<p>Seems to be March 15 for Texas, to get April 1 coverage. I can’t find any info that it’s been extended.</p>
<p>The trouble with the Hep C drugs is, they work, and they cost a fortune: $84,000. More people have Hep C than are HIV+.</p>
<p>I’d like to know how much those drugs cost in Canada.</p>
<p>Yes it is 15th for the federal site.</p>
<p>I am standing here next to my wife. We signed up for Blue Cross and are paying the premiums. Are we locked into Blue Cross or can we just switch to Kaiser?</p>
<p>Also, is long term disability a state run program in Calif administered by private insurance companies or is it a private insurance program? </p>
<p>$305 Million for a state with 4 million people? How much does it amount to per enrollee?</p>
<p>Hawaii spent over $50,000 per enrollee for the website. </p>
<p><a href=“http://news.investors.com/politics-obamacare/021414-689976-obamacare-per-enrollee-costs-in-states-sky-high.htm”>Error - Investors.com;
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<p>Not for me. The phrase that comes to mind is “managerial incompetence at a spectacular scale.” I would use “boondoggle” for something that consumed vast resources and never had a chance to succeed. Obviously it would have been possible for Oregon to build an exchange that worked. Kentucky did. California did. The feds, eventually, did. That Oregon still can’t get it right six months after the exchange was supposed to go online is evidence of bungling on a galactic scale.</p>
<p>dstark:</p>
<p>LTD is not a mandated benie. Many employers offer it, however, through private insurance companies. Individuals can also purchase individual LTD insurance.</p>
<p>In California, SDI is an employee-pay-all program. Employers can purchase an additional STD plan from private insurers which will wrap around the State plan.</p>
<p>dstark, I suggest calling Blue Cross and asking, but I suspect you have to wait until January to move to Kaiser.</p>
<p>Bluebayou and CF, thanks.</p>
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<p>On or off exchange? If you seriously want to switch to Kaiser and it is an off-exchange enrollment, I’d suggest that you contact a Kaiser agent ASAP. I think off-exchange you are find until March 31 (for coverage to begin May 1) - but that’s me “thinking” and not “knowing.” Of course you can cancel your Blue Cross coverage at any time – so you’d want to first get signed up for Kaiser, and then as soon as the effective date of coverage was confirmed, send Blue Cross written notice of cancellation effective the end of the last coverage month (either March or April) – and be sure to terminate any auto-pay that has been set up.</p>
<p>On exchange it might be trickier. </p>
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<p>Unless California has some program I’m unaware of, the coverage is via private insurance companies. </p>
<p>There is state disability, social security (federal) disability, and private disability. Sometimes, there is also group disability available through an employer. Often, they use a private insurance company. So, the same way a Medicaid patient may have an Anthem card and say they have private insurance it can be a little unclear. </p>
<p>I’ve asked my exchange at least a half dozen times and each time they say the same: I can change from an on-exchange program to another on-exchange choice, as long as it’s before 3/31. Otherwise, I am set til the next enrollment period. Fwiw. And if there is a life event, I can change outside the enrollment periods.</p>
<p>My wife was a little antsy…i want to wait until the end of the year to switch.</p>
<p><a href=“Accelerated Medical School Proposal Could Yield More Physicians, Less Debt | California Healthline”>http://www.californiahealthline.org/capitol-desk/2014/3/accelerated-medical-school-proposal-might-yield-more-physicians-less-debt</a></p>
<p>“UC Davis would kick off the new accelerated program, Bonilla said. It plans to enroll its first class of four accelerated students in the summer of 2014. That choice of school has an added benefit, Bonilla said, in that the accelerated students would be on the rural primary care path – a particular need in California communities, she said.
“Primary care doctors, that’s where we see the greatest need,” she said. “We know we need more physicians in California to make good on the promise of health care reform. So this is a long-range solution, it isn’t an immediate fix. But if we start now, it will help.”
The bill was developed with the help of both the University of California and the Medical Board of California.
For many students, Bonilla said, the fourth year of medical school is focused almost entirely on electives and applying for residency. The test scores and residency placements of three-year medical students compare favorably to four-year students, she said.
The UC system has six of the nine medical schools in California. UC medical centers provide specialty training for nearly half of the state’s medical residents.
“The University of California believes this change in law is straightforward and will benefit the state by reducing unnecessary and outdated barriers to practice in the state,” according to Cathryn Nation, the associate vice president of health sciences and services for the UC system, in a written statement.”</p>
<p>Emilybee, I enjoyed the video. Very well mannered.</p>
<p>Lookingforward --when I said “on-exchange” might be “tricker” I was thinking mostly of various glitch/tech issues. It’s hard to get through the phone lines to Covered Cal – very often callers just get a message saying the phone won’t be answered – and the process to change policies would not be explained on line or be at all intuitive. So at the very least, an exchange buyer would need to get help from a knowledgeable person to figure out what steps to follow. The system just wasn’t built around the idea that people were going to be switching plans post-enrollment, so there’s no “change plans” button on the site. </p>
<p>As TexasPG has recently found out, just because you can do something via an exchange doesn’t mean it will be easy. :)</p>
<p>Emilybee’s video was interesting on reimbursements for doctors. </p>
<p>Sounded like doctors in Calif get paid less than medicare rates if fhey work for a hmo. </p>
<p>When we were reading the posts about doctors pay being cut by insurance companies in Calif, the fees pre ACA looked close to medicare fees, didnt they? Now I have to remember. :)</p>
<p>One thing that was mentioned in the debate was that doctors pre ACA, excluding Calif hmo doctors, receive 10 to 50 percent more for services from insurance companies compared to medicare rates.</p>
<p>Which video is everyone talking about?</p>
<p>Calmom, totally agree. Was just checking in for a non-Cal state. And because I had mentioned something about this before and someone wanted me to be sure. </p>
<p>WAMC The Great Debate</p>
<p>There might be a link from emilybee on Mar 13. </p>
<p>I only found audio of the Great Debate?</p>