<p>I haven’t been able to create an account yet.</p>
<p>Sorry to hear that ML. </p>
<p>I’m sure they’ll get it fixed soon!</p>
<p>cartera - thankfully we have insurance. None of the 4 available plans here currently includes one of the 3 major hospitals in the area. For people in that part of region it would mean a long drive to one of other hospitals and I wonder if that trickles down to some of the doctors practices associated with that hospital.</p>
<p>It doesn’t seem to make economic sense to go on the exchange if you cannot get a subsidy. There are brokers online - ehealth was the one I used a few years ago when buying individual health plans.</p>
<p>The thing is that I cannot believe how expensive our health insurance has become. I keep thinking there has got to be a mistake. </p>
<p>We basically pay 22000 before insurance kicks in to pay for anything. I mean, it’s a lot of money to pay for several physicals. (They pay for one physical each)</p>
<p>Since the government is paying subsidies, which means insurance is being paid for those who are less fortunate. I can’t figure out why I’m paying so much extra.</p>
<p>Megan McArdle reported on another possibility:</p>
<p>"A nice woman at a federal call center told me that (at least for the state of Florida, where my in-laws live) there is an alternate procedure: They can fill out a manual application in PDF format. But she also told me that it takes three weeks for that application to be mailed to your house. After you receive it, you check the application to ensure it’s accurate, and then mail it in. One to two weeks later, you will be notified of your subsidy eligibility. Then you can actually enroll in a plan, though she wasn’t quite clear on how that part would work – do you call back again? "</p>
<p>I am not sure how they are mailing you an application in pdf form so maybe there is some confusion there. </p>
<p>But it does seem like there is a manual method for finding out what plans are available and what the subsidy is. It takes several weeks, but there doesnt seem to be a downside to starting the process now.</p>
<p>I heard something about a 42 hour downtime for the system that started yesterday or something?</p>
<p>poetgrl,</p>
<p>In the age group of CC parents, pre-ACA something like 20-25% of people who applied for individual insurance were denied, because they were deemed to have pre-existing conditions. That is, they were denied insurance because they were expensive risks: either they had a chronic condition like diabetes that was certain to be moderately expensive, or they were at risk of an extremely expensive condition like a recurrence of cancer.</p>
<p>You and your family were the lucky ones. You were able to buy an individual private policy. You’re healthy, thank goodness. And the other people who were in your risk pool were also healthy, because the insurance company wouldn’t sell insurance to sick people.</p>
<p>Now they have to sell insurance to sick people. And that makes the premiums go up for the healthy people who used to enjoy being in an insurance risk pool with only healthy people.</p>
<p>I’m wondering if this is going to actually make insurance so expensive it’s not even worth it. </p>
<p>I wish, at this point, we could just buy catostrophic. But we are not allowed because of our income. </p>
<p>Oh well. That’s a lot of discretionary spending that just got taken out of the economy. No car this year. That’s for sure</p>
<p>There are a number of health provider organizations that are creating insurance companies themselves, to compete with the existing set of insurance companies. These new insurance companies will essentially cut out the middle man. Think of using Sutter Health, Inova, or Ascension Health and all their network of physicians as your insurer, instead of Aetna or United. This will provide a whole new level of competition, so hopefully once they all roll out, poetgrl, you and a lot of others may have cheaper options available. At least, that’s the goal.</p>
<p>There shouldn’t be a need to use the healthcare.gov website. I went to the Blue Cross Blue Shield website and picked up an exchange policy for next year without any delays or issues. My cost dropped significantly more than $600 per month.</p>
<p>Wow frugal doctor! That’s awesome. </p>
<p>I have my BCBS letter and I have been on their site. I know what they have to offer. No exchange option was available two weeks ago, but I’ll go check now. </p>
<p>Is yours less expensive with or without a subsidy?</p>
<p>frugaldoctor is a real doctor… Guess :p</p>
<p>If it is possible to go directly to an insurer, why don’t they push some of those choices? It will relieve the burden of waiting on a website.</p>
<p>On the other hand, for the people who are getting subsidized insurance, that’s a lot of discretionary spending that just got put back in the economy. There are winners and losers in ACA. </p>
<p>The winners are the people who now have insurance when they couldn’t get it before: the subsidized people, the people newly on Medicaid, the people who were previously denied insurance but now can buy it. Insurance companies are winners as well, probably, with all the new subscribers, although figuring out premiums is a risky task. And everybody gains if we get better vaccination coverage. (Your flu shots are free now.)</p>
<p>People like you, who are in the older pre-Medicare age and who already had private insurance, are the losers, because your premiums are skyrocketing to cover sick people in your age group.</p>
<p>If you had been covered by employer-supplied insurance, your employer would have been paying premiums similar to what you are now paying, all along. Probably a bit less, but not hugely less.</p>
<p>I’m not yet fifty CF. </p>
<p>But it is what it is. I see now that the ACA plans are the exact same as what we originally were told, so I really wasted my time on dotgov. Lol</p>
<p>ETA. You can definitely do this through BCBS. In fact I pretty much did but didn’t realize it. Since we don’t qualify for a subsidy, nothing changes. My insurance is really and truly that much higher. </p>
<p>Ce la vie</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Are these plans available for 2014?</p>
<p>How would this be different from an HMO? </p>
<p>It’ll be interesting to see what cost containment strategies these new plans use.</p>
<p>I’m definitely going to tell my Doc to run every test in the book if I’m paying 5000 per visit. :p</p>
<p>But in California, the premiums rise linearly with age (whereas actual health costs do not rise linearly with age), so even people in their mid-forties are paying a lot for the unhealthy people age 50 and up. </p>
<p>If we had had single-payer, the costs would be distributed differently, but I’m afraid even with single payer people like you, Poetgrl, with relatively high incomes, would be paying for others’ health care.</p>
<p>You’d have to pay for the tests. :(</p>
<p>I wouldn’t mind paying more with single payor. 1.4 percent to administer Medicare vs 15% profit for the insurance company on a product I have to buy? Pretty much a no brainer</p>