<p>Texas, something to keep in mind is that an application isn’t the same thing as an enrollment. An individual can have multiple apps, but they can only enroll one time. The language I’m seeing always refers to enrollments. </p>
<p>I don’t make anything up. I have been here for over 10 years. My posts don’t have to be accepted, but I dont make things up. </p>
<p>I know others do so it gets confusing. ;)</p>
<p>The Jan story was true when I wrote it. I have no idea if it is still true. Time has passed.</p>
<p>The Blues have said 80 to 85 percent have paid. I dont remember the date they used, but many bills were not due at that time. The Blues have a large market share. We have companies and states saying their paid rates are over 90 percent when looking at bills due. </p>
<p>We do have millions who just signed up and who did not have insurance. The hostorical percentage that pay was in the high 90’s. Sarah Kliff, formerly of the Washington Post just said that recently too. If we end up at 90 percent, that will likely mean the newly insured paid at a rate in the 80’s.</p>
<p>Which leads to my next post.</p>
<p><a href=“http://mobile.bloomberg.com/news/2014-04-04/health-insurers-are-extending-enrollment-ehealth-says.html”>http://mobile.bloomberg.com/news/2014-04-04/health-insurers-are-extending-enrollment-ehealth-says.html</a></p>
<p>We are going to shoot way past 7.1 million exchange sign ups. Cal on Tuesday signed up an additional 20,000 people. There are supposed to be 200,000 plus people still eligible to sign up in Cal.</p>
<p>There are many more states still signing people up. </p>
<p>And now from the link, we can see that insurance companies are extending their enrollment periods.</p>
<p>I just want to add that there is no reason why we can’t end up with 90 percent of new sign ups paying. Who the heck would wait in line for hours or sign up in April and not pay?</p>
<p>I have read many of the negative arguments. I have communicated with a couple of people who have written negative things that have been published.They have been been upfront with me. I will not disclose who I communicated with. Anywhere.</p>
<p>After the communucation, I would not rely on some of the negative numbers. Not that I would anyway. 
But if you want to dream, go ahead. :)</p>
<p>DStark, no-one who is paying a substantial amount would wait in line at all. That’s just common sense. </p>
<p>Remember back in December/January when things were going dismally on the exchanges? Those rock-bottom numbers were assumed to be the gospel truth, indicating the doom of ACA. It’s amusing to me that the latest numbers – from the same sources – are assumed to be “cooked.” I love consistency. :-)</p>
<p>I don’t get the intuition about no one who is paying a substantial amount waiting in line. I don’t get it at all. I’ve stood in line for expensive things like playoff tickets. I assume everyone else in this thread has stood in line at some point to buy something.</p>
<p>People were standing in line because they wanted insurance and they needed help. If they wanted insurance and they thought they could get it themselves without standing in line, they wouldn’t stand in line-- whether they thought they’d get subsidies or not. That’s just common sense.</p>
<p>The way it works, if a subsidized person buys Silver, it costs them 9.5% of their income more or less. And the data through February says that subsidized people were usually buying Silver. </p>
<p>“I have communicated with a couple of people who have written negative things that have been published.They have been been upfront with me. I will not disclose who I communicated with. Anywhere.”</p>
<p>Just want to say that I have never had a private communication with dstark in case anyone is wondering.</p>
<p>“My posts don’t have to be accepted, but I dont make things up.”</p>
<p>Agree on the first point although I would argue the second part of the sentence. It all depends on the assumptions you are using. I’m sure you heard of the expression: Garbage in, garbage out. </p>
<p>GP, nobody was wondering. ;)</p>
<p>How many people have paid in California?</p>
<p>I have maintained that I am not interested about success or failure of ACA, only who we can help here. So in the end, if they have 10 million or 3 million it is all the same to me although I would prefer more people be insured. Having spent at least 10 hours of my time listening to those healthcare.gov calls back and forth, I can tell you the process really sucks and quite possibly has been most detrimental to to enrollment than anything else. If they did not start over for so many people, they could probably have enrolled even more. If I did not make our admin give up all other tasks over a 10 day period to do only this, we could not have succeeded and that is a LOT of hours for so few enrollments. </p>
<p>Texaspg, it sounds like helping the employees sign up was painful and time-consuming. </p>
<p>What were the time-consuming tasks, and what would be your suggestions to speed things up?</p>
<p>Do you think your employees were particularly problematical, perhaps because some were not native-born Americans, or do you think their situation was representative of the all the people who tried to sign up on the federal site?</p>
<p>I spent more time on financial aid forms than on ACA enrollment. </p>
<p>CF - I am saying ALL of the time was spent talking on the phone with healthcare.gov 800 number. the admin spent all of those hours only to enroll his family and the other employees, nothing else. This guy was citizen, went up to picking a plan online with no help but for whatever reason, it would not let him pick a plan and make a payment a week later and so he had to start all over on the phone to get enrolled in a plan since the system essentially was guiding him to create yet another application. Initially everyone was being enrolled to get an ID and stopped just before picking a plan because they were still looking for a plan they liked. A week later, people with completed paper work had to restart for enrolling in a specific plan. Only one out of 10 was done no issues at all, had the plan to pick a week later online, and when he picked one, it spit out an involce from the insurer with a link to pay right there. He must have great luck on his side.</p>
<p>Moderator’s note: Post get deleted if they are perceived to have something against TOS since they won’t be edited to meet TOS. </p>
<p>Discussing moderation is against TOS.</p>
<p>“How many people have paid in California?”</p>
<p>I really don’t care because all these numbers are meaningless as far as I’m concerned. I noticed Peter Lee is saying 85% but I doubt if he really knows.</p>
<p>Here is what is important to me. I lost my insurance. The insurance that was offered to me increased my premium from $679 to $1,110 a month. The out of pocket maximum was increased and the network of doctors and hospitals was eviscerated (out of state, too), as well as losing non-formulary drug coverage. If you are an individual market subscriber and don’t qualify for subsidies, the law stinks. </p>
<p>Most people enrolling on the exchanges have no idea what is in these plans. Health care insurance and health care access are two different things. </p>
<p>If I didn’t qualify for subsidies, my Jan plan would have cost $30 less than what I had in Dec, direct from BCBS. Essentially the same as before. I already posted re: how many categories dropped in cost to me- OV, Rx, max OOP, etc, - and only the annual dedictible went up- $500 pp or $1000 total for the family. I have a 7-state PPO. </p>
<p>Go figure. What broad lessons do we learn from this? Only that my state (my state) handled this better than yours. But you know that. If I were not satisfied with the particular swap plan they offered me, I would have done just what I did do: examine my other options.</p>
<p>If the number of payers is meaningless, why did you bring it up so many times? Now it seems like a shift.</p>
<p>“If I were not satisfied with the particular swap plan they offered me, I would have done just what I did do: examine my other options.”</p>
<p>Which is what I did (exhaustively) and all the options on the individual market (only two insurance companies provide insurance) were lousy. In reality, there were no options.</p>
<p>LF, where do you reside? What are the 7 states that are included in your PPO?</p>
<p>In California, a $500 comprehensive deductible policy on the individual market was cost prohibitive. Comparing this policy to any of the bronze or silver Obamacare policies is totally misleading.</p>
<p>Sorry, it “went up- $500 pp or $1000 total for the family.” Certainly not went up TO that. (I wish.) I also admitted I am in New England. My ded is 3k/6k. Something else-- we apparently had cross border insurance, a 7 state compact. It may have gone away 4 years ago, as I can’t find any info on it today. </p>
<p>Texaspg, so you’re saying that all of your people were successful pretty quickly in filling out applications, and getting to the point where they would have clicked to pick a plan. Then when they returned a week later, thinking they could just click to get a plan, instead they were in bureaucratic hell and they had to spend hours on the phone with the help line? That sounds bad to me. I hope the system is fixed next time around. Nobody should have to do that.</p>