Got ObamaCare Yet?
President Obama went on TV today and told us no one is more frustrated than he is with the sluggish website
https://www.healthcare.gov/ There are diaries here at DKos being written by those who are frustrated with their experience in trying to sign up for health insurance via the federal website. (note: all the pics in this diary are screen captures I made).
There are bad glitches at this site because the largest tech company in Canada, CGI, was hired to do the work and apparently they have a track record of not being able to handle something this big. Oh well. Markos wrote about it today: http://www.dailykos.com/...
Undaunted, today smileycreek and I went for it. We'd already looked into our options. This morning we went to https://www.coveredca.com/ the website for Californians. The site had been down on purpose from late Saturday night until 3AM this morning to do an upgrade.
Our experience signing up below the Kitchen Table Kibitzing orange doily
We logged on at 9:36 AM and decided to time the entire process. The screen capture below is what the home page looks like for Covered California.
There are several parts to the process including questions about who will be on the policy, some about your use of insurance in the past few months and your income, of course. When you choose the Apply Button you start this process by setting up an account. Once you set it all up and answer the questions you then get to decide what level of insurance you want: Bronze (60/40), Silver (70/30), Gold (80/20) or Platinum (90/10).
Below is the page you get when you want to get started. There are four tabs across the top for different information in which you may be interested.
We decided to go for a Silver Plan. There will be an enrollment window every year so we can change policies during that time if we decide we need a different policy. One thing that will change after 2014 are the "ratings rules." The policies themselves will likely change as well.
Why?
Because women will no longer be discriminated against by having to pay more than men. Sick people and folks with preexisting conditions will be able to get health insurance when they can't now. Of course young healthy people will be getting health insurance too. So after the data gets collected about the entire pool of all the people who bought ObamaCare, the rates probably will need to change. Keep that in mind and understand why. Don't freak out about this. Health insurance policies and the price they charge change all the time now, but it has been primarily to squeeze more profits out of policy holders. Any future changes to ACA policies will be for health care NOT profits.
The choice we made to buy a Silver Plan was determined by what our health care needs would likely be in the coming year and the amount we could sensibly pay. The entire process took less than 40 minutes.
In California there are only two companies that will sell policies to individuals in our area. They are Anthem BlueCross and Blue Shield. The prices are just about 8% different but the Anthem BlueCross policy is a PPO which means you must be in network. In reality however, practically every doctor and hospital in California is in their network so it's not a problem.
And then as though on cue, the site crashed...but we had already set up our account and answered all the questions. Later I went to the site to see if my information had been saved. It had! All I had to do was log in and voila...I was right back to where we had been, which is where we choose a plan and put it in our cart. The log in page is as simple as it gets. The second picture below the tildes is what I got after logging into my account.
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Even though the site crashed, nothing we'd done got lost. It was no different than every other site that hangs up or crashes every time I log onto the internet. It took a short period of time to apply compared to when I applied for health insurance in the past. That took lots and lots of time to fill out all the paper work. Then I had to wait for a couple of weeks until I was notified I was accepted.
On top of that, when I applied for health insurance in the past I had to wait 6 months before I could even use it after being accepted. They wanted that much money paid in before I could receive service. They also had it set up so they could cancel my policy at any time in the first 18 months if they found any reason to do so.
ObamaCare has none of that crap. Once you get a policy you don't have to wait to use it or worry about getting kicked out. Another thing is we will be paying $91 per month less than we are paying for our crap policy now....that's very cool!
Even with all the problems with the websites, this process is way faster and way easier than the old way of buying a health insurance policy. I guess we're spoiled. We expect everything to work right away...even something as huge as getting health insurance to 30,000,000 who don't have it.
Don't Be Fooled
The Heritage Foundation now presided over by Jim DeMint is running a campaign to confuse people about ObamaCare. They are saying, "individuals in most states will end up spending more on the exchanges." The GOP is spreading this as the true cost of ObamaCare.
This just isn't true (unless you are wealthy) because they aren't telling folks that the "sticker shock" is the price the for-profit-insurance companies charge for the policies NOT what you pay once your "tax credits" kick in.
And there are folks infiltrating web sites and social media sites, including DailyKos who are impostors acting like they are really into ObamaCare but so upset because their health insurance costs are going to go through the roof. These folks are plants. Don't believe their lying crap.
If you make 400% above the poverty level, you get a credit to help pay the cost of the policy. For a family of two that means you can make up to $62,040 (4 times $15,510) per year and you get the tax credit. That is very reasonable in my book. A family of three can make up to $78,120 per year. A family of four can make up to $94,200. An individual can make up to $45,960 and still get the tax credit. Cool beans!
There are only 10 percent of uninsured Americans who make above 400 percent of the poverty level. These people will not get a credit. Why they don't have health insurance is a mystery to me, since they can afford it. If they don't want a health insurance policy they can pay the "tax" then.
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