes, it said to send W2s to verify 2014 income.) the online help person said they are now not allowing us to upload forms, only mail in. It also wouldn’t let me look at plans for me alone. (The rest of the family is on a grandfathered plan and doesn’t have to switch.) “We apologize for the inconvenience” was the message of the day. Guess I’ll see if tomorrow or late at night is any better.</p>
<p>GP, No… Maybe I did… Not what I meant. </p>
<p>I thought I said I was going to keep my kid on my plan for 2 months instead of signing him up for a plan in NY.
But my plan is going to be one of the new plans.</p>
<p>I do not think my old plan has been extended 2 months anyway.</p>
<p>My family deductible on my old plan is 12,000 and my max oop is 19,000.
New plan is 10,000 deductible and 12,700 max oop.</p>
<p>Oh… And Anthem has the list of covered drugs. You can see the list when you look at the plans on the Anthem website.</p>
<p>I’m confused. I thought the new plans won’t cover your kid in NY. Is there something I am missing here?</p>
<p>Yeah, Anthem will allow you to keep your current plan until the end of Feb.</p>
<p>Although the family deductible is $12,000, it probably is $6,000 per family member. Is this in network or out of network?</p>