Just Lost My Insurance

[cb1000rider]

Sorry to hear that. I am dreading to hear what work does on our benefits (Jan 1).... regardless the cost will go up.

Unless you work with a bunch of people that are already in the high risk pool... In that event your costs may go down. It's all conjecture at this point.

I'm anxiously awaiting actual costs on this across the USA - apparently the software isn't in place to support pricing on the exchanges yet. I hear all the chest thumping on Obamacare, I want to see what the actual metrics are - or see a realistic alternative proposed.

[rotor]

Those of you that think you can look at the insurance plan and so called "benefits" have forgotten the most important part of the plan, do they have any physicians signed up? Are the hospitals signed up? Just because you have a wonderful appearing plam for $150 a month doesn't mean squat if none of the doctors will see you and none of the hospitals are signed up. Essentially that's what medicaid is, a plan that covers everything except that there are no docs that will see you and maybe the hospital will accept it. Let's also understand something else, there are docs out there that will sign up for an insurance plan if it is printed on soiled toilet paper- these might be your providers in these new plans. Dig a lot more and find out who is in the network. People in my community have all found out that many docs will not sign with Aetna let alone medicaid. Believe me, unless you are an experienced health insurance salesman you will not know how to evaluate the plans. The people pushing the plans have only taken a brief course and are like the people giving out Obama phones, they work on commission and don't know anything. Shop at your own risk!

[nightmare]

Those of you that think you can look at the insurance plan and so called "benefits" have forgotten the most important part of the plan, do they have any physicians signed up? Are the hospitals signed up? Just because you have a wonderful appearing plam for $150 a month doesn't mean squat if none of the doctors will see you and none of the hospitals are signed up. Essentially that's what medicaid is, a plan that covers everything except that there are no docs that will see you and maybe the hospital will accept it. Let's also understand something else, there are docs out there that will sign up for an insurance plan if it is printed on soiled toilet paper- these might be your providers in these new plans.

When the government runs health care, it will probably resemble the Post Office and Amtrak.

[jmra]

Those of you that think you can look at the insurance plan and so called "benefits" have forgotten the most important part of the plan, do they have any physicians signed up? Are the hospitals signed up? Just because you have a wonderful appearing plam for $150 a month doesn't mean squat if none of the doctors will see you and none of the hospitals are signed up. Essentially that's what medicaid is, a plan that covers everything except that there are no docs that will see you and maybe the hospital will accept it. Let's also understand something else, there are docs out there that will sign up for an insurance plan if it is printed on soiled toilet paper- these might be your providers in these new plans.

When the government runs health care, it will probably resemble the Post Office and Amtrak.

Now that is what I call a nightmare.

[Kythas]

Sorry to hear that. I am dreading to hear what work does on our benefits (Jan 1).... regardless the cost will go up.

Unless you work with a bunch of people that are already in the high risk pool... In that event your costs may go down. It's all conjecture at this point.

I'm anxiously awaiting actual costs on this across the USA - apparently the software isn't in place to support pricing on the exchanges yet. I hear all the chest thumping on Obamacare, I want to see what the actual metrics are - or see a realistic alternative proposed.

My total premium cost on the exchange for a family of 3, with dental and vision coverage, was approximately $14,000 for the year. Luckily, my employer is covering about 65% of that amount for me.

[Beiruty]

Sorry to hear that. I am dreading to hear what work does on our benefits (Jan 1).... regardless the cost will go up.

Unless you work with a bunch of people that are already in the high risk pool... In that event your costs may go down. It's all conjecture at this point.

I'm anxiously awaiting actual costs on this across the USA - apparently the software isn't in place to support pricing on the exchanges yet. I hear all the chest thumping on Obamacare, I want to see what the actual metrics are - or see a realistic alternative proposed.

My total premium cost on the exchange for a family of 3, with dental and vision coverage, was approximately $14,000 for the year. Luckily, my employer is covering about 65% of that amount for me.

It seems a family of 4 would pay $14k BEFORE a single cent is paid by the insurance. $7k premiums and $7k deductible! If you self-employed or semi-employed. That is a big BIG tax to swallow.

[philip964]

There is no free lunch. Some people still believe there is. Obamacare is an offer of free lunch.

There is a real need for some sort of affordable insurance for people who are denied insurance due to a pre-existing condition, I have several friends who are in this situation. They are ardent Obamacare supporters, and who would blame them.

But to turn the health care industry upside down to help these few people seems a big mistake.

I suspect we will in ten years be in a British system with two levels of health care public and private. The working class will pay a big part of their salary to support a public health care system for the non working poor. It will be so bad that they will pay again for private insurance, so that if they get sick they can go to the private system.

The public system will use waiting times for treatment to ration care, just like our friends in Canada. It will be filled with incompetence and poor care, just like the British system.

Next month will be the beginning of the brave new world.

I hope it works out better than I am imagining.

[Syntyr]

Sorry Kythas... This is where we are headed. This Is what the wanted single payer...

I am dropping my insurance this year. I will not pay the fine either. I hope the fed says something... I plan on suing!

[mojo84]

So I went through the exchange website this morning. Here's what I got.

A high-deductible plan with a Health Savings Account. The deductible is $2,000 individual/$4,000 family, which is double the deductible of my old BCBS insurance plan. Everything is paid 80/20 after the deductible is met, which is the same as my old BCBS plan.

I opted for dental and vision coverage for my wife and myself. My son is only 9 days old so will not need dental or vision this year.

I opted out of short and long term disability. The monthly premiums for those don't make much sense at all (the STD was $39/mo premium to only pay a benefit of $100/mo if used).

All in all, I'm losing the short and long term disability insurance which my company used to pay for, and am having my annual deductible doubled. The medical/dental/vision plan I chose has a total annual premium of $21,516. That includes the $6,250 annual HSA contribution I'm making. All this is paid for with pre-tax dollars.

My employer will be contributing $11,379 per year for my health insurance, leaving my portion of the total cost at $10,137.96. Again, this DOES include the amount I'm contributing to the HSA, which is all my money. Without the HSA contribution, my total share of the insurance premium itself is $3,687.96 for the year.

I was paying $322/mo for insurance premiums for my wife and myself. Since we just had our baby, this would have gone up when I switched from Employee/Spouse to Employee/Family, anyway. We were also told by BCBS that premiums would increase 20-35% this coming plan year if we stayed with them, which is why my company chose to use the exchange.

I've been paying $250/mo into a Flex Spending Account.

I will now be paying $307.33/mo for insurance premiums for my entire family.

I will be paying $537.50/mo into a Health Savings Account to cover my deductible.

All in all, I'm not unhappy with it. I will be paying more overall out of pocket, but not an exorbitant amount. My total monthly cost will go from $572.00 to $844.83. Again, to be perfectly honest, my premium would have gone up anyway since I would have switched to cover my entire family rather than just my wife and myself. This cost is probably in line with the extra person on the policy and what the annual increase would have been with BCBS.

Can you confirm those rates are 2014 rates? There are private exchanges up an running but they are quoting pre-2014 rates. It's my understanding the 2014 rates have not been released yet and people are not able to obtain quotes from the national government ran Marketplace Exchange until October 1 for a January 1 effective date.

I also heard or read this morning, can't remember which but will try to find it, a flaw was found in the way the premiums were being calculated on the gov exchange and they are working to get it corrected before 10-1 when they go live.

Would appreciate your feedback Kythas.


edit: here is the link for discussing the glitch. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142 ... 59370.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[Kythas]

So I went through the exchange website this morning. Here's what I got.

A high-deductible plan with a Health Savings Account. The deductible is $2,000 individual/$4,000 family, which is double the deductible of my old BCBS insurance plan. Everything is paid 80/20 after the deductible is met, which is the same as my old BCBS plan.

I opted for dental and vision coverage for my wife and myself. My son is only 9 days old so will not need dental or vision this year.

I opted out of short and long term disability. The monthly premiums for those don't make much sense at all (the STD was $39/mo premium to only pay a benefit of $100/mo if used).

All in all, I'm losing the short and long term disability insurance which my company used to pay for, and am having my annual deductible doubled. The medical/dental/vision plan I chose has a total annual premium of $21,516. That includes the $6,250 annual HSA contribution I'm making. All this is paid for with pre-tax dollars.

My employer will be contributing $11,379 per year for my health insurance, leaving my portion of the total cost at $10,137.96. Again, this DOES include the amount I'm contributing to the HSA, which is all my money. Without the HSA contribution, my total share of the insurance premium itself is $3,687.96 for the year.

I was paying $322/mo for insurance premiums for my wife and myself. Since we just had our baby, this would have gone up when I switched from Employee/Spouse to Employee/Family, anyway. We were also told by BCBS that premiums would increase 20-35% this coming plan year if we stayed with them, which is why my company chose to use the exchange.

I've been paying $250/mo into a Flex Spending Account.

I will now be paying $307.33/mo for insurance premiums for my entire family.

I will be paying $537.50/mo into a Health Savings Account to cover my deductible.

All in all, I'm not unhappy with it. I will be paying more overall out of pocket, but not an exorbitant amount. My total monthly cost will go from $572.00 to $844.83. Again, to be perfectly honest, my premium would have gone up anyway since I would have switched to cover my entire family rather than just my wife and myself. This cost is probably in line with the extra person on the policy and what the annual increase would have been with BCBS.

Can you confirm those rates are 2014 rates? There are private exchanges up an running but they are quoting pre-2014 rates. It's my understanding the 2014 rates have not been released yet and people are not able to obtain quotes from the national government ran Marketplace Exchange until October 1 for a January 1 effective date.

I also heard or read this morning, can't remember which but will try to find it, a flaw was found in the way the premiums were being calculated on the gov exchange and they are working to get it corrected before 10-1 when they go live.

Would appreciate your feedback Kythas.


edit: here is the link for discussing the glitch. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142 ... 59370.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Mojo, the rates I have quoted are the rates I will begin paying Oct 1 of this year through Sept 30 of next year.

It seems a family of 4 would pay $14k BEFORE a single cent is paid by the insurance. $7k premiums and $7k deductible! If you self-employed or semi-employed. That is a big BIG tax to swallow.

Beiruty,

The $14,000 is premium only. It doesn't include the deductible. In my case, the deductible is $2,000 per individual/$4,000 per family. Insurance pays nothing before the deductible is met. It pays 80% after the deductible is met.

My current BCBS insurance policy, which is being dropped for Obamacare, has a $1,000 per individual/$2,000 per family deductible. Let me put that in a little perspective here. My wife just had a baby 10 days ago. With all the prenatal visits, ultrasounds, etc. related to being pregnant over the year, she still has not hit her $1,000 deductible. We don't expect either of us hitting either our individual or family deductibles this next year. Therefore, we don't expect our new insurance plan to pay anything. All our health care expenses will be out of pocket. And we still have to pay this premium.

[mojo84]

ok. That makes sense then. Those are current rates and not the new 2014 Obamacare rates. The government exchanges will not be open until October 1, if then.

[mamabearCali]

Well we just got our letter. We have a pretty high deductible (7K) with what had been a lower premium. It wound up being something like $500 a month for our family all told (health savings account and premium). We have not been told how much everything is going up, but we have been told it is going up. After 4 years of no (or next to no) raises, no standard of living increases, negligable bonusess rising food and gas prices and now this it really is starting to hit hard.

We would sell our house and move to a smaller one....but of course we are underwater. Thank you Congress....you worthless animals.

[gemini]

I haven't had any insurance since February of 2008. You manage, that's all.

I found a doctor who does not take insurance. Cash, check or credit card only. Office visit is $35, yesterday he wanted to do an EKG, it cost me an extra $10
I see him twice a year to get BP meds renewed.

OMG. Hang onto him! We had a old time "Doc" for years. He died about 6 years ago. Office visit, minor
surgery, treat a broken collar bone ? $50. That's right, $50 was the flat rate. Due to health issues he was
forced to close his office 2 years prior to his death. When asked who he recommended we see for future medical
needs his response was, "I don't like any of the new doctors, they charge too much, and are in medicine for
the wrong reasons".

[sjfcontrol]

I got my notice the other day that the Texas Health Insurance Pool was ending effective 1/1/2014

[Texheim]

I was told we're dropping ours too. Oh well, I'll go on my wife's.