<p>Planned Parenthood offers these services on a sliding scale of roughly 0 -99 dollars depending on income. That has been the case since I was a teenager. It’s not news .</p>
<p>Planned Parenthood does colonoscopies? Really? Oh, wait, they don’t. </p>
<p>LasMa was referring to lady parts. But, this is old ground. And pointless.</p>
<p>I didn’t see SL blown off the thread. I saw some logical questions. The questions shouldn’t be misconstrued as criticism of someone. I’m much more sensitive to the “cheerleader” crap and innuendo.<br>
Flossy, did you get free PP check-ups based on income level? </p>
<p>“When someone complains over and over that the world is ending because they can no longer go to the most expensive hospital on the West coast”</p>
<p>This is a caricature of my views, not even remotely accurate.</p>
<p>"Flossy, did you get free PP check-ups based on income level? "</p>
<p>Everyone who enters the building gets them based on income level. I don’t understand this question.</p>
<p><a href=“http://money.cnn.com/2014/01/30/news/economy/obamacare-premiums/index.html?hpt=hp_t2”>Obamacare deadbeats: Some don't pay their first premiums;
</p>
<p>I think a few of us saw this coming.</p>
<p>OTOH, what the insurers DON’T say is that they can’t get their crap together enough to have people submit payments. Even those of us who were on non-exchange plans had HUGE issues trying to pay our December and January premiums. </p>
<p>BCBS asked my kid NOT to pay until she had actual numbers and an account in place even though they knew for sure she had signed up and wanted to pay.</p>
<p>80% of people who signed up have already paid, and given the overall problems with the connections between the website and the insurers, that seems pretty good to me, and a lot better than you’d see for a lot of other purchases. </p>
<p>That they’ll make an initial payment wouldn’t seem to guarantee they’ll make the subsequent ones.</p>
<p>Money’s fungible enough it may very well go to something more pressing and enjoyable.</p>
<p>I’m still having difficulties paying. I paid the initial premium in December (for Jan 1) by calling in and putting it on a credit card. Blue Shield has a specific payment portal developed for exchange policies, but it has never worked for me. I can log into my main Blue Shield account, but when I click the “make payment” link, I get an “access denied” error. I’ve talked to tech support and they are working on it, but this is one of those “known issues” that still appears to be unfixable in the short run. </p>
<p>I have not received an invoice for February because they had me signed up for e-billing but they didn’t have my email and they have no ability to enter my email address into their billing system. (They say the email entry has to be through Covered California – but Covered California does have my email – I have a hunch as to why BS doesn’t have it, but it doesn’t solve the problem.) I wanted to call in again to make the February payment, but every time I called their customer service number I got a recorded message saying that they had too many calls and no agents were available, and telling me to go to the web site (which doesn’t work for me). </p>
<p>I did finally get through on the phone by calling in the evening (at least they have extended customer service hours until 8pm)-- and I was on hold well over an hour – and I was able to pay the premium and also have them set me up with auto-pay on my credit card – so (I hope) that things will be working by the time March rolls around. </p>
<p>I’m not really bugged by this – I understand that there is a transition and the fact that I can’t get through on the phone means I’m not the only one trying – but I figure that I’m a lot more proactive than most people. There are probably thousands of people who signed up for insurance and are waiting for some sort of email or paper invoice that they haven’t received.</p>
<p>I don’t think people who want to pay will have their policies cancelled – the insurance companies must be aware of the problem and I think that they will be pretty liberal about accepting late payments until they have things ironed out on their end. </p>
<p>I do think that Blue Shield should be faulted for not having set up a separate phone line solely for payments – unfortunately the customer service number that I called to to try to make payments is the same number that a person would call to inquire about claims status, and that a medical provider would call to verify insurance. So that creates a bigger bottle neck then there has to be, especially at a time with a lot of newly insured people who want to see a doctor. </p>
<p>I figure that a certain percentage of people who signed up won’t pay because of financial difficulties, or because some people who signed up on the exchange will end up getting different insurance – for example, their income will drop and they will qualify for Medicaid instead, or they will get a job with health insurance – or they will change their mind about which coverage or insurance company they want. With open enrollment continuing until March 31, there’s still time for a lot of movement. </p>
<p>There are also some people who will just flake out and not pay for any insurance, but I’m thinking that if 20% of enrollees haven’t paid – probably half of them are either trying like hell to figure out how to pay, or else simply confused about the process.</p>
<p>I’d also be skeptical about reports of numbers who have paid, because a lot of people have been complaining that the insurance companies have been slow to process their payments. So it’s quite possible that the backlog of unprocessed payments means that the insurance companies are reporting erroneously low numbers. </p>
<p>calmom, we had similar problems trying to pay our Blue Cross February premium. We still haven’t gotten a bill in the mail for the premium due on Feb. 1. On the 28th, I went to the online site which at least showed the correct plan, but showed -0- due. I called that evening and was in the queue for almost 2 hours before I finally go through and made the payment. The rep told me that they had just mailed the bills on the 27th. </p>
<p>Despite Anthem’s epic incompetence, it seems to me that an awful lot of people are trying very hard to pay their premiums. They’re making it excruciatingly difficult. I think that a good chunk of those enrolled-but-not-paid numbers are people who want to pay but are finding it almost impossible to do so.</p>
<p>Do you think it will be like car insurance? Some people get insurance so they can get an insurance card and get their car registered, then they don’t make any more payments. Might people so it so they can get a policy number and tell the IRS they got insurance? How is the IRS going to check everybody anyway? Will there also be some who pay one payment and then go get their checkups and whatever and then don’t pay again until next year or the year after when they need something? Plenty of folks will figure out how to work the system.</p>
<p>Sobigsolittle, is that what you are going to do?</p>
<p>My understanding is that you have to give your insurance ID number to the IRS. That seems like something it would be easy for the IRS to check.</p>
<p>The problem with being insured only in Januaries is the heart attack you have in March or the car crash in June.</p>
<p>There are undoubtedly ways to defraud the insurance companies. Insurance fraud existed before, and it still exists.</p>
<p>I would assume that the insurance companies would be required to issue informational returns in 2015-- some type of 1098 tied to the taxpayer ID that indicates the number of months covered, total premium amount; and benchmark premium for the region – that would provide the IRS with easily verifiable data for use in calculating the total credit due.</p>
<p>The penalty and/or tax credit is pro-rated across the months – so basically there’s no benefit in buying a policy and letting it lapse. </p>
<p>IRS is pretty good about requiring businesses to submit forms to verify data – so I don’t think it will be an issue. Perhaps a minor surprise to people on the low end of the economic spectrum who aren’t used to having any data beyond their W-2’s for tax filing. </p>
<p>I doubt that many people who are signing up solely to avoid the penalty have already signed on – they can safely wait until March. (I’m not sure that there are many in that category anyway – the penalty is far less than the cost of premiums for most, so not all that much of an incentive if they don’t otherwise want insurance.)</p>
<p>The benefit of buying it and letting it lapse is you buy it, you get the expensive treatment, and THEN you let it lapse.</p>
<p>I think most people who need expensive treatment for anything have the potential to need more treatment. I supposed some people might have the idea of signing on in January, scheduling some sort of surgery that has been deferred for awhile, and then once recovered – let the insurance lapse – but what happens if there is a complication of surgery and more medical services are required? </p>
<p>I’m not saying it won’t happen – I’m just saying that it isn’t a particularly smart thing for the patient to do. </p>
<p>I’d also point out that from the insurance company’s perspective, that’s not a new thing. ACA opens the door to some people who could not get insurance before – but there would always have been times when an insurance company might have taken on a new subscriber for a few months, the subscriber gets expensive medical treatment, and then the subscriber gets a job or moves or simply can’t pay premiums for financial reasons --so the insurance company is on the hook for those bills even though not many premium dollars were collected. At least with ACA there will be fewer people dropping because they can’t afford the premiums.</p>
<p>Insurance companies are in the business of assessing and balancing risks – they probably have a good handle on the percentages. </p>
<p>Calmom, BCBS mi does now have a fast, separate “pay” phone line…maybe Cal will do the same soon. Here, they managed to get out the bills and accept our payment more easily than I had expected, but its idiotic that their online payment system is so buggy :)</p>
<p>On pre-existing conditions, I guess I find it really frustrating when I hear folks debating this, because I have a very clear picture of how things worked previously and what was wrong with the system. I have a kid walking around with a benign brain cyst for whom lots of scamming “insurers” WOULD insure…but NOT cover if it calcified or burst and needed emergency (or scheduled) brain surgery and rehab. (Notably, others outright refused.) That’s a million dollar proposition, folks. How would you feel if you couldn’t cover your kid for EMERGENCY BRAIN SURGERY. Just think about that for a moment.</p>
<p>Before we found a way to join a group pooled policy once our residency status became permanent, I can remember during one of his searing migraines sitting on his bed with a flashlight trying to determine if his pupils were different sizes. I took him to emerge at 4 am that morning, paid six hundred dollars for the privilege of watching a doc take a flashlight and do the exact same thing and then say go home and monitor it and take him to his regular doc after x hours if it doesn’t subside.</p>
<p>The part that sucked, though, was the incredible terror not only of something happening to him, but knowing that if it did I would be decimating our small company, decimating his college fund, decimating our modest net worth, and feeling incredibly guilty that I was even thinking about such things instead of what was important, which was my son’s pain and ultimately, health.</p>
<p>I just can’t explain to you what that feels like. It’s just not something a human should have to feel in the 21st century in a western so called civilized country. Or, despite your best efforts, to have your son feel like some kind of ticking financial time bomb.
But folks would say if an insurance company was willing to pay for a flu shot, he’d be “covered”? Folks, that’s not COVERAGE.</p>
<p>When we joined pooled care via and extended group for small business, he originally would have been dropped when he finished college. Under ACA, that was extended to 26. </p>
<p>Today, that otherwise healthy kid IS COVERED, whatever his life circumstances turn out to be. Sure, he will have expenses, and an out of pocket max, but he’ll never have to skip an MRI because he’s too tight on cash, or worry that he’ll bankrupt his future family with medical bills if he needs brain surgery, or hesitate about going to emerge because the $600 is a lot to spend on a “what-if…oh, it’s just a headache…”
He can live his life reasonable assured that he’s done his best to make provisions against his risks, without this looming shadow of getting screwed by an insurance company at his hour of need.</p>
<p>Everyone contributing to a society in whatever way they are able deserves that small, humane bit of peace. Otherwise, what’s the point of a social contract.</p>
<p>So its great to get all heady with numbers. Now put a face on just one. Suddenly, it looks different, doesn’t it?</p>