EMF
100 kW
Very interesting. Thanks for the updates.
Health Insurance in the USA
- Thread starter marty
- Start date
dnmun
1 PW
October 27, 2013
The Big Kludge
By PAUL KRUGMAN
The good news about HealthCare.gov, the portal to Obamacare’s health exchange, is that the administration is no longer minimizing its problems. That’s the first step toward fixing the mess — and it will get fixed, although it’s anyone’s guess whether the new promise of a smoothly functioning system by the end of November will be met. We know, after all, that Obamacare is workable, since many states that chose to run their own exchanges are doing quite well.
But while we wait for the geeks to do their stuff, let’s ask a related question: Why did this thing have to be so complicated in the first place?
It’s true that the Affordable Care Act isn’t as complex as opponents make it out to be. Basically, it requires that insurance companies offer the same policies to everyone; it requires that each individual then buy one of these policies (the individual mandate); and it offers subsidies, depending on income, to keep insurance affordable.
Still, there’s a lot for people to go through. Not only do they have to choose insurers and plans, they have to submit a lot of personal information so the government can determine the size of their subsidies. And the software has to integrate all this information, getting it to all the relevant parties — which isn’t happening yet on the federal site.
Imagine, now, a much simpler system in which the government just pays your major medical expenses. In this hypothetical system you wouldn’t have to shop for insurance, nor would you have to provide lots of personal details. The government would be your insurer, and you’d be covered automatically by virtue of being an American.
Of course, we don’t have to imagine such a system, because it already exists. It’s called Medicare, it covers all Americans 65 and older, and it’s enormously popular. So why didn’t we just extend that system to cover everyone?
The proximate answer was politics: Medicare for all just wasn’t going to happen, given both the power of the insurance industry and the reluctance of workers who currently have good insurance through their employers to trade that insurance for something new. Given these political realities, the Affordable Care Act was probably all we could get — and make no mistake, it will vastly improve the lives of tens of millions of Americans.
Still, the fact remains that Obamacare is an immense kludge — a clumsy, ugly structure that more or less deals with a problem, but in an inefficient way.
The thing is, such better-than-nothing-but-pretty-bad solutions have become the norm in American governance. As Steven Teles of Johns Hopkins University put it in a recent essay, we’ve become a “kludgeocracy.” And the main reason that is happening, I’d argue, is ideology.
To see what I mean, look at the constant demands that we make Medicare — which needs to work harder on cost control but does a better job even on that front than private insurers — both more complicated and worse. There are demands for means-testing, which would involve collecting all the personal information Obamacare needs but Medicare doesn’t. There is pressure to raise the Medicare age, forcing 65- and 66-year-old Americans to deal with private insurers instead.
And Republicans still dream of dismantling Medicare as we know it, instead giving seniors vouchers to buy private insurance. In effect, although they never say this, they want to convert Medicare into Obamacare.
Why would we want to do any of these things? You might say, to reduce the burden on taxpayers — but Medicare is cheaper than private insurance, so anything taxpayers might gain by hacking away at the program would be more than lost in higher premiums. And it’s not even clear that government spending would fall: the Congressional Budget Office recently concluded that raising the Medicare age would produce almost no federal savings.
No, the assault on Medicare is really about an ideology that is fundamentally hostile to the notion of the government helping people, and tries to make whatever help is given as limited and indirect as possible, restricting its scope and running it through private corporations. And this ideology, at a fundamental level — more fundamental, even, than vested interests — is why Obamacare ended up being a big kludge.
In saying this I don’t mean to excuse the officials and contractors who made such a mess of health reform’s first month. Nor, on the other side, am I suggesting that health reform should have waited until the political system was ready for single-payer. For now, the priority is to get this kludge working, and once that’s done, America will become a better place.
In the longer run, however, we have to tackle that ideology. A society committed to the notion that government is always bad will have bad government. And it doesn’t have to be that way.
The Big Kludge
By PAUL KRUGMAN
The good news about HealthCare.gov, the portal to Obamacare’s health exchange, is that the administration is no longer minimizing its problems. That’s the first step toward fixing the mess — and it will get fixed, although it’s anyone’s guess whether the new promise of a smoothly functioning system by the end of November will be met. We know, after all, that Obamacare is workable, since many states that chose to run their own exchanges are doing quite well.
But while we wait for the geeks to do their stuff, let’s ask a related question: Why did this thing have to be so complicated in the first place?
It’s true that the Affordable Care Act isn’t as complex as opponents make it out to be. Basically, it requires that insurance companies offer the same policies to everyone; it requires that each individual then buy one of these policies (the individual mandate); and it offers subsidies, depending on income, to keep insurance affordable.
Still, there’s a lot for people to go through. Not only do they have to choose insurers and plans, they have to submit a lot of personal information so the government can determine the size of their subsidies. And the software has to integrate all this information, getting it to all the relevant parties — which isn’t happening yet on the federal site.
Imagine, now, a much simpler system in which the government just pays your major medical expenses. In this hypothetical system you wouldn’t have to shop for insurance, nor would you have to provide lots of personal details. The government would be your insurer, and you’d be covered automatically by virtue of being an American.
Of course, we don’t have to imagine such a system, because it already exists. It’s called Medicare, it covers all Americans 65 and older, and it’s enormously popular. So why didn’t we just extend that system to cover everyone?
The proximate answer was politics: Medicare for all just wasn’t going to happen, given both the power of the insurance industry and the reluctance of workers who currently have good insurance through their employers to trade that insurance for something new. Given these political realities, the Affordable Care Act was probably all we could get — and make no mistake, it will vastly improve the lives of tens of millions of Americans.
Still, the fact remains that Obamacare is an immense kludge — a clumsy, ugly structure that more or less deals with a problem, but in an inefficient way.
The thing is, such better-than-nothing-but-pretty-bad solutions have become the norm in American governance. As Steven Teles of Johns Hopkins University put it in a recent essay, we’ve become a “kludgeocracy.” And the main reason that is happening, I’d argue, is ideology.
To see what I mean, look at the constant demands that we make Medicare — which needs to work harder on cost control but does a better job even on that front than private insurers — both more complicated and worse. There are demands for means-testing, which would involve collecting all the personal information Obamacare needs but Medicare doesn’t. There is pressure to raise the Medicare age, forcing 65- and 66-year-old Americans to deal with private insurers instead.
And Republicans still dream of dismantling Medicare as we know it, instead giving seniors vouchers to buy private insurance. In effect, although they never say this, they want to convert Medicare into Obamacare.
Why would we want to do any of these things? You might say, to reduce the burden on taxpayers — but Medicare is cheaper than private insurance, so anything taxpayers might gain by hacking away at the program would be more than lost in higher premiums. And it’s not even clear that government spending would fall: the Congressional Budget Office recently concluded that raising the Medicare age would produce almost no federal savings.
No, the assault on Medicare is really about an ideology that is fundamentally hostile to the notion of the government helping people, and tries to make whatever help is given as limited and indirect as possible, restricting its scope and running it through private corporations. And this ideology, at a fundamental level — more fundamental, even, than vested interests — is why Obamacare ended up being a big kludge.
In saying this I don’t mean to excuse the officials and contractors who made such a mess of health reform’s first month. Nor, on the other side, am I suggesting that health reform should have waited until the political system was ready for single-payer. For now, the priority is to get this kludge working, and once that’s done, America will become a better place.
In the longer run, however, we have to tackle that ideology. A society committed to the notion that government is always bad will have bad government. And it doesn’t have to be that way.
dnmun said:
Its true that our biggest problem is that we're in denial that we are a mixed economy and we pay as many taxes as the 'socialist' countries, but we don't get as much for them. If we could recognise that we are socialist by virtue of our [effective] level of taxation, and start making decisions and adjusting our expectations accordingly, we would be better for it.
What is happening now is a slight of hand by politicians who speak about freedom from one side of their mouth, but then use the other for trading our freedoms for favor to special interest groups. There are many in the 1% who see no moral dilemma with this, because its the game that 'we' allow. Frankly, I'm disgusted with 'us'. Its our own fault for not putting forth the effort of 'eternal vigilance'.
On the other hand, beyond the task of protecting individual rights, any additional government is bad.
So how do we get from here to where we really should be? One simple law: for every law that goes on the books, two come off. If we get to the point that we arguing about how many laws are the absolute minimum necessary, it will be a golden day.
Warning: lots of whining and self-pity ahead:
So far, about all I've been able to find out is that I'm screwed, AFAICT.
AZ doesn't have a marketplace site of it's own (last info found on the AZ gov sites about even thinking about the prospect is from last year around this time, AFAIK), and hasn't got any "medicaid" based programs I qualify for becuase they still will not allow any childless person to get any benefits of any kind, and won't even talk to you if you are childless to help find what other options one might have.
So I have to go thru the "healthcare.gov" site to find out what I might qualify for...and that site is badly broken. No matter what computer or browser I've tried so far, I can't open some of the pages at all, and some of them do open sometimes, but then don't finish loading, or when they do they don't work (doesn't take button clicks, etc).
At various points I've managed to locate some applicable info to me, further indicating my screwedness: At least one page there says that if my job offers insurance (regardless of it's affordability, etc.), then I do not qualify for any kind of price breaks on any insurance thru any marketplace. Since naturally my job does offer it, but is beyond my ability to afford it, I can't qualify for any of the subsidies, price breaks, etc., thru the marketplace.
Once (today), I finally managed to start creating an account there, but right after clicking the final button, it comes up wiht an error that it's can't create my account because I can't have duplicate answers to the security questions....which I didn't have--they were all very different, not containing any of hte same words.
So it's still badly broken.
And useless to me.
My workplace benefit signup ends on Nov 1st, so if I don't sign up before then, I can't sign up for them thru work until a year from now. That would leave only signing up thru the useless broken federal site, for private insurance, that as far as I can tell from the little info I can pull up would cost even more than it would thru work.
Thru work, for the most expensive premium option, it'd cost about $150/month, $1800/year (more than two month's rent!) just to *have* insurance. But I can't actually *use* it until I've also paid at least $800 of my own for the deductible. And it only pays at best 80% of costs even after that. *if* I ever needed to actually use it, that'd be a minimum of $2600 I'd have ot spend myself first to have it start actually covering anything.
The cheapest premium option would only cost about $75/month, $950/year (more than a month's rent) just to have it at all. But then the deductible is $2500 to be able to acutally use it, and then it only pays 70% at best after that. And if I need to use it, it'd be a minimum of $3450 before it starts covering anything itself.
So either I waste $950 to $1800 a year for something I probably am not going to even use (and MUCH more if i did have to use it, before I actually *could* use it), or I pay the poor tax, which would be at minimum about $100, and at worst about $200, depending on whether they allow me to bypass it cuz of the house fire or other circumstances. (and that's just *this* year--it'll certainly be much worse next year).
Since I couldn't afford the premiums even living in this not-quite-crappy apartment, I certainly couldn't afford it once I move back into the house after it's repaired/rebuilt.
So at this point, I guess I get to pay the poor tax instead.
I guess that's another reason I need to have dogs around--they force me to stick around to take care of them, instead of giving up on this crappier-every-day world we are stuck with, where a great many people don't give a flying frock about the rest of the world or how what they do or decide affects them and destroys their lives.
So far, about all I've been able to find out is that I'm screwed, AFAICT.
AZ doesn't have a marketplace site of it's own (last info found on the AZ gov sites about even thinking about the prospect is from last year around this time, AFAIK), and hasn't got any "medicaid" based programs I qualify for becuase they still will not allow any childless person to get any benefits of any kind, and won't even talk to you if you are childless to help find what other options one might have.
So I have to go thru the "healthcare.gov" site to find out what I might qualify for...and that site is badly broken. No matter what computer or browser I've tried so far, I can't open some of the pages at all, and some of them do open sometimes, but then don't finish loading, or when they do they don't work (doesn't take button clicks, etc).
At various points I've managed to locate some applicable info to me, further indicating my screwedness: At least one page there says that if my job offers insurance (regardless of it's affordability, etc.), then I do not qualify for any kind of price breaks on any insurance thru any marketplace. Since naturally my job does offer it, but is beyond my ability to afford it, I can't qualify for any of the subsidies, price breaks, etc., thru the marketplace.
Once (today), I finally managed to start creating an account there, but right after clicking the final button, it comes up wiht an error that it's can't create my account because I can't have duplicate answers to the security questions....which I didn't have--they were all very different, not containing any of hte same words.
So it's still badly broken.
And useless to me.
My workplace benefit signup ends on Nov 1st, so if I don't sign up before then, I can't sign up for them thru work until a year from now. That would leave only signing up thru the useless broken federal site, for private insurance, that as far as I can tell from the little info I can pull up would cost even more than it would thru work.
Thru work, for the most expensive premium option, it'd cost about $150/month, $1800/year (more than two month's rent!) just to *have* insurance. But I can't actually *use* it until I've also paid at least $800 of my own for the deductible. And it only pays at best 80% of costs even after that. *if* I ever needed to actually use it, that'd be a minimum of $2600 I'd have ot spend myself first to have it start actually covering anything.
The cheapest premium option would only cost about $75/month, $950/year (more than a month's rent) just to have it at all. But then the deductible is $2500 to be able to acutally use it, and then it only pays 70% at best after that. And if I need to use it, it'd be a minimum of $3450 before it starts covering anything itself.
So either I waste $950 to $1800 a year for something I probably am not going to even use (and MUCH more if i did have to use it, before I actually *could* use it), or I pay the poor tax, which would be at minimum about $100, and at worst about $200, depending on whether they allow me to bypass it cuz of the house fire or other circumstances. (and that's just *this* year--it'll certainly be much worse next year).
Since I couldn't afford the premiums even living in this not-quite-crappy apartment, I certainly couldn't afford it once I move back into the house after it's repaired/rebuilt.
So at this point, I guess I get to pay the poor tax instead.
I guess that's another reason I need to have dogs around--they force me to stick around to take care of them, instead of giving up on this crappier-every-day world we are stuck with, where a great many people don't give a flying frock about the rest of the world or how what they do or decide affects them and destroys their lives.
EMF
100 kW
Man that sucks. I saw on the news you can sign up on the phone. Maybe that would work. For giggles I put in the zip code for Phoenix, the live assister help centers and several came up. That localhelp website was quick too... Looks like most are 8 to 5 though, so this could be a problem.
https://www.healthcare.gov/how-do-i-apply-for-marketplace-coverage/
https://www.healthcare.gov/how-do-i-apply-for-marketplace-coverage/
I see what you mean about AZ Medicaid and childless persons:amberwolf said:
AHCCCS Arizona Medicaid Agency said:
But here are a couple of places that say childless adult enrollment will reopen in January because of Medicaid expansion:
AHCCCS News & Updates said:
Arizona Daily Star said:
Maybe you can check that AHCCCS childless adult webpage again occasionally to see when they start enrolling again. Then supposedly one could apply online at their new half-baked website Health-e-Arizona but the pdf application form seems more trustworthy right now. Fill out the paper form in advance to be ready to send it and get in early.
marty
1 MW
States and government are not supposed to discriminate.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discrimination
The way I understand this is Black people, Fat people, Jewish people, Gay people, Etc, should not be treated differently. Is denying health insurance to childless adults in Arizona discrimination?
Amberwolf do you like girls? Looks like the only way for you to get health insurance is to reproduce :|
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discrimination
The way I understand this is Black people, Fat people, Jewish people, Gay people, Etc, should not be treated differently. Is denying health insurance to childless adults in Arizona discrimination?
Amberwolf do you like girls? Looks like the only way for you to get health insurance is to reproduce :|
jimw1960
10 kW
Amberwolf. Why don't you take the advice of the Secretary of HHS and just wait until the end of November or early December before banging your head against the system that they already told you doesn't work properly yet?
Alternatively, if you really need to enroll immediately, just go right to the web page of some major insurers. The Blue Cross Blue Shield site, for example, is pretty easy to get a quote from. Maybe also try some of the other big players like United Health Care, Prudential, etc. The insurers can even check you out to see if you are eligible for subsidy.
Alternatively, if you really need to enroll immediately, just go right to the web page of some major insurers. The Blue Cross Blue Shield site, for example, is pretty easy to get a quote from. Maybe also try some of the other big players like United Health Care, Prudential, etc. The insurers can even check you out to see if you are eligible for subsidy.
oatnet
1 MW
amberwolf said:
My work-subsidized health plan costs me a bit more than two mortgage payments, so that is about right.
My deductible does not work that way though, it only comes into play for emergencies. Basic wellness/maintenance like normal doctor's visits and my annual physical/blood tests only require a copay, and the deductable is not involved, I don't pay another dime. If the doctor forwards me to a specialist for an MRI/CT scan, then THAT counts against my deductible; however, the insurance typically negotiates a lower rate, that is maybe 1/3 of what I would pay if I didn't have insurance. My recent ER visit was only a copay, and everything else they did - X-rays, medication, etc - was fully covered, and my deductible was not involved, so I don't pay another dime; if I did not have insurance, the bills would be HUGE. My prescriptions were very cheap, without health insurance they would have cost 6,000% more.
So from my perspective, I gets lot of utility from my health insurance by only paying monthly premiums and co-pays. If I have a disaster so bad that it that requires services that I pay the deductible and 20%, after the the insurance negotiates charges down, it is 200% less than I would pay without insurance. For that reason, my healthcare bill is as important to me as my food bill.
I assume your work plan is subsidized - it might be tough to get better rates from the outside plan so it might be better to start with that, but at your income level you may get some kind of subsidy to help offset the cost, I'm not sure. While you have a limited period to sign up, I'm pretty sure you can cancel your work health insurance at any time, if you find a better plan on the .gov website once it gets sorted out.
Oh, as a side note, the California website worked perfectly when I tried it - so the folks who are having trouble working the federal website, have to go to that website only because their state abdicated its responsibility to care for its population.
-JD
jimw1960
10 kW
amberwolf said:
All insurance plans should pay for wellness/maintenance with no deductible. A complete annual physical with bloodwork and doctor visit usually would cost about $400, not including any follow-up tests that might be needed. So, if you pay for insurance and do not take advantage of this valuable service, it is like throwing money away. You also risk walking around with an undetected serious illness like cancer or diabetes until it really gets expensive to treat.
Regarding the "checkup" on insurance vs regular care: It's irrelevant whether the checkup is free or not, since I can't actually afford the premiums themselves for the insurance offered thru work (not and pay rent, utilities, eat, feed the dog(s), etc.). Technically I could pay them using the money donated from ES and friends/etc from the house fire, but that money will be needed to re-buy the many things I have to have at the house that were either destroyed in the fire or have been stolen by looters in the intervening months (and whatever will be stolen before I can move back in).
But I couldn't continue to pay them for long, cuz that money will run out quickly using it for that even if I used it for nothing else. Then I'd still be in the position of being unable to afford it.
Plus, even if I used the money to pay for hte premiums, I still wouldn't have the money to pay for the copays and deductible (which has to be "used up" beofre I can even *use* the insurance at all). As I understand the wya the plans from work are structured, I'm basicaly on my own until I pay enough total on my own to cover the whole deductible. All I get for "free" or covered by the insurance are the annual physical exam, whihc isn't useful to me, cuz even if it found something wrong, I'd still be up for paying for the care necessary to do anything about it. And if I did have something happen to me that needs care, outside of that, again, have to cover the deductible first. Not all plans are structured that wya, but my wokr plan seems to be as far as I can tell.
I'm not hte only person out there in this situation either--I'm sure there are at least tens or hundreds of thousands of poeple that don't qualify for subsidies/discounts (because like me their work offers insurance, even if unaffordable to them) or their state's version of Medicaid, just like me.
Of course, I could find a tiny little box of an apartment somewhere that doesn't allow dogs, in some trashed neighborhood full of druggies and gang shootings, and then I'm sure I'd be able to afford healthcare...but I wouldnt' care enough about my life at that point to bother with it if I had to do that.
The deadline for signing up thru work is past, anyway, so can't do a thing about that. They did change things so that now instead of signing up for a full year we'd be doing it only till February, but of course I didn't get that informaiton until after it was too late. At the time, I had thought I would be deciding for a full year, lik eusual, becuase that's how it's always been--once you sign up, they will take the premiums out of your paycheck until next year that time when you can change it--your'e stuck with losing that money wheterh you can afford it or not. Evne if htey cut my hours so much that I wouldn't actually be *makeing* enough to pay the premium, it'd still be taken out. The only exception is if I got married (or divorced if ai already was), or the number of children I had changed. Since I can't commit to paying *anything* for a full year, cuz I never know if I'll have enough hours or what other costs will come up in my life, I can *never* commit to insurance that I can't cancel, unless it's so cheap that I can afford to throw that money away regardless.
Theoretically, AZ is finally being forced to repeal the limitation preventing childless adults from getting Medicaid (AHCCCS) here, but that wont be until at least the first of the year, and I doubt that it will end up applying to me anyway--they'll do the same thing they did before, and "lose" my paperwork over and over and over until I am forced to give up becuase I don't have the time available to spend every non-working moment down at their offices in line, waiting for hours to go up to talk to them, and being told when I get there (if I do, since some days the lines are so long they close for the day before everyone gets to go up there even if you were there in the early morning!) that they don't have any information about me or paperwork from me, so they can't help me until I turn that in, and then wait until they call me in again. I went thru that for months, at least, before they finally decided to cut me and lots of other people off entirely, disallowing all of us completely just cuz we don't ahve kids.
Anyway, ther'es nothing I can do about whatever is happening or going to happen, as far as this whole government/insurance-company extortion scam goes, so I'll just deal with stuff as it comes, like I always have to.
Sorry if I sound like I'm just a whiny old git--I guess I am, for now. Too much to deal with right now, and has been that way for too long now (only made worse since April).
But I couldn't continue to pay them for long, cuz that money will run out quickly using it for that even if I used it for nothing else. Then I'd still be in the position of being unable to afford it.
Plus, even if I used the money to pay for hte premiums, I still wouldn't have the money to pay for the copays and deductible (which has to be "used up" beofre I can even *use* the insurance at all). As I understand the wya the plans from work are structured, I'm basicaly on my own until I pay enough total on my own to cover the whole deductible. All I get for "free" or covered by the insurance are the annual physical exam, whihc isn't useful to me, cuz even if it found something wrong, I'd still be up for paying for the care necessary to do anything about it. And if I did have something happen to me that needs care, outside of that, again, have to cover the deductible first. Not all plans are structured that wya, but my wokr plan seems to be as far as I can tell.
I'm not hte only person out there in this situation either--I'm sure there are at least tens or hundreds of thousands of poeple that don't qualify for subsidies/discounts (because like me their work offers insurance, even if unaffordable to them) or their state's version of Medicaid, just like me.
Of course, I could find a tiny little box of an apartment somewhere that doesn't allow dogs, in some trashed neighborhood full of druggies and gang shootings, and then I'm sure I'd be able to afford healthcare...but I wouldnt' care enough about my life at that point to bother with it if I had to do that.
The deadline for signing up thru work is past, anyway, so can't do a thing about that. They did change things so that now instead of signing up for a full year we'd be doing it only till February, but of course I didn't get that informaiton until after it was too late.
At the time, I had thought I would be deciding for a full year, lik eusual, becuase that's how it's always been--once you sign up, they will take the premiums out of your paycheck until next year that time when you can change it--your'e stuck with losing that money wheterh you can afford it or not. Evne if htey cut my hours so much that I wouldn't actually be *makeing* enough to pay the premium, it'd still be taken out. The only exception is if I got married (or divorced if ai already was), or the number of children I had changed. Since I can't commit to paying *anything* for a full year, cuz I never know if I'll have enough hours or what other costs will come up in my life, I can *never* commit to insurance that I can't cancel, unless it's so cheap that I can afford to throw that money away regardless. Theoretically, AZ is finally being forced to repeal the limitation preventing childless adults from getting Medicaid (AHCCCS) here, but that wont be until at least the first of the year, and I doubt that it will end up applying to me anyway--they'll do the same thing they did before, and "lose" my paperwork over and over and over until I am forced to give up becuase I don't have the time available to spend every non-working moment down at their offices in line, waiting for hours to go up to talk to them, and being told when I get there (if I do, since some days the lines are so long they close for the day before everyone gets to go up there even if you were there in the early morning!) that they don't have any information about me or paperwork from me, so they can't help me until I turn that in, and then wait until they call me in again. I went thru that for months, at least, before they finally decided to cut me and lots of other people off entirely, disallowing all of us completely just cuz we don't ahve kids.
Anyway, ther'es nothing I can do about whatever is happening or going to happen, as far as this whole government/insurance-company extortion scam goes, so I'll just deal with stuff as it comes, like I always have to.
Sorry if I sound like I'm just a whiny old git--I guess I am, for now. Too much to deal with right now, and has been that way for too long now (only made worse since April).
EMF
100 kW
You have nothing to apologize for, you are just one of many folks in the US that are really struggling right now.
wineboyrider
1 MW
The Obamascare crisis is now unfolding as the "little" people learn that the act was created to destroy them and enrich the Mega healthcare companies. 
marty
1 MW
Progress Report - Got the application started at nystateofhealth.ny.gov Called a few days ago and was told to upload income information. Had accountant put my 2012 tax papers on a flash drive. Uploaded no problem. Called again today. After being on hold for loooooong time. Friendly guy transfers me to confused girl in the Eligibility Department. Eligibility girl determines that there is a problem with my wife. I can see what she sees. I copy:
There were errors with the following fields:
XXXXXX XXXXXXXX [the wife]:
Citizenship not verified due to unverified SSN
We were not able to confirm SSN for this person. Please confirm your Name and Date of Birth
Eligibility girl transfers me to the Account department. Phone just rings and rings. Hang up. Call back now I am on hold again. I am not giving up.
Think I fixed the wife's citizenship problem by removing her and then adding her again.
There were errors with the following fields:
XXXXXX XXXXXXXX [the wife]:
Citizenship not verified due to unverified SSN
We were not able to confirm SSN for this person. Please confirm your Name and Date of Birth
Eligibility girl transfers me to the Account department. Phone just rings and rings. Hang up. Call back now I am on hold again. I am not giving up.
Think I fixed the wife's citizenship problem by removing her and then adding her again.
EMF
100 kW
Good Grief! Please keep us posted on our progress. I am glad you are not giving up.
marty
1 MW
Another fun 1/2 a day wasted with Obama Care.
Suspect the problem now is a large building in Albany somewhere filled with people and COMPUTERS THAT DON'T WORK? Last girl on the phone told me that when she clicks on my PDF tax papers her computer spins in circles.
In case any body is wondering what is Marty's tax papers? 76 pages of mumbo jumbo, 1033KB. Accountant did a beautiful job of creating this file. Nice and clear. No scanned fuzzy paper here.
Girl with "spinning computer" told me that she sent a email to some higher confusion departments and I should receive a phone call next week. I am starting to think that this will not work and soon the wife and I will have NO health insurance
Suspect the problem now is a large building in Albany somewhere filled with people and COMPUTERS THAT DON'T WORK? Last girl on the phone told me that when she clicks on my PDF tax papers her computer spins in circles.
In case any body is wondering what is Marty's tax papers? 76 pages of mumbo jumbo, 1033KB. Accountant did a beautiful job of creating this file. Nice and clear. No scanned fuzzy paper here.
Girl with "spinning computer" told me that she sent a email to some higher confusion departments and I should receive a phone call next week. I am starting to think that this will not work and soon the wife and I will have NO health insurance
marty
1 MW
nystateofhealth.ny.gov telephone hours:
855-355-5777
Monday to Friday 8:00 - 8:00
Saturday 9:00 - 1:00
855-355-5777
Monday to Friday 8:00 - 8:00
Saturday 9:00 - 1:00
marty
1 MW
Getting closer. Today girl on phone wants more proof of income for 2013 and 2014. Going to go talk to the accountant tomorrow to see if he can figure this out. Should really be talking to a fortune teller because 2014 has not started yet.
Found this.
View attachment Standard Products.pdf
Explains BRONZE [BRONZE], SILVER [SILVER], GOLD [GOLD], and PLATINUM [PLATINUM] Plans. Colors shown to see what the different metals look like.
Lets compare. Make pretend something goes seriously wrong with Marty or the wife and they need surgery.
Surgical Services (Including Oral Surgery; Reconstructive
Breast Surgery; Other Reconstructive & Corrective Surgery;
Transplants; & Interruption of Pregnancy)
• Inpatient Hospital Surgery
BRONZE
Deductible • Individual $3,000
Out-of-Pocket Limit • Individual $6,350
50% Coinsurance after Deductible
SILVER
Deductible • Individual $2,000
Out-of-Pocket Limit • Individual $5,500
$100 Copayment after Deductible
GOLD
Deductible • Individual $600
Out-of-Pocket Limit • Individual $4,000
$100 Copayment after Deductible
PLATINUM
Deductible • Individual NONE
Out-of-Pocket Limit • Individual $2,000
$100 Copayment
Please give me prices. Give me prices!
Found this.
View attachment Standard Products.pdf
Explains BRONZE [BRONZE], SILVER [SILVER], GOLD [GOLD], and PLATINUM [PLATINUM] Plans. Colors shown to see what the different metals look like.
Lets compare. Make pretend something goes seriously wrong with Marty or the wife and they need surgery.
Surgical Services (Including Oral Surgery; Reconstructive
Breast Surgery; Other Reconstructive & Corrective Surgery;
Transplants; & Interruption of Pregnancy)
• Inpatient Hospital Surgery
BRONZE
Deductible • Individual $3,000
Out-of-Pocket Limit • Individual $6,350
50% Coinsurance after Deductible
SILVER
Deductible • Individual $2,000
Out-of-Pocket Limit • Individual $5,500
$100 Copayment after Deductible
GOLD
Deductible • Individual $600
Out-of-Pocket Limit • Individual $4,000
$100 Copayment after Deductible
PLATINUM
Deductible • Individual NONE
Out-of-Pocket Limit • Individual $2,000
$100 Copayment
Please give me prices. Give me prices!
Marty
It's really not that hard. Don't make it worse on you than it really is.
It looks like there are lots of people just hired on that can help with the forms in person or on the phone.
Unless you live in a state that said screw the poor.....
However if you just want to wank on the new plan. Good luck.
It's really not that hard. Don't make it worse on you than it really is.
It looks like there are lots of people just hired on that can help with the forms in person or on the phone.
Unless you live in a state that said screw the poor.....
However if you just want to wank on the new plan. Good luck.
jimw1960
10 kW
You should not even need to provide income information unless you are applying for subsidy. I don't know too many people who make enough money to have an accountant do their taxes that would still be eligible for subsidy. If you don't need subsidy, you can go straight to the insurer and be done in half an hour.
marty
1 MW
Accountants help rich people figure out how much money they make. Accountants also help poor people like myself figure out how little money they make or how much money they loose.jimw1960 said:
I am kind of proud to say that in my life time. I am 52. Besides asking for lower cost health insurance, I have never received money from the government. No unemployment, no welfare, no food stamps, no nothing.
Accountant was going over enough numbers to make my brain explode. I asked him to explain it all some words in a paragraph or two. He tells me that he is not good with words. I tell him that I am not good with words or numbers, but I do like to draw pictures. Accountant wrote some well worded words. I am good with copy and paste. Uploaded a letter in PDF format about my projected income in 2013 and 2014.
Download this spread sheet:
Tax Credit and Premium Rate Estimator_0.xlsm
Here - http://www.healthbenefitexchange.ny.gov/PremiumEstimator
Open with Open Office. Finally I see prices! [might need to hit the Enter button]
Today guy on the phone at nystateofhealth.ny.gov tells me that it will be a few weeks for nystateofhealth.ny.gov to determine what he already knows. He tells me that I have two options. Pay nothing and get medicaid. Or pay full price for health insurance. He also tells me talk to my wife's doctors to see if they take medicaid? He say to call back next week Thursday or Friday to see if they got my application figured out.
Guy on the phone tells me that after the old Healthy NY insurance is canceled at the end of the year I should not pay the bills that doctors send or pay for the wife's pills, because medicaid will pay for past bills. Don't think the wife will be getting any more pills without large amounts of cash.
To see the full price of insurance on the spread sheet, I type $100,000 into the income box. Lowest cost insurance looks like:
Health Republic [Freelancers] $437 a month. Prices are different for different counties. I live in Erie county. Any lower cost insurance companies?
Tomorrow I will call the wife's doctors to ask what insurance they take.
Here is medicaid website that nystateofhealth.ny.gov guy on phone tells me to look at:
http://www.health.ny.gov/health_care/medicaid/
Any people here in NY State who receive medicaid? How does free health insurance compare with paid for health insurance?
dnmun
1 PW
100volts+ said:
i thought it was just the opposite. a single payer plan like congress has and we have with medicare would have been easier to implement and cheaper too.
but congress wanted it to be so cumbersome and they wanted to keep the insurance companies in the middle to take a cut for themselves too so that it would be so expensive in carrying the burden of the insurance companies too that it would be rejected by the populus because of the expense of supporting the insurance companies too and not be implemented.
that was how i viewed it.
i wonder what will happen to all the people who do not sign up. if they get sick and they are not covered then how will they get medical care if the emergency rooms refuse to take them since they are not covered? that is the only way the uninsured get coverage now and that is what they are trying to eliminate because of the expense of emergency room visits so if they refuse to accept people in the emergency room unless they have coverage it could be ugly. i guess they would just sue the client who came into the emergency room just as they do now. or would they force them onto some plan there in the emergency room. what if they are unconscious like my friend who had a stroke and ended up bankrupted by the ambulance and helicopter ride and the overnight stay in the hospital.
if someone does not have coverage they could be sued i guess just like now. then forced to be covered after that. why we could not have a plan like canada or britain or germany which is cheap and effective is really really upsetting. like we are so primitive culturally that we cannot have a public health care plan that doesn't guarantee huge salaries and profits for the doctors and insurance companies.
The elite wanted to extract their pound of flesh first. Big parts of it were delayed till after the 2014 elections because the money was not coming in fast enough off the backs of the working class. Then comes the big overhaul with or without congressional consent.
