<p>I posted this on the health insurance premium thread but then decided it needs a thread of its own. Apparently three young men created a website whereby you plug in your zip code and health insurance plans and prices become available for viewing. It seems very easy to navigate. I am sure you would want to verify the information you find…but at least there IS some information to find. </p>
<p>Comments?</p>
<p>It spells out the subsidies very nicely…</p>
<p>If you have a family of 4, and make $94,200, earning one extra dollar a year will cost you $4200/year in subsidies.</p>
<p>Building in that sort of cliff is just absurd.</p>
<p>Funny how quickly they built it, yet the government contractor working three years could not. Had they allowed people to surf and explore these options before moving on to secure login applications, the secure site probably would not have crashed!</p>
<p>Honestly, with the way they do financial aid in California and now, this, there are a group of california parents of college age kids who would be better off financially if they didn’t pass a certain income level. Literally, it would cost them a lot of money to make more money.</p>
<p>I was wrong… for a family of 4, the difference between making $94200 and $94201 is about $9300.</p>
<p>One extra dollar will cost you almost 10% of your income.</p>
<p>For my family, a gold plan, without a subsidy, is going to cost around $20000. Even a bronze plan is going to cost about $13,000. At least, if I make $94201, insurance will cost more than 8% of my income, so there won’t be a penalty when I don’t get it.</p>
<p>
This site doesn’t actually do anything except present some data in an easy-to-digest format. It can’t verify your identity, verify your subsidy if any, handle applications, get that information to the insurance companies, etc etc.</p>
<p>I am sure it is causing a lot of sticker shock though. I wonder why the real site didn’t/doesn’t let you do this kind of exploration before actually signing up. That couldn’t have been on purpose, could it?</p>
<p>Notrichenough, as you know, if income levels that qualified for subsidies tapered off instead of ending abruptly, those with lower incomes would have to be subsidized less or the subsidies overall would be larger. </p>
<p>I dont see a lot of support for more subsidies, do you? </p>
<p>I am hoping websites like the one thumper1 linked will help. If traffic is reserved for a website where you already know which plan you want and you can buy a plan, this can speed things up. </p>
<p>I am pretty happly with the website thumper1 linked.</p>
<p>Nothing on Washington yet.</p>
<p>The alternative is to create a perverse set of incentives to game the system, if not outright cheat the system. I’ve already attended, out of curiousity, a seminar on how to (legally) manipulate your situation so that you come in under the magic 4x the poverty rate.</p>
<p>It creates distrust and disdain and anger.</p>
<p>It’s insane that people will be turning down raises or asking their boss to pay them less because of how the system is set up.</p>
<p>
Not really. The problems with the gov’t site were in account creation, identity verification, income verification, policy application, etc, and connecting all of these separate systems together and having them talk to each other so that you are actually enrolled in a health insurance plan. Picking the actual policy is a tiny piece of this.</p>
<p>It came out today that there are severe security issues with the web site, that were deliberately not reported to the upper management because it might have delayed the rollout. The “experts” are saying it could take until 2014 or even 2015 (!!!) to fix these problems. In the meantime, your personal data is vulnerable, and signing up could open you up to identify theft.</p>
<p>I like HealthSherpa too, it is very interesting because it lets you easily window-shop, which the current site doesn’t allow without a lot of up-front work filling out applications and what-not. But don’t make it more than it is.</p>
<p>Notrichenough, there is no perfect solution. Never going to be. So pick your poison. </p>
<p>Dont you have employer based healthcare insurance?</p>
<p>“I like HealthSherpa too, it is very interesting because it lets you easily window-shop, which the current site doesn’t allow without a lot of up-front work filling out applications and what-not. But don’t make it more than it is.”</p>
<p>This is important to me.</p>
<p>
I do, but I’d like to retire way before we are eligible for Medicare.
I’d much rather see increased subsidies than disincentives to increase earnings. This is a big problem IMO with programs like the EIC and others, as currently implemented, as well.</p>
<p>Ok… Well…you arent going to pay either way right now. </p>
<p>If it turns out there is too much gaming… Then there can be adjustments. I expect that people are going to try and maximize their net. </p>
<p>You are entitled to your opinion.</p>
<p>Washington has their own website which is already pretty user friendly.</p>
<p><a href=“Your session has expired | Washington Healthplanfinder”>Your session has expired | Washington Healthplanfinder;
<p>
The problem is if people do this by choosing not to sign up. Then the whole basis of the system falls apart.</p>
<p>If you set up your withholding so you don’t get a refund, there isn’t even a penalty with any teeth if you don’t sign up.</p>
<p>Creating disincentives to not sign up is not good.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Absolutely true, but the point is, most people flooding the site the first days just wanted to see the plans and options. If your state offers many plans it may take days to compare them, co-pay versus coinsurance, which deductible you want, physician networks etc. So, if the government had been willing to provide a Healthsherpa.com level of info up front, they likely would not have crashed the entire site as some people would just go all through the process and sign up, but many would shop it, reviewing all their choices.</p>
<p>I know of people who were verified in October, so go the login in, did the complex stuff, but still have not gotten to the page showing the plans on Healthcare.gov because the site is not working well this month.</p>
<p>Notrichenough, I dont believe people are not going to sign up.</p>
<p>I know people like to look at negative outcomes. When I traded heavily, I always looked at negative outcomes. I wanted to survive financially if something bad happened. </p>
<p>I am just not this gloomy that people wont sign up. If I was this negative in my career, I would actually be broke. :)</p>
<p>Your last sentence makes no sense.</p>
<p>
Yes, but HealthSherpa.com doesn’t actually provide any of this information.</p>
<p>When you click on the “How to Buy” link, all you get a phone number to call.</p>
<p>The “Signup online” button takes you to the health insurance company’s main web site, you have to figure out how, if at all, you can signup. I tried one at random and could not find a way to sign up.</p>
<p>Again, HealthSherpa is useful, but only for the highest level window shopping.</p>
<p>Believe me, I want this system to work so I can use it in a few years. I am having doubts.</p>
<p>For me, if I were on the Federal exchange, I would use Health Sherpa to compare companies, then go to the company website to compare details of the plans, since the federal site doesn’t allow easy plan comparison.</p>
<p>And the Washington comparison site is not working- big surprise there!</p>
<p>Hmmm, the Washington one usually is pretty good, it’s been the best one I have tried</p>
<p>Are you kidding? The Healthsherpa website is awesome. It updates instantly as you change the inputs. What it is, is exactly what people want to see. It answers the most basic obvious questions that people have. Recall that before the Oct 1 rollout, sometime around mid September, I called the federal 800 24 hour hotline number and reached a customer service person who did not know what the words “subsidy” or “tax credit” meant in the context of ACA.</p>