chuck toad can't bad mouth the ACA rollout enough....day in, day out.

[spanone]

m$nbc is trying it's best to rectify the two weeks of republican bashing over the gov't. shutdown

[kydo]

1. bagger meme that was so two weeks ago

but this toon pretty much sums up bagger thought waves, that of course is assuming baggers are even capable of having rational thoughts these days to begin with.

[BlueStreak]

4. Excuse me? It is an ongoing problem

Maybe you have your coverage provided for you. Maybe you live in a state that has a functioning program. Maybe you aren't being forced to suffer the healthcare.gov site.

But I would have expected at DU there would be some empathy for those of us who are having to deal with this problem.

In my case, I have a policy in force. But my insurance company is using the occasion of the 2014 requirements to terminate that policy and force me to buy a more expensive plan. So like it or not, I have to be able to shop in the exchange. The status as of today is that I can USUALLY get logged in, but about 50% of the time when you click on a link, you never get to the nest page. Or worse than that, you get to the next page, but it doesn't display any of the data that is supposed to be there.

This morning, I am trying to print the details for 7 policies I want to research in more depth. After 80 minutes and a call to the help desk, I was only able to pull up only 3 of them. Now it appears the system is running so poorly I will not be able to pull up the other 4 until late tonight.

And when I do get this information, the most important question is what is the coverage network for each. The website has nice links that answer that question, except for the fact that every one of them is BROKEN. So tomorrow I will have to get on the phone calling the individual companies to answer this most basic question of which hospital systems are considered in network. The cheapest policies, I suspect, include only the hospital system that I refuse to use.

So go ahead and make your jokes about this. But understand for a lot of us, this is a serious problem and we don't really appreciate people dismissing this as if it is not a monumental screw-up.

[hedgehog]

7. The problem is that we hear a lot of anecdotes, but no real numbers.

My impression is that it's a problem with the federal system, but not the various state systems. For example, yesterday I heard the governor of Kentucky applauding the success of Kentucky's web site in signing up 1000 a day. It's not really clear how many people can't get signed up. Given the atmosphere, any reports of problems are seen as an extension of the effort to bash Obamacare.

[BlueStreak]

11. Yes, because the administration is carefully avoiding giving any numbers for Healthcare.gov

The numbers I have seen are all inclusive of the various state exchanges, and most of those seem to be working well, or at least working a lot better than the Federal exchange.

If I had selected the first policy I saw without doing any research about the benefits, I guess I might be signed up by now. Or maybe not, because I don't know what other challenges exist further on in this IT obstacle course.

But it is not acceptable to just randomly pick a plan. I need to know what is covered and what is not. i need to know which hospitals and doctors are in network and which are not. This really doesn't seem too much to ask.

I have literally been spending at least an hour a day on this most of the days since October 1 and I am still nowhere close to having the most basic information to make a selection.

I am pro-Obama. I am pro-universal health care. Just imagine how this is all hitting the people who aren't so favorable to Obama and his message of "Government that works".

We should not be blaming Chuck Todd or anybody else. At least they are reporting the truth for a change.

[hedgehog]

12. I thoght that the various programs, bronze, silver, gold, were pretty much comparable -

Bronze A = Bronze B = Bronze C. Are you finding something different?

An alternative is to call your providers and ask if they are in system for A , B and/or C

I know that under my employer's plan, the only information we get is notice of a deductible, co-pays, short list of 100% covertgage, short list of excluded items (cosmetic surgery, etc). The prescriptions are covered under a price table, but you have to look up each medication to find out the tier, and even then, you don't know the price, just the tier.

If you run into a situation, say, in which you want to get some grafting done on that nasty burn you got on your face, you will probably have to run a gauntlet to prove it's not cosmetic in order to get covered. The same for that cancer treatment - is it experimental, off-label or covered? I've never heard of a plan that will tell you that ahead of time.


What you haven't told us is whether you have insurance now, and if so, how the prices and coverage compares.

[BlueStreak]

13. In my market the plans are all over the map

There is a silver plan with $1000 deductible and $1000 max out of pocket. This is the LOWEST cost policy.

Same company has a gold plan with $1500 deductible and $12,000 max out of pocket, and it costs $552.62 more per month. I think the difference is coverage for out-of-state incidents, but there may be a different in the in-state provider network also. I plan to call the insurers directly, but right now, I am simply trying to print out the details for each plan so I can determine which of the 18 plans are worth considering. And I can't even get that simple task done.

Assuming I am able to select a plan based on discussions with the insurers, I believe I will still have to go back to Healthcare.gov to apply in order to get the tax credit.

[BlueStreak]

14. I should mention that there are only 2 companies offering policies and I never heard of one of them

Anthem Blue Cross has most of the policies. Then there is this outfit called MDwise. I have no idea who that is. So for all practical purposes, there is only one company in the market, and they are jacking up the prices like crazy.

From what I can tell, MDwise is an Indiana company that was formed to handle Medicaid, and they have a focus on the low end of the market. I am betting they are hooked into the scam that Governor Pence is trying to run by getting the Medicaid expansion money without actually expanding Medicaid. So I am going nowhere near that outfit. That means I have only one choice (BCBS) and they are the ones that have my current policy and are taking this opportunity to jack up the prices big time.

I think the most positive things that can be said about this phase of ACA are:

1) This is a framework that at least has a possibility of increasing competition in the future, and/or allowing for the introduction of a public option to force competition, but that doesn't do me any good this year.

2) It will help a lot of low income people get coverage, especially if they live in states that are expanding medicaid, but not in my state.

3) With the tax credit, I might be able to get my new coverage for what I was paying before this change, which is to say that the taxpayers are just handing Anthem a huge bonus and getting very little in return.

4) In other states, the outcomes are probably a lot better. I am truly happy for those who live in the "first-world states," but I would appreciate those who are so quick to dismiss these issues to try to raise some empathy for those who are being put through the grinder on this.

[hedgehog]

17. How much of your complaints are due to having Republicans run your state government?

I'm not sure what Obama can do if the state government sets out to screw up the program.


Some people really fell into a gap. The law assumes people making a certain point above poverty level and below would be covered for free by expanded Medicaid, so the premium rebates were set for people making above that amount. The problem is that some Republican governors have turned down the money to expand Medicaid, so now these people are faced with having to pay for insurance they really can't afford.

[BlueStreak]

18. We can blame the Republican governor for not doing Medicaid expansion

But that doesn't affect me. And we can blame Pence for not doing our own exchange, but they probably would have screed that up worse than Healthcare.gov.

The problems I am having are directly on Obama:

1) the website is central to the program and it is an incompetent mess.

2) He adopted the republican concept of letting the private insurance companies continue to have a monopoly. In some states, there is enough real competition for the "blessings of the free market" to actually work in the real world. But in my state, I am FAR worse off now than before the exchange because a) there is no new competition, and b) the introduction of the exchange created the smoke screen that allowed Anthem to jam huge price increases.

I really don't like the concept of dividing the country into first world states and third world states and asking those of us in the third world states to sit down and shut up because things are better in California and New York.

[hedgehog]

15. I did some looking, and i think the difference in the plans is

in the amount that must be covered, which I think is 60%, 70%, 80%. The kicker is that it's 60% of all the costs of all the people in a given plan, not the individuals in that plan. That explains a lot, since I think that means what we see in terms of premiums, deductibles and max out of pocket is each individual company's best prediction of what it will cost them to cover the group.

I'm not sure why a Gold plan would cost more and have a higher deductible unless the particular company doesn't really want to get into that market.

All plans at all levels have to cover a group of 10 basic categories of benefits.

[BlueStreak]

16. That is not my understanding.

My understanding is that:

- preventive services are covered 100% on all plans
- for all other services, you pay 100% until you hit the deductible
- After reaching the deductible, you pay 70%, 80% whatever based on the level of the plan

I don't think it has anything to do with the overall pool.

I think the big differences are that some plans include dental, some plans have a bigger coverage network, some plans cover out-of-state incidents, etc. In other words, there are still a lot of variables. "Gold" is not the same as "gold". You really do have to research it, and that is why people are so angry about this system. You cannot even consistently pull up information, and some things, such as coverage networks, are altogether broken.

[Glitterati]

8. You know what? I have to get signed up too

eventually. Self employed and 30 years uninsured with a pre-existing condition.

But, you know what else? NONE of this goes into effect until January. I'm prepared to exhibit some patience and WAIT until the crimps are worked out of the system.

It's simply NOT like you MUST do this today.

[kydo]

10. It is an on going problem

I'm not denying that. My comment was about the typical bagger meme - it has a glitch, it is destroying our country, quick kill it or at least hash this glitch to death. We know there is a problem. But the media IMO is beating a dead horse right now. I'm sick of hearing from the media how bad the glitches (not new ones but the same ones) are and especially from a group of people that are doing their damnedest to get rid of the ACA.

I want it fixed too and my post was not in any way directed at you or people like you, that need the service and it is not working properly. My post is directed at chuck toadie stool todd and those like him that are only repeating what their bosses are telling them to report about. IMO they missed their chance to use this for political gain when they shut the government down. But right now the reason there is 24/7 reporting on these glitches is not to actually help solve the problem but to use it for political gain.

Actually I am very angry with people like toadie using a real issue just for scoring political points. This isn't a game.

Again I'm sorry if you think I am dismissing people.

[deutsey]

2. Jan Crawford of CBS practically salivates whenever she has a chance to bash Obama

Not surprising, I suppose, considering her ties with the Federalist Society:

http://www.fed-soc.org/publications/author/jan-crawford



And I have my critiques of the President, but I don't try passing them off as news reporting like she does.

[Glitterati]

3. Very much like DUer "dkf"

who lovingly posts one Obamacare bashing thread after another with such glee!

[hedgehog]

5. It's become the meme for lazy journalists everywhere.

[chelsea0011]

6. Massachusetts unveiled a glitch prone unemployment site back in July. I guess they should have

just ended unemployment as a way to fix it.

[Bobcat]

9. Medicare D

Have there been any references/comparisons to the problem-riddled rollout of the Medicare D drug program in 2006.? Didn't think so. I can't seem to recall any piling on by the media back then either.

[bluestate10]

19. The Obama Administration's partially inept handling of the ACA site rollout and the followup gave

bastards like Todd and republicans the opening that they needed to cast stains on Obamacare.

[spanone]

20. just turned on m$nbc...1st thing i heard....'the white house is in full damage mode'