Daily Archives: Monday, October 28, 2013

We Don’t Need No Steenking Details — Book Them Orders

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A liberal friend is impassioned about how she finally will get insurance January 1.

I’m glad she was able to get a plan, glad that the combination of premium and subsidy (actually a credit against next year’s taxes as in “many people who apply will qualify for reduced costs through tax credits that are automatically applied to monthly premiums”). I hope her carrier comes through rather than dumping her, a problem reported by CBS News last night.

Premiums for 38 Plans from healthcare.gov
I also hope she was able to find enough info about the plan she chose to know what coverage she got. See, this chart I’ve printed from healthcare.gov is pretty much all the info healthcare.gov is giving us; what I see is that monthly premiums for the dozen or so “bronze” plans, f’rex, range from $413.66 to at least $548.64. The five “platinum” plans range from $721.56 to $782.63.

What’s a “bronze plan”? How much does a “gold plan” pay for what service? What’s this “Catastrophic plan” that suddenly appeared for about the same premium? Nowhere did healthcare.gov tell me what a bronze plan actually covers or why there is a difference between all the different platinums. Here in South Puffin all those platinum plans are offered by Blue Cross and only Blue Cross. How can there be a dozen different plans at a dozen different premiums that all offer the same coverage?

At least Mr. Obama promised us he’ll fix the website!

Shopping for a Medicare Advantage plan for SWMBO was a cakewalk by comparison.

 

We Don’t Need No Steenking Details — Part II

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5 years to develop Exchange website and 2 years of testing?

Say what?

“They had the architecture. They had the pieces,” software engineering manager Liz Arden said. “With any kind of competent team, this is a one-year project with the testing integrated in the development.”

“The White House said that it would fix the insurance marketplace by Nov. 30, raising the question of how people whose current policies do not comply with the law will get new coverage in time,” the Wall Street Journal reported.

Uh huh.

That’s the same White House that said, “If you like your plan, you can keep your plan.” That’s the same White House that, with rose [garden] colored glasses just days before HealthCare.gov went live, pitched how much we would love it,

The bad news? The Administration will eventually bow to pressure to extend the deadline leaving all of us *with* private insurance out in the cold. See, the policy I have (and the policy you have) is no longer available December 31.

I am one of the millions with individual or small group policies who lose our insurance on December 31. That would be the insurance policy Mr. Obama promised we could keep.

What am I supposed to do when the law says I have to buy a policy and there is no policy to buy because the federal government (we’re here to help) pulled a FEMA on us.

Oh.

FEMA.

Now I understand.

Never mind.

I'm from the Government