5 ms·
To say they have completely replaced healthcare.gov would be stupid, but have the developers said that? I went and had a look at thehealthsherpa vs healthcare.g
by grey-area 13y ago
To say they have completely replaced healthcare.gov would be stupid, but have the developers said that? I went and had a look at thehealthsherpa vs healthcare.gov. The people how made thehealthsherpa don't seem stupid to me - in fact they've identified the main pain point with the healthcare.gov website for the user, and tried to do something about it. The experience was as follows:
http://www.thehealthsherpa.com/ http://www.thehealthsherpa.com/
Enter your zip
Look at a list of plans with filters for my info.
Click one of the plans for info and get a phone no
I didn't have to fill in some long forms, I got straight to the info which counts without giving out any identifiable info.
https://www.healthcare.gov https://www.healthcare.gov
Click on see plans now - this leads to a page of info with no plans information - great! Hit back.
Go back to home and click 'apply online'
Choose a state - read some info on the problems with this state
Click another apply online button
Click 'get started' to really get started this time!
Am confronted with a form asking for all my personal details, I stopped here.
Now of course that doesn't mean they have replaced healthcare.gov, or done in two weeks what all those developers working for the gov took $400m, but I'd say they've delivered something which is more valuable because it delivers what people actually want - a quick set of choices about healthcare for their specific area, and contact details for the same. It's a good summary of a complicated situation, presumably based on lots of the hard work done for healthcare.gov (assume they scraped the data).
You're not going to sign up for a plan without verifying costs anyway (by phone or on the providers website), so providing a quick summary with contact info is really all they need. I'm not convinced the apply online side of obamacare is actually helpful...
In the UK and quite a few other countries, this monthly insurance cost comes out of taxes and we don't choose an insurer, I think I prefer that single-payer solution.
- kalleboo 13y agoThe original healthcare.gov allowed for as they call it "window shopping", but a decree from the White House less than 2 months before launch demanded they change it to require a signup. edit: fixed time period
- 001sky 13y agoI also want to be an informed citizen, and "how much does it really cost" is an obvious question that anybody might be inclined to ask. In my view, knowing the magnitude of the numbers should help provide a reference point for political debate. From one of the comments, below
- kalleboo 13y ago> should help provide a reference point for political debate So the official healthcare.gov is by design then.
- 001sky 13y agoMost Uninsured Americans Ignoring Health Exchange Sites Three in 10 are familiar with the exchanges November 8, 2013 Eighteen percent of uninsured Americans have attempted to visit a healthcare exchange website. The percentage is slightly higher, 22%, among uninsured Americans who plan to get insurance through the exchanges. ____________________ == Working like a charm.
- wildgift 13y agoThis is probably because a lot of them lack internet. Our internet penetration is around 75%. Medical insurance is 85%. I suspect there's a lot of overlap between the un-internetted and un-insured.