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>> And having learned that, you could now go to individual insurer's sites, or varios... marketplaces? Yes. That is the message that is not getting thru, I thi

by jorgem 13y ago

>> And having learned that, you could now go to individual insurer's sites, or varios... marketplaces? Yes. That is the message that is not getting thru, I think.

hga 13y ago
Well, there's the caveat that the Federal site has the last word on whether you're really due a subsidy.... If you can't afford, or can only afford a new Obamacare policy, you'd really like to know you aren't due a subsidy, and how much do you trust random non .gov web sites??? And I think most of us know why that message "is not getting through". (Totally unrelated side note: damn it, we really should change standard legitimate English so through -> thru and leave thorough standing "by itself".)
- tanzam75 13y ago
  > Well, there's the caveat that the Federal site has the last word on whether you're really due a subsidy.... It's worse than that. You are required to buy through the exchange to get a subsidy. The way the law is written, you cannot get a subsidy if you buy insurance off-exchange. The absolute worst case is someone who earns precisely 400% of federal poverty level, buys a policy outside the exchange, gets laid off on April 1, and can't find a job for the rest of the year. Open enrollment is over, and he's stuck paying full-price even though he only earned 100% of federal poverty level. This is the absolute worst-case scenario -- but even less dramatic examples could still benefit from the exchange. Earn 600% of FPL? Are you 100% positive that you won't get laid off before August? The optionality is worth keeping. We've only got 7.5 weeks to go before some plans start expiring. Healthcare.gov had better be 100% operational by then. > damn it, we really should change standard legitimate English so through -> thru Teddy Roosevelt thought so, too. That was 100 years ago. It didn't really stick, highway signs excepted.
  - hga 13y ago
    Ack, I didn't realize that screw case. And we've got less time; realistically, the insurance companies need finite time to process enrollments. The official deadline is December 15th, which I've been modifying to "mid-December" assuming they do a Maximum Effort if the exchanges are working well enough to give them a lot of valid enrollments. And of course a lot of people who don't realize this, got to a subsidy calculator like the Kaiser Foundation's and satisfy their gut feeling they aren't due one, will bypass the dysfunctional exchanges and just buy on their own ... then some subset who hit hard times will get screwed. Blah. Thanks for the good discussion and bringing up yet another screw case.
    - tanzam75 13y ago
      Well, it's not quite that bad. Until open enrollment ends, you could always drop your off-exchange coverage and re-buy on the exchange. So up until March 31, you only lose a pro-rated portion of the subsidy due to you. That's why I selected April 1 as the worst-case scenario. When open enrollment ends, the potential lost subsidy jumps from 25% to 100%. You have to wait until the next open-enrollment period to change plans. But that having been said: why should anyone give up even $1 of the subsidy due to him, because of a failure of healthcare.gov? That's why I think the subsidy should be claimable off-exchange: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6702966 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6702966 Problem is, the requirement to buy on-exchange to get the subsidy is written into the law. That means that it is not changing. The Republicans certainly won't want to fix any screw-ups in the implementation of Obamacare.

by jorgem 13y ago

>> And having learned that, you could now go to individual insurer's sites, or varios... marketplaces? Yes. That is the message that is not getting thru, I think.

hga 13y ago

Well, there's the caveat that the Federal site has the last word on whether you're really due a subsidy.... If you can't afford, or can only afford a new Obamacare policy, you'd really like to know you aren't due a subsidy, and how much do you trust random non .gov web sites??? And I think most of us know why that message "is not getting through". (Totally unrelated side note: damn it, we really should change standard legitimate English so through -> thru and leave thorough standing "by itself".)

tanzam75 13y ago
> Well, there's the caveat that the Federal site has the last word on whether you're really due a subsidy.... It's worse than that. You are required to buy through the exchange to get a subsidy. The way the law is written, you cannot get a subsidy if you buy insurance off-exchange. The absolute worst case is someone who earns precisely 400% of federal poverty level, buys a policy outside the exchange, gets laid off on April 1, and can't find a job for the rest of the year. Open enrollment is over, and he's stuck paying full-price even though he only earned 100% of federal poverty level. This is the absolute worst-case scenario -- but even less dramatic examples could still benefit from the exchange. Earn 600% of FPL? Are you 100% positive that you won't get laid off before August? The optionality is worth keeping. We've only got 7.5 weeks to go before some plans start expiring. Healthcare.gov had better be 100% operational by then. > damn it, we really should change standard legitimate English so through -> thru Teddy Roosevelt thought so, too. That was 100 years ago. It didn't really stick, highway signs excepted.
- hga 13y ago
  Ack, I didn't realize that screw case. And we've got less time; realistically, the insurance companies need finite time to process enrollments. The official deadline is December 15th, which I've been modifying to "mid-December" assuming they do a Maximum Effort if the exchanges are working well enough to give them a lot of valid enrollments. And of course a lot of people who don't realize this, got to a subsidy calculator like the Kaiser Foundation's and satisfy their gut feeling they aren't due one, will bypass the dysfunctional exchanges and just buy on their own ... then some subset who hit hard times will get screwed. Blah. Thanks for the good discussion and bringing up yet another screw case.
  - tanzam75 13y ago
    Well, it's not quite that bad. Until open enrollment ends, you could always drop your off-exchange coverage and re-buy on the exchange. So up until March 31, you only lose a pro-rated portion of the subsidy due to you. That's why I selected April 1 as the worst-case scenario. When open enrollment ends, the potential lost subsidy jumps from 25% to 100%. You have to wait until the next open-enrollment period to change plans. But that having been said: why should anyone give up even $1 of the subsidy due to him, because of a failure of healthcare.gov? That's why I think the subsidy should be claimable off-exchange: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6702966 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6702966 Problem is, the requirement to buy on-exchange to get the subsidy is written into the law. That means that it is not changing. The Republicans certainly won't want to fix any screw-ups in the implementation of Obamacare.