<p>Maybe I am missing something. The info I want to know, in addition to the monthly premium, is which providers participate (are in their network)? What is the deductible? Is there a max out of pocket/year? What is the % covered if any, if I go out of network without a referral? Is there coverage for doctors out of state? </p>
<p>These are just some of the questions that need to be answered before making a decision. I agree the info they do give is better than nothing, but certainly not enough for me to make a call. </p>
<p>I am rooting for this as I am hoping that I can get more affordable coverage than I am forced to get as a small business owner. I wish there was a good way to get all my answers, including if I am even eligible. I suppose the business can no longer offer coverage to make us eligible, but is there a waiting period that you have to be uninsured for before you qualify?</p>
<p>I wish, as someone said above, they had two web sites. One for signing up and one where you can just get answers based on scenarios you plug in for comparison purposes.</p>
<p>PoP, what you want to know is very difficult to find on the government website, when it’s not working It feels to me like they are playing “we know what’s best for you” and did not want people to be able to play with all the numbers until they were completely committed to the process. I cannot think of any reason not to allow one to shop without logging in unless it was to prevent people from easily seeing the pricing. Maybe ‘they’ are happier that the news is about the bad website than the high prices, most 50-60 people probably are seeing premiums having doubled, not counting subsidies, so if just anyone could have surfed the pricing, that would be the focus of the news?</p>
<p>somemom, the info I seek is elusive everywhere :-)</p>
<p>On a side note, we got an interesting “offer” from our insurance broker saying if we renew our policy now (as opposed to months from now when it is actually up for renewal) we can “lock in” pricing. To me it sounded like they were trying to lock me in before I left for a less expensive plan not to actually help me. Since they have never been concerned with letting me lock in the current lower prices before, it struck me as odd and probably deceptive. Their norm has been to increase our plan 20-30 percent a year. If they never cared about that before, why the concern now?</p>
<p>Parentofpeople, you must be in NJ, that’s what our rates have been increasing every year. We got the letter for our small group saying we could keep our plan until renewal next September. That makes me think the new small group prices would be lower! I haven’t contacted my broker yet since I don’t see any plans that are better.</p>
<p>If you go through healthcare.gov, why would you need a broker? Better to try to lock you in for another year and maybe make less, than lose your business.</p>
<p>It seems healthcare.gov is now allowing window shopping. However it doesn’t collect age information, so the results do not appear to be accurate compared to HealthSherpa, which for my family shows the premiums are about 50% higher than what healthcare.gov is showing.</p>
<p>That would be a nasty surprise.</p>
<p>Some of those plans have ridiculously high deductibles - I looked at one which would cost me about $12000/year in premiums, and had a $6000 ind./$12000 family deductible.</p>
<p>“Some of those plans have ridiculously high deductibles - I looked at one which would cost me about $12000/year in premiums, and had a $6000 ind./$12000 family deductible”</p>
<p>That is my plan for 2013. Actually my plan is slightly worse.</p>
<p>I wonder when people are comparing these prices to what they have now, they are comparing them to what they are paying for “their portion” through their employer. If that is the case of course they will be higher. Even if they pay the full premium but have rates based on a large group plan the prices will still be higher if you compare as an individual.</p>
<p>Anyone I have spoken to who is paying the full boat out of pocket, seems to find the new rates less. But, we don’t have the fine details of what the plan covers and who the network providers are. Without that I can’t say if it is a better deal or worse yet. </p>
<p>Policies for people who are not part of a group have been absolutely astronomical for at least the last decade and going up by huge percentages each year and covering less, before obamacare even came to existence.</p>
Well, I thought that by getting millions of individuals to sign up, it is essentially creating a large group, and the prices should be based on that.</p>
<p>That’s why everyone is worried that if not enough young people sign up, it will be a big problem, because some of the cost has been shifted to them to even out the prices.</p>
<p>The COBRA price for my grade B corporate plan with a $2500 deductible and 90% coverage is about $1500/month; we have about 1500 or so employees and it is not the youngest crowd. The prices I am seeing for Gold plans (80%) are much higher than that, although it is difficult to directly compare.</p>
<p>The individual plans are extremely expensive because they are having to cover the uninsurables of the past and the pre existings at the same price as people like my family.</p>
<p>Also, you can only charge 3X as much for a 64 year old as for a 25 year old.</p>
<p>But, the same thing is going to happen in the group plans, as employers go to a different model of defined contribution rather than defined benefit. At least this is the talk in corporate america right now. So, instead of offering employees a defined benefit of health care, they will offer X number of dollars to everyone to put towards their own healthcare.</p>
<p>I’m not sure what will happen once the tax credit disappears in 18. But that’s a long way away and things will surely be very different by then anyway.</p>
<p>the reason you can’t shop for prices on the dotgov is because they wanted to make sure that nobody saw the price without also seeing the subsidy they would get. The insurance prices are high, high, high. But, they were hoping the actual costs with the subsidy factored in would mitigate the shock.</p>
It feels to me like they are playing “we know what’s best for you” and did not want people to be able to play with all the numbers until they were completely committed to the process. I cannot think of any reason not to allow one to shop without logging in unless it was to prevent people from easily seeing the pricing. Maybe ‘they’ are happier that the news is about the bad website than the high prices, most 50-60 people probably are seeing premiums having doubled, not counting subsidies, so if just anyone could have surfed the pricing, that would be the focus of the news?</p>