[Pops]

I was able to log in fairly easily this am. still a wait but much smoother.

I tried again to upload my 1040 but the site just sat there.

I opened a chat and was told 'we're experiencing problems but you have 'til March.'

I do see improvement, I'll try again in a couple of days.

--Six
According to the Kaiser calculator at around $24k income, I'll qualify for a $9-10k subsidy - that's 100% on a "bronze" plan, which is great as far as it goes, preventative, emergency hospitalization, etc. I'm a 57-Y0 non-smoker, both DW & I have pre-existings & we live in SW MO, about as poor a risk area as Mississippi so I'm not sure about the cost of the higher benefit plans.

I'll report in.

[Sixstrings]

According to the Kaiser calculator at around $24k income, I'll qualify for a $9-10k subsidy - that's 100% on a "bronze" plan, which is great as far as it goes, preventative, emergency hospitalization, etc. I'm a 57-Y0 non-smoker, both DW & I have pre-existings & we live in SW MO, about as poor a risk area as Mississippi so I'm not sure about the cost of the higher benefit plans.

Well that sounds good, you won't even have to pay any monthly premiums. I assume if you wanted, you could pick a higher plan level and then pay some on a monthly premium?

So many details here.. from what I gather the bronze plan has a $6,000 annual out of pocket cap so I guess that means even if you get bad sick on a bronze plan you're still not going to go bankrupt over it. $6k a year is $500 a month, some people were paying that already for just insurance alone then plus out of pocket costs.

P.S. I'm glad you're getting insurance!

[evilgenius]

I'm an independent contractor. As such I can give the site my last year's adjusted gross income, but when they start asking for projections there is a problem. I have enough write-offs not to pay income tax quarterly, so making projections is difficult without going over the whole year to date and making a lot of assumptions about the next few months. So far the calculator that the site provides says I qualify for the Mediwhatsits subsidy. There was no asking for projected income there. It's the rhetoric associated with going further that has me wondering. That talk seems to be directed towards people who hold normal jobs, though. Without starting up the process I don't know if there is a decision tree branch for people like me, or if I am just supposed to answer the job holders questions a certain way. I don't want to start up the process and then back out. I think I'm going to call one of those Navigators and ask them what will be involved for a person like me.

[ritter]

I think it is telling just how overwhelmed the websites are. It would appear that there is a lot of interest in being able to obtain healthcare for a reasonable cost.

Personally, it has eased my mind that if I do lose my job, I can find insurance for my family.

[Pops]

So once again I went to the site to try and upload my 2012 1040 to prove my 2014 income...

But the link to that area is a dead end now, telling me the site has been changed

--
But the site did inform me of my welfare amount this time - $9,900 (2 people, 24k/yr income)

I had some new tasks, deciding how much of the credit to use (I said 100%) but I also found that the tax credit isn't just a credit to be applied to insurance but whatever remainder after insurance is a regular tax credit.

I was also able to finally see some plans, they ranged from around $700-$1,700 a month - so $0 to 950/mo after credit.

Unfortunately some of the deductible & maximum out of pocket (max-oop) on the gov site didn't match the details on the linked provider's site. One example was a plan with a $900 premium shown $0 deductible and $4,500 max-oop on the .gv site but the linked details on the insurance site showed a $5k deductible and $12k max OOP - & $33k max-oop for out-of-network! That would be a shock if you were expecting $4,500!

[Subjectivist]

Thanks Pops the media reports are crazy either it is the worste thing ever or the gate to heaven. Not a lot of realism in the reporting.

[Pops]

Thought I'd go check on the site again,
Got on quickly
new landing page after sign in with 2 links: "My Profile" and "My Application"
"My profile" showed my name address etc
"My Application"
... didn't work.

The good news is it didn't take me as long to fail to sign up as before

[vision-master]

I heard the actual paper work is like 20 pages long? WTF.

[Plantagenet]

People just need to be patient.

It was inevitable that there would be problems setting up such a huge system. The Obamacare folks are working on it and they'll get it right long before the deadline to sign up has passed.

[Newfie]

Talked to a guy who worked through the Washington State system. He said that he got through and was not eligible. Then went back through and clicked on all the little help icons, which changed the entire meaning of the question. So he did it all again. Now he is qualified, but is waiting for a quote.

I won't be able to get anymore feedback from him. Just a single point of data.

But at least he worked through the system.

[Plantagenet]

The tech surge that was set up to fix the Obamacare website is making progress. They announced today that they should have the website back up and running in about another month.

[vision-master]

Direct Lookup of Obamacare premium costs

[Pops]

Thanks for the link VM.

Keep in mind that the premium is affected by age so a 64 year old person could pay up to 3x what the 27 year old will pay - also the smoker pays more as well. There is a chart on the second page here showing the age "curve".

I'm guessing the price for a "Couples Premium" is for 21-27 Y/O couple so if the premium on the spreadsheet is $500 and the couple is 57, the premium would be approximately 2.5x higher - $1,250.

[vision-master]

Thanks for the link VM.

Keep in mind that the premium is affected by age so a 64 year old person could pay up to 3x what the 27 year old will pay - also the smoker pays more as well. There is a chart on the second page here showing the age "curve".

I'm guessing the price for a "Couples Premium" is for 21-27 Y/O couple so if the premium on the spreadsheet is $500 and the couple is 57, the premium would be approximately 2.5x higher - $1,250.

How are average people going to pay for this? I'm thinking most young people will ignore ACA and the filing of Federal Taxes, aka 1040.

[Lore]

Thanks for the link VM.

Keep in mind that the premium is affected by age so a 64 year old person could pay up to 3x what the 27 year old will pay - also the smoker pays more as well. There is a chart on the second page here showing the age "curve".

I'm guessing the price for a "Couples Premium" is for 21-27 Y/O couple so if the premium on the spreadsheet is $500 and the couple is 57, the premium would be approximately 2.5x higher - $1,250.

How are average people going to pay for this? I'm thinking most young people will ignore ACA and the filing of Federal Taxes, aka 1040.

Average people without insurance still use the healthcare system. Who pays for that then when they don't?

My wife is an emergency room nurse in the fast track area of her hospital. The majority of the patients she sees are young families. Many of them have no insurance, or medicare.

My big gripe about ACA is that it does nothing to address the underlying problem of healthcare costs from the providers standpoint. As long as you have the above excuse the powerful insurance, medical and legal lobbies will always have a reason to keep rates unrealistically high.

[vision-master]

My big gripe about ACA is that it does nothing to address the underlying problem of healthcare costs from the providers standpoint. As long as you have the above excuse the powerful insurance, medical and legal lobbies will always have a reason to keep rates unrealistically high.

I'm thinking, what needs to happen is Obamacare falls flat on it's face, maybe then providers will understand the whole system must change and the greed will have to go away, if they want to stay in business.

[Lore]

My big gripe about ACA is that it does nothing to address the underlying problem of healthcare costs from the providers standpoint. As long as you have the above excuse the powerful insurance, medical and legal lobbies will always have a reason to keep rates unrealistically high.

I'm thinking, what needs to happen is Obamacare falls flat on it's face, maybe then providers will understand the whole system must change and the greed will have to go away, if they want to stay in business.

Obamacare won't fail, but it needs to evolve. Providers will never realize anything, but their bottom line.

The meat of the problem is cost. We have no problem in the US of fragging the average workers good paying job and leaving them with minimum wage alternatives, but we dare not touch the professional services backed by their big K-Street lobbies.

You have to ask, where did we go wrong? Physicians for example in France make about $55,000 per year, yet they are ranked #1 by the WHO for health systems, while the US is ranked 38.

[vision-master]

an RN's make $80,000 year - poor nurses.

What do specialists make - $300,000 + year.

[Lore]

an RN's make $80,000 year - poor nurses.

What do specialists make - $300,000 + year.

I wish, my wife is a BSN and makes about 2/3 that.

[Newfie]

Thanks for the link VM.

Keep in mind that the premium is affected by age so a 64 year old person could pay up to 3x what the 27 year old will pay - also the smoker pays more as well. There is a chart on the second page here showing the age "curve".

I'm guessing the price for a "Couples Premium" is for 21-27 Y/O couple so if the premium on the spreadsheet is $500 and the couple is 57, the premium would be approximately 2.5x higher - $1,250.

How are average people going to pay for this? I'm thinking most young people will ignore ACA and the filing of Federal Taxes, aka 1040.

It's a whole bunch LESS than my current COBRA. Costs of $2,450/month!