Affordable Care Act Scene 2 - Insurance Premiums

Parent Cafe
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<p>CF got one take out of it and I got a totally different one. I conclude the exchanges might be sexist. Young women only got half the choices? :p</p>

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<p>@Texaspg:

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<p>No, you are reading that backwards – if you are uninsured less than 3 months, it means that you have to be insured for 9 months or more. </p>

<p>It’s that tricky math thing again:</p>

<p>There are 12 months in a year. So you subtract out the number of months without insurance from the total to figure out the number of months with insurance. </p>

<p>You have to be covered for 9 months - or fall within another exception - to avoid the penalty.</p>

<p>The penalty is prorated based on months of coverage. </p>

<p>Any exception based on income level is calculated based on full year’s income.</p>

<p>So again – if someone is Medicaid-eligible for the first 6 months of the year and goes without coverage, and then gets a FT job that pays enough so that year-end income is well above FPL, that person will face a penalty. </p>

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<p>@lookingforward, I used the quick figures. My son still has to decide whether he wants to get insurance from the exchange or stay with Tricare Young Adult at $156 a month. He graduates in May (knock on wood…) and has no idea what he’s going to earn this year. Right now his grandmother is paying for the TYA, but that will end when he graduates.</p>

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<p>I don’t know if this was clear from the previous posts – the big news from HealthSherpa is that people can sign up for insurance and subsidies in states covered by the federal exchange directly via the HealthSherpa web site. </p>

<p>So it’s not just that they are helping people sign up – they are essentially managing the process mostly on the Health Sherpa site. I think it works kind of like when you buy something online using a link to PayPal - you do your shopping, you get sent briefly over to the PayPal site to complete the payment info, and then you are returned to your shopping site to complete the order and get confirmation.</p>

<p>On Health Sherpa:

<a href=“http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/wp/2014/02/26/signing-up-for-obamacare-could-someday-take-as-little-as-10-minutes/”>http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/wp/2014/02/26/signing-up-for-obamacare-could-someday-take-as-little-as-10-minutes/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>So yeah, the government spent millions for a bunch of technicians from multiple companies to put up a complicated site was poorly designed, poorly engineered, poorly coded, and flat out didn’t work ---- and 3 twenty-something techies in San Francisco built something efficient and intuitive – which does work - in their spare time.</p>

<p>(In fairness, Health Sherpa essentially relies on Healthcare.gov as a backend)</p>

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<p>Of course. Everyone wanted to market to healthy young men; they’re goldmines. But a young woman is riskier: she could get pregnant, and that would cost the insurer. Young women have higher costs than young men. I forget exactly where the crossover is, maybe around age 55, but older men have higher costs than older women.</p>

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<p>The article obviously has a political slant, but I’m assuming that the numbers they present are as they say they are. But I’d like to know, of the cheaper policies they found in 2013, how many of them are non-junk, using a conservative definition of junk? For example, for the young women, how many of the policies covered pregnancy and didn’t have yearly and lifetime caps?</p>

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<p>GP or flossy, how many junk plans were out there before ACA?</p>

<p>Would you rather pay $26 a month for junk or $50 a month for real insurance?</p>

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<p>SMama I’m as baffled as you, at this point. Enroll VA shows the 3 for Spotsylvania and/or for Fredericksburg City (and Quick doesn’t get to zip level.) Innovation is allowed to offer in FC, but maybe not all of it? They focus primarily in the more northern VA cities, I think, based on a press release. Think it needs a call. Good luck.</p>

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<p>I’m not sure the article offers a fair comparison, ds, in several ways. (If that’s a Duh, sorry.)</p>

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<p>another delay in the works (assuming that linking to The Hill is acceptable).</p>

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<p><a href=“http://thehill.com/blogs/healthwatch/health-reform-implementation/199784-new-obamacare-delay-to-help-midterm-dems”>http://thehill.com/blogs/healthwatch/health-reform-implementation/199784-new-obamacare-delay-to-help-midterm-dems&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

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<p>@stevensmama – the difference between HealthSherpa and Healthcare.gov is that there is somoene who stands to earn a commission at HealthSherpa – I went through the exercise of entering the zip you provided at HealthSherpa and noticed right away that the phone number of an insurance agent popped up. </p>

<p>So the guy who created HealthSherpa has figured out a way to monetize his venture and probably will end up making a nice profit on his simple and efficient web site – as well the insurance agents he recruits who are willing to pay him $10 per every call they receive – see: <a href=“HealthSherpa | Fast, Easy ACA Enrollment”>https://www.healthsherpa.com/agents/new&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>So I don’t know why the info would be different from one site to the other – but Health Sherpa is giving you the name of an agent you can call to find out… Agents do not take fees from their customers – they get commissions from the insurance companies. </p>

<p>It would make sense to act on the assumption that the site with more options is correct, and choose accordingly – if that’s a mistake, you’d find out somewhere along the process of signing up. </p>

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<p>LF, I know the article doesnt. For some reason, GP didnt know that. </p>

<p>But maybe if we can figure out how many junk plans there were … We can get an idea. ;)</p>

<p>Bluebayou, I dont want to see anymore extensions. </p>

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<p>this extension was a no-brainer, stark; it was a must-have politically. Dem dar’ pesky elections are a’comin’. :)</p>

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<p>^And, that’s a survey I haven’t seen. “Since you have been so harmed by health insurance, will it impact your vote?” That’s June-plus info. Personally, I don’t want to see dummy info til the usual period when these are more meaningful. The slight upticks in favor of ACA are something to watch.</p>

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<p>I know. And in the long run eventually the extensions wont matter because people dont really keep their policies that long. In Cal, the policies were not extended. I am glad about that. </p>

<p>It is politics.</p>

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<p>“It’s that tricky math thing again:”</p>

<p>You missed my post where I mentioned I misread it on top of page 743.</p>

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<p>OK, sorry, it’s hard to keep up with all the posts…</p>

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<p>Links to truthy video reports on impact of Obamacare:
(1) <a href=“The Colbert Report - TV Series | Comedy Central US”>The Colbert Report - TV Series | Comedy Central US;
(2) <a href=“The Colbert Report - TV Series | Comedy Central US”>The Colbert Report - TV Series | Comedy Central US;

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<p>Calmom, great links.</p>

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<p>Good link, Calmon. </p>