<p>Those poor, long-long-long-suffering Cubs fans. Although as my Cubbie fan SIL says, anyone can have a bad century.</p>
<p>CF: the reason I linked to the article addressing 2014 rates is because it puts the touted 4.2% 2015 increase into perspective. Over all the years we’ve been managing our insurance I can guarantee I’ve never received a 88% increase. IIRC, our highest annual increase (assuming we wanted to stay with that particular plan) was in the 18% range.</p>
<p>On another note, I am gratefully surprised that DS’s university accepted the insurance waiver and will allow us to only pay for the one policy (ours) and not force us to purchase the University policy. Our policy does fall short in one area. The university plan is basically silver level coverage. They’d decided on the requirements a year ago. Our plan has a 35% coinsurance and silver plans have a 20% coinsurance. They have been inundated with 1800+ waiver requests and are hand processing/auditing each one. </p>
<p>Okay, it’s official, we have been grandmothered! Received a notice from BS today stating that due to the extension/ exemption issued in 2013 they were able to extend the non compliant policy for a year. Now, due to the extension/exemption issued in 2014 they are able to extend our policy for another year. At the end of this term the policy will be discontinued because it’s not ACA compliant. Now we wait for the renewal rate but we have another years’ reprieve.</p>
<p>On another note, I’m finding folks are coming up with interesting loopholes and work arounds. I spoke with a woman whose policy was dropped and the available options were limited. She needed surgery and one and only one option presented itself in the local network. This was neurosurgery so she wanted the best. The insurance refused to cover OON services. Her preferred surgeon lived in another part of the state, where luckily she had family residing. So, she ‘moved’. Since there are no pre exisitng condition clauses and a move is a qualify condition for changing plans it was rather simple. She had the surgery with a top specialist in the field and now has ‘moved’ back. She was hiking up a storm so obviously the surgery was a big success.</p>
<p>Congratulations, dietz. Glad to see you got another one year extension. You escaped the hangman’s noose for the time being.</p>
<p>The DC Court has withdrawn the Halbig decision. You’ll recall that a three judge panel in the DC Court decided, in Halbig vs. Burwell, that ACA subsidies could not go to people who bought insurance on the federal exchange. But now, the court has withdrawn that decision, and will most likely re-hear the case in front of all 13 judges on the court. I’m bumping this thread and linking to this article just so I can quote it, which you’ll understand when you look at my user name:</p>
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<p>And, indeed, the decision is bereft of life and rests in peace. It has gone to meet its maker. It has joined the choir invisible. <a href=“http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2014/09/04/3477801/breaking-federal-appeals-court-withdraws-decision-defunding-obamacare/”>http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2014/09/04/3477801/breaking-federal-appeals-court-withdraws-decision-defunding-obamacare/</a></p>
<p>Lol!</p>
<p>That’s too bad. </p>
<p>There are a lot of states that are going to expand medicaid too. </p>
<p>We are in Sept and the sky has still not fallen. </p>
<p>Imagine that, dstark.</p>
<p>Thanks for the update, Fang. Good article. </p>
<p>Rates approved by NYS for 2015:</p>
<p><a href=“Health insurance rates will rise about 6 percent next year - Capitol Confidential”>http://blog.timesunion.com/capitol/archives/219853/health-insurance-rates-will-rise-about-6-percent-next-year/</a></p>
<p>I’d love to know the story in New York State. Either all the insurers are going out of business next year because their premiums won’t come close to covering their costs, or many of the insurers asked for laughably high increases knowing that they didn’t have a prayer of getting anything close to what they asked for. I suspect the latter.</p>
<p>Aetna: We’ll raise our rates 20%!
NYS: You’ll raise your rates 5% and like it.</p>
<p>Affinity: We’ll lower our rates 13%!
NYS: No, you’ll lower your rates 15%.</p>
<p>Start with the fact that insurance companies are greedy, and are used to getting whatever they want. I don’t think we need to worry that they’ll lose money.</p>
<p>I cant believe there are some people who dont want a regulatory body in Cal overseeing rates. </p>
<p>Of course the insurance companies are greedy. All businesses are greedy, in the sense that their goal is to make as much profit as possible. But that is not an explanation of why New York insurers are asking for bigger increases than insurers in other states. Apparently the norm in New York is to ask for outlandish increases, knowing you won’t get them. But that’s not the norm in other states, whose insurers are just as greedy.</p>
<p>We had crazy requests last year. Then cut down. This year’s, when you looked at breakdowns, weren’t pretty. But they do a dance together, each side suspecting the other. </p>
<p>It’s possible that the insurance companies simply expect to be cut back by the regulatory agency – so they deliberately ask for more. I mean, if you know or believe from experience that you are only going to get 75% of what you ask for, it seems logical to start out asking for more. </p>
<p>Doctoring in the Age of Obamacare by Dr. Mark Sklar, Assistant Professor of Georgetown University Medical School and an Endocrinologist in Washington DC</p>
<p>Pretty positive article today in Calif…</p>
<p><a href=“New Enrollment Numbers Temper Fears of Individual Insurance Market Crash | California Healthline”>http://www.californiahealthline.org/insight/2014/new-enrollment-numbers-temper-fears-of-individual-insurance-market-crash</a></p>
<p>What? STILL no sky falling? </p>
<p>Lol!!!</p>
<p>Lacking a shared definition of what constitutes a “falling sky”, when it hits ground will always be up in the air.</p>
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Goldenpooch oughta ask for his money back, dstark… those enrollment numbers were pure fairy tale, with no way to verify 'em. ;
</p>
<p>Oh, hi, catahoula. I haven’t seen anything from you in a while.</p>
<p>It’s going to be sad for those people. If their income is too high for subsidies, I don’t much care: they would have had to pay back the subsidies at tax time anyway and they shouldn’t have lied. But if their income is too low and they’re not in expansion states, they’re screwed, and if their income is what they said it was but somehow the government messed up the verification, which we’ve heard anecdotes about, then they’re also screwed.</p>
<p>I wonder how many of the million people whose immigration status couldn’t be determined are actually undocumented aliens. Undocumented aliens are not entitled to subsidies or Medicaid. But non-citizens here legally are entitled to subsidies. The INS is so underfunded and messed up that quite likely some of those people are perfectly entitled to their coverage.</p>