Healthcare.gov for US citizens

[Sunday21]

Hi. Have you looked at Healthcare.gov? I understand that the deadline to signup is mid December. It seems to cover pre-existing conditions and children can be signed up on their parents plan.

Edited November 10, 2017 by Sunday21

[Jane_Doe]

Yeah, it's horrible inefficient sign up process.  I've also had some really bad experiences with them.

[NeedleinA]

We have used this since it came out. They just cut our families health insurance premium for next year by almost 50% compared to this year. This took me back as I didn't believe it... you know, something good for a change. I checked around with other families I know in the program to see if they saw the same thing. Apparently the subsidies they are offering are a lot more now and so they also saw the drop in premium rates too.

We have a "coach" who takes us through the process that @Jane_Doe was discouraged about. He is free as long as we give him credit in the sign up process. The government must pay him on the backside to compensate for his time in helping families like ours.

Point of reference we are a family of 6, high deductible $12,500, and will be paying around $290 ish a month.
I have a relative with a family of 4, high deductible $12,500 and will be paying $0 a month.

Go figure...

 

[NeuroTypical]

For the love of pete, make sure you have health insurance from somewhere.  People who didn't have healthcare in 2016 got $695 per person penalties at tax time.   For 2017, it could be upwards of $2085.  

[The Folk Prophet]

Just by way of pointless debate ("pointless" being a subjective term): If something covers pre-existing conditions it is not, by definition, insurance. It's just flat out charity.

[Just_A_Guy]

6 minutes ago, The Folk Prophet said:

Just by way of pointless debate ("pointless" being a subjective term): If something covers pre-existing conditions it is not, by definition, insurance. It's just flat out charity.

1.  Watch house burn down.

2.  Force fire insurance company to sell the homeowner a retroactive policy.

What could possibly go wrong?

[NeuroTypical]

19 minutes ago, The Folk Prophet said:

Just by way of pointless debate ("pointless" being a subjective term): If something covers pre-existing conditions it is not, by definition, insurance. It's just flat out charity.

Just to crank it up to 8: It's not charity when the other half of the phrase "to each according to their need" also applies. 

[The Folk Prophet]

52 minutes ago, NeuroTypical said:

Just to crank it up to 8: It's not charity when the other half of the phrase "to each according to their need" also applies. 

It's also not charity when it's forcibly taken from the "donor" by gun threat. That's called theft.

[anatess2]

8 hours ago, Sunday21 said:

Hi. Have you looked at Healthcare.gov? I understand that the deadline to signup is mid December. It seems to cover pre-existing conditions and children can be signed up on their parents plan.

We've only been lambasting this since it came out back in.. 2012 was it?  Ever heard of Obamacare?

[Guest Godless]

2 hours ago, Just_A_Guy said:

1.  Watch house burn down.

2.  Force fire insurance company to sell the homeowner a retroactive policy.

What could possibly go wrong?

It always irks me to see people compare human lives to cars and houses. 

Also, what happens when someone with diabetes, recurring cancer, or some other long-term ailment (for the sake of argument, let's assume these ailments arose while they were insured, not before) changes insurance companies? Are they screwed on their new plan because their previously-covered condition is now a pre-existing one? It seems that some people would like that to be the case. 

[anatess2]

8 minutes ago, Godless said:

It always irks me to see people compare human lives to cars and houses. 

Also, what happens when someone with diabetes, recurring cancer, or some other long-term ailment (for the sake of argument, let's assume these ailments arose while they were insured, not before) changes insurance companies? Are they screwed on their new plan because their previously-covered condition is now a pre-existing one? It seems that some people would like that to be the case. 

It always irks me to see people striving to govern others by guilt rather than charity.

[The Folk Prophet]

10 minutes ago, Godless said:

It always irks me to see people compare human lives to cars and houses. 

That's because you're missing the point of the comparison. It's not about the cars and houses that are being compared to human life. But people tend to get blinded by the "emotion" of the fact that it's human life being dealt with and so won't look at the economics of it, and yet they will  with cars and houses. The point, of course, is that if you want to pay for people with pre-existing conditions, then pay for it. Just don't call it insurance. It's dishonest.

Edited November 10, 2017 by The Folk Prophet

[Just_A_Guy]

1 hour ago, Godless said:

It always irks me to see people compare human lives to cars and houses. 

Also, what happens when someone with diabetes, recurring cancer, or some other long-term ailment (for the sake of argument, let's assume these ailments arose while they were insured, not before) changes insurance companies? Are they screwed on their new plan because their previously-covered condition is now a pre-existing one? It seems that some people would like that to be the case. 

As @anatess2 says, the point of the comparison is that such a business model is not viable.  Like it or not, health care is a commodity—it costs money; and someone’s got to pay for it.  (Unless we want to revoke the 13th amendment and compel doctors to ply their trades for free.)  You have a right not to have your life taken away by me.  But I am not dismissing the value of your life by pointing out that you do not have the right to usurp my life, liberty, or property to preserve or extend your own life beyond its natural span.  (More power to you if you can do this with your own resources; but I’ve got my hands full looking to my own life and those of my loved ones.)

As I understand it, at least pre-PPACA, if all you did was switch coverage your old insurer would give you a “certificate of creditable coverage” which your new insurer would have to honor and your “pre-existings” would thus be covered.  That makes sense to me.  What doesn’t make sense, is the notion that I can go uninsured for ten years, pay $150 for health coverage in January 2017, and get $500K worth of chemotherapy in February 2017.  That sort of naked free-loading is the issue the “mandate” tried to resolve—but unfortunately the “mandate” a) constitutes a civil liberties infringement in its own right, and b) was engineered as a redistributive scheme rather than a simple “forced-savings” plan.

Edited November 10, 2017 by Just_A_Guy

[omegaseamaster75]

5 hours ago, NeedleinA said:

We have used this since it came out. They just cut our families health insurance premium for next year by almost 50% compared to this year. This took me back as I didn't believe it... you know, something good for a change. I checked around with other families I know in the program to see if they saw the same thing. Apparently the subsidies they are offering are a lot more now and so they also saw the drop in premium rates too.

We have a "coach" who takes us through the process that @Jane_Doe was discouraged about. He is free as long as we give him credit in the sign up process. The government must pay him on the backside to compensate for his time in helping families like ours.

Point of reference we are a family of 6, high deductible $12,500, and will be paying around $290 ish a month.
I have a relative with a family of 4, high deductible $12,500 and will be paying $0 a month.

Go figure...

 

With $12,500 deductibles it is basicly the same thing as not having insurance (unless you get hit by a bus). 

[anatess2]

20 minutes ago, omegaseamaster75 said:

With $12,500 deductibles it is basicly the same thing as not having insurance (unless you get hit by a bus). 

Except you're paying $290 a month to not have insurance.  My family of 4 does not spend more than $290 a month on our own healthcare without insurance.  I can put that $290 a month on a Health Savings Account, drop the insurance (when it becomes legal to not have it again), and by the end of the year, I'll have $3,000 saved up for when the kids have to wheel me to the hospice... or if I get hit by a bus.

Edited November 10, 2017 by anatess2

[JohnsonJones]

Hmm, I've never had to go to Healthcare.gov, I get health insurance via work.  What do you know, once again my costs went up another 20% this year.  It KEEPS going up and up and up.

Now, I'm ALL for helping EVERYONE get health insurance and get the medical aid they need.  I'd even say it was a right...BUT...

The ACA is NOT the way to do it.  In essence, instead of actually tackling the problem of what causes us to pay high medical prices, they handed the reins to those who cause the prices to go up each year in the first place...or one of the big reasons.  You DO NOT give power to private business that want to make money and trust them to not raise those rates.  It's just not going to happen. 

I'm all for giving people the medical help they need.  I think it is actually almost requisite on a moral society, but we went and did it the absolutely worst way possible (well, almost the worst way, we could have done worse).  Even single payer is better than what we have now...which many who don't like the ACA probably wouldn't agree with.

Every year I see my rates grow for the employer health insurance we are offered.  I lost my "silver" plan last year due to the Federal government (it was great, we had everything covered 100%, and paid higher rates for it), but now, I'm paying the same amount I did for my "silver" plan this upcoming year (edit: if the estimates are correct in what is expected for it to cost us next year), but with less benefits.

I think I'm not unusual for the middle to upper middle class.  As our prices go up our benefits go down under the ACA.  That's probably the #1 reason for people like me that are opposed to the ACA.  It has nothing to do with helping others, we WANT others to be helped with their medical needs.  It's that the prices keep getting higher, and the benefits keep getting less.

Edit: The above is my current thoughts or opinion, it can be malleable though.

Edited November 10, 2017 by JohnsonJones

[NeuroTypical]

Sounds like there are a lot of fortunate folks here who are blissfully far away from stories of someone just standing there living life one day, and then something happens and they end up with 50,000 - $300,000 in medical bills over the next year.

Catastrophic health insurance is indeed health insurance.  

[anatess2]

22 minutes ago, NeuroTypical said:

Sounds like there are a lot of fortunate folks here who are blissfully far away from stories of someone just standing there living life one day, and then something happens and they end up with 50,000 - $300,000 in medical bills over the next year.

Catastrophic health insurance is indeed health insurance.  

My father went through 4 years worth of chemotherapy for lung cancer without insurance... So, that statement is very catty.

Edited November 10, 2017 by anatess2

[NeedleinA]

2 hours ago, omegaseamaster75 said:

With $12,500 deductibles it is basicly the same thing as not having insurance (unless you get hit by a bus). 

This is why I have health insurance, like @NeuroTypical said, mostly for catastrophic issues, the kind that would otherwise put our family in debtors prison for decades to come. I should clarify $12,500 is our family deductible, individual is around $6,000. Only takes a wife needing a surgery to remove some of her girly parts one year to pass this 6k figure up... I speak from experience.

2 hours ago, anatess2 said:

Except you're paying $290 a month to not have insurance.  My family of 4 does not spend more than $290 a month on our own healthcare without insurance.  I can put that $290 a month on a Health Savings Account, drop the insurance (when it becomes legal to not have it again), and by the end of the year, I'll have $3,000 saved up for when the kids have to wheel me to the hospice... or if I get hit by a bus.

All depends on what your definition of insurance is and what it is supposed to provide you. We also have Health Savings Accounts (HSA) and max contribute to them each year. If we don't have health issues through out the year than it stays in there and grows as a tax write off. I'm not willing to risk my families financial health in an attempt to penny pinch $3,600 against a $300,000 gamble.

2 hours ago, NeuroTypical said:

Sounds like there are a lot of fortunate folks here who are blissfully far away from stories of someone just standing there living life one day, and then something happens and they end up with 50,000 - $300,000 in medical bills over the next year.

Catastrophic health insurance is indeed health insurance.  

Bingo.

Edited November 11, 2017 by NeedleinA

[anatess2]

41 minutes ago, NeedleinA said:

All depends on what your definition of insurance is and what it is supposed to provide you. We also have Health Savings Accounts (HSA) and max contribute to them each year. If we don't have health issues through out the year than it stays in there and grows as a tax write off. I'm not willing to risk my families financial health in an attempt to penny pinch $3,600 against a $300,000 gamble.

My definition of insurance is catastrophic.  Not fever or well-checks or birth control or Bruce-to-Caitlyn surgery.

Before Obamacare, we had Hospital and Surgical coverage only plus an HSA.  It covered 100% of my son's broken arm, my other son's stitches on his head, and a bout of pneumonia.  Zero deductible.  THAT'S catastrophic insurance.  Not... you have to come up with $12,500 first even if you get hit by a bus.  It's catastrophic enough that you got hit by a bus!  And yeah, my family of 4 was around a hundred bucks a month.

Thank you Obamacare for getting rid of my insurance.  What is it that they said, "You like your insurance, you get to keep your insurance"?

Edited November 11, 2017 by anatess2

[JoCa]

Health care in the country became screwed up when they started forcing hospitals to serve anyone who walked through the door.  That was the end.

Prior to that you had charity hospitals . .. lower service but that is what charity is, lower service but at least it's service.  But no, we live in such a spoiled world people don't want to be responsible and then want someone else to pay for it with the same level of service.

[NeuroTypical]

The common thing you hear right-wingers blather about is "what will you do when all the good doctors flee the country because we screwed up stuff so badly?"  Such crazy talk.

We had access to a world-class pediatric surgeon, just at the right time.  Got my daughter's feet all fixed early on in her life with the latest and greatest technique.  It came time for a follow-up visit, and there was a problem scheduling it.  Apparently, the doc had had enough with the way things were going in the states, quit her practice, and left the country.   I told my wife, she said "Huh - I guess she went through with it."

 

[a mustard seed]

So, what now? We'll get a penalty in taxes this year if we don't have health insurance? I didn't have any for most of 2015 and didn't have any for any of 2016...or 2017. But now, I'm going to be signing up with the school's insurance when I go this January. As far as I know, last years taxes did not penalize me in any way(I never got a bill, was I supposed to take the initiative and go find a bill for that?) when I filed. Will the penalty show up this year in taxes or are these bills/penalties stacking up unpaid somewhere that I don't know about?

[JohnsonJones]

3 hours ago, NeuroTypical said:

The common thing you hear right-wingers blather about is "what will you do when all the good doctors flee the country because we screwed up stuff so badly?"  Such crazy talk.

We had access to a world-class pediatric surgeon, just at the right time.  Got my daughter's feet all fixed early on in her life with the latest and greatest technique.  It came time for a follow-up visit, and there was a problem scheduling it.  Apparently, the doc had had enough with the way things were going in the states, quit her practice, and left the country.   I told my wife, she said "Huh - I guess she went through with it."

 

Where did she go where there is not socialized medicine and they actually pay even half as well as the US.  Germany pays pretty well, but they have what the US calls socialized medicine (Far more extensive then the US).

I suppose she could have gone to Mexico, they LOVE the specialized doctors, especially if they are American because the gangs feel they can get higher ransoms off of them. (Mexico also has universal healthcare these days as well, so there's also that).

I do know that some older doctors simply just closed up shop, but that was because they were older and could just retire than deal with some of the stuff that came down the pipe with the ACA.

However, the US pays doctors the best out of any place in the world in general with an exception here or there (the Netherlands for example pays pretty darn good on the average salary, so better than many specialists, but not as good as some others, around 270K for a specialist these days) from what I understand.  Much of the rest of the first world is on socialized medicine, and so doctors may still make six figures in some nations, but it IS far more socialized than anything the ACA does (if the ACA gives them a headache...they'd hate the other nations).  A specialist here making 400K, could probably still break over 100K, but it's might not  be like the 500K they are used to.  On the otherhand, there are some foreign nations with socialized medicine which actually do pay the doctors pretty well.  Some General practice and Family medicine may be able to make more money elsewhere under those rules than they do in some of the locations in the US (especially those in more rural areas).

Other places where they might be able to make some really good money with the right clients and in the right situations have other hazards (Like Mexico City) which is an interesting choice if they choose that.  Australia supposedly pays their specialists pretty well, but that's with a system of universal healthcare somewhat like what they would have to deal with under the ACA...and the Netherlands pays specialists better then the US on average...but once again...universal healthcare (I believe the Netherlands also supposedly have one of the best healthcare systems in the world).

I've heard doctors grumble about the ACA, but the only ones that I know actually decided to stop practice in the US were those who were actually around retirement anyways, or close enough to be able to retire and stop their practice. 

That doesn't mean there weren't those that stopped practice and closed up shop because of the ACA...I'd be curious as to where they went and what they are doing now though, because it seems invariably that they would take a massive pay cut (not much call for a pediatric surgeon who isn't doing pediatric surgery).

Any idea where the pediatric surgeon went?  Or what happened to Her?  I'm pretty curious in that regard.  Did she just move and start up again in another nation, or did she actually go to another nation with socialized medicine (which one?  Canada? probably means she didn't move due to the ACA in that case though) ,or move and find another career path?

It would be interesting to hear what she did.

[JoCa]

45 minutes ago, JohnsonJones said:

 

However, the US pays doctors the best out of any place in the world in general with an exception here or there

Yeah except it's all about supply and demand.  How many people that would have become doctors now decide not to b/c it's too much hassle or they worry about true fully socialized medicine.  I know as of today, I would severely advise any teenager thinking about becoming a doctor to reconsider their choice of profession in life. Because more likely than not at some point in their lifetime we will have single payer fully socialized medicine.

And when that happens you can guarantee that what they charge will severely be capped.  People really don't understand the absolute destruction that O-care is and will cause.  Hospitals in rural areas are completely dying and going out of business . . . supply and demand . . . and with less doctors available it will make prices go much higher.

Idiot lawmakers . . . and idiot public.

Edited November 12, 2017 by JoCa