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.

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.