ACA sign Up

[Sue J]

I checked at ehealthinsurance.com and for my zip code they only show 2 insurers with 20 plans. Looking elsewhere I know there are at least 6 insurers with 70 plans for my area so I think it's not the complete picture.

 

[Mulligan]

I checked at ehealthinsurance.com and for my zip code they only show 2 insurers with 20 plans. Looking elsewhere I know there are at least 6 insurers with 70 plans for my area so I think it's not the complete picture.

Same here....I know for a fact we have 2 providers in the exchange in my area but ehealthinsurance is presently only showing one provider's plans.

 

[rbmrtn]

I thought I remembered reading this a while back. ehealth signed a deal to enroll people in ACA. I wonder whatever became of this, I haven't seen anything since.

Insurance exchange deal signed with Web insurer sites

 

[John Galt III]

John if you or others find my application, please complete it, I'll do the same.

MRG

No problem !

 

[John Galt III]

I noticed something interesting in the legalconsumer.com website. It says in order to receive the "cost sharing" subsidy (different from the tax credit subsidy) you need to buy a silver plan (not bronze, not gold, not platinum).

 

[ERhoosier]

This is nice...but it doesn't ask ages so bears little relationship to what cost might be for some, particularly for people over 50.

+1

Using CMS HI premium age "curve", nonsmoking 50yo premium will be ~1.8x the example 27yo. And for ER shock, a 64yo's premium will be TWICE that for 50 yo

 

[ohyes]

We plan to get help from our auto/home insurance rep next week. I cannot get far enough on healthcare.gov to get a quote. Because we are leaving town on Oct. 30 (and must have a decision by the end of Oct. for retirement insurance), I am beyond frustrated.

Wish me luck. If our rep cannot give us answers, perhaps he will direct us to somebody who can.

Pessimistically optimistic.

 

[rbmrtn]

I noticed something interesting in the legalconsumer.com website. It says in order to receive the "cost sharing" subsidy (different from the tax credit subsidy) you need to buy a silver plan (not bronze, not gold, not platinum).

Correct. It has to be a silver plan and income less than 250% FPL

 

[ziggy29]

I noticed something interesting in the legalconsumer.com website. It says in order to receive the "cost sharing" subsidy (different from the tax credit subsidy) you need to buy a silver plan (not bronze, not gold, not platinum).

I'm still trying to confirm with certainty that this doesn't apply to American Indians below 300% of FPL, who (as far as I can tell) can get any plan offered on the Exchange with no cost sharing at all. If that's the case I can get a Bronze plan for less than $100 a month and no copays or deductibles.

 

[rbmrtn]

I'm still trying to confirm with certainty that this doesn't apply to American Indians below 300% of FPL, who (as far as I can tell) can get any plan offered on the Exchange with no cost sharing at all. If that's the case I can get a Bronze plan for less than $100 a month and no copays or deductibles.

I saw the no cost plan, I was trying to figure out what it was I ran across this

6 Things You Should Know About the Affordable Care Act

 

[MichaelB]

I'm still trying to confirm with certainty that this doesn't apply to American Indians below 300% of FPL, who (as far as I can tell) can get any plan offered on the Exchange with no cost sharing at all. If that's the case I can get a Bronze plan for less than $100 a month and no copays or deductibles.

That's what it looks like, if you meet certain conditions

https://www.healthcare.gov/if-im-an...what-do-i-need-to-know-about-the-marketplace/

If you’re a member of a federally recognized tribe:

If you buy private insurance in the Health Insurance Marketplace, you won’t have to pay out-of-pocket costs like deductibles, copayments, and coinsurance if your income is up to around $70,650 for a family of 4 ($88,320 in Alaska). (These are 2013 figures, and likely to be slightly higher in 2014.)
You can enroll in Marketplace health insurance any month, not just during the yearly open enrollment period.

A couple more links you probably have seen but others may find interesting.

http://www.ihs.gov/newsroom/include...objects/documents/2010_Letters/Fact_Sheet.pdf

Fact Sheet: The Affordable Care Act and American Indian and Alaska Native People | HHS.gov/healthcare

 

[Sue J]

Important update!

On the off chance that I may be able to sign on tonight I logged onto HealthCare.gov. Didn't have expectations besides the same frustration I've had all along.

I tried my original account and still my ID isn't verified. So I tried the other account I had made which has my husband as the account name and me as spouse. I got in and was able to answer the ID questions (which were actually relevant to us) and his ID was verified!!!!!

I was able to proceed with the application, which has changed since I did the first one. I didn't have to put in employers names and addresses. It asked if our income would be the same as on our 2012 tax return and if not, what are our expected yearly incomes.

I input all the info and submitted and I got a confirmation and a PDF Eligibility Letter document to save. It stated that we are eligible for a subsidy and the amount. It offered me the option of how to get the subsidy (monthly applied to our premium, or at tax return time) and if we both wanted to enroll in the same plans or different plans.

I'm now browsing for plans and can filter by metal level. You can sort by monthly cost, Maximum out-of-pocket or plan name. You can leave and come back to show later although haven't tried that yet. you can compare plans and save plans. There are links to plan info and providers although some have not connected to the page. I scrolled down and found more filter options.

FINALLY, this is looking so much better. I'm very excited to have gotten to this step in the process!

 

[Accidental Retiree]

I thought I'd try CoveredCa again, but once again I got the message that the certificate is invalid.

 

[NW-Bound]

...
FINALLY, this is looking so much better. I'm very excited to have gotten to this step in the process!

Congrats! Keep us posted on what you find. I am still holding off on opening an account on healthcare.gov, not wanting to clog up the system further.

Seems like many people have to open multiple accounts in order to get through, and as I recall, this may be even encouraged.

I wonder what happens to these "zombies" accounts. Hopefully they will get automatically deleted somehow, and not cause problems later down the road.

 

[Sue J]

Here's what I'm finding so far. The Silver plan from our current insurer is not what I expected to find. There is supposed to be one with the cost sharing reduction feature for those of us under 250% of FPL.

Costs compared to the info we've found at the LegalConsumer site are higher at HealthCare.gov. My guess is that's because LegalConsumer uses age 50 and we are 58. LegalConsumer shows 70 plans, HealthCare.gov shows 60 plans.

I'm familiar with some of the insurance companies and know our providers are in-network. Some of the other insurance companies have very few providers in our area. I know this may change as all this catches on. Some of the links to provider directories don't work so I'll wait and see if that gets updated.

Now that I'm able to browse I'm not worried about our 10-31-13 open enrollment from DHs retiree plan. I will call his pension plan tomorrow to get the Health Care Waiver Of Coverage form needed to drop out of the retiree plan. We'd like to have this on hand for when we make a final decision.

Our decisions are the expensive retiree plan that covers far more than we need - $850 deductible each, $10/$20 copays on office visits, all our current prescriptions have $0 copay because they are for specific diseases (blood pressure, cholesterol).

Or Obamacare Bronze plan with HSA for under $66/mo vs. Bronze plan without HSA for $52-$175 depending on the deductible and copay vs Silver plans $250-$500.

I showed him the info I'm finding and we are both going to think about the benefits of going with a low cost bronze plan with (or without) an HSA. Up until 2013 we had a low cost, high deductible plan ($2000 each) but no option for an HSA since it paid for prescriptions after a lower deductible. It worked just fine for us, seemed to be exactly what we needed.

 

[tomz]

I input all the info and submitted and I got a confirmation and a PDF Eligibility Letter document to save. It stated that we are eligible for a subsidy and the amount. It offered me the option of how to get the subsidy (monthly applied to our premium, or at tax return time) and if we both wanted to enroll in the same plans or different plans.

Thanks for the update. I tried to log in after reading your message. I created my third account with a new email. I couldn't log in with the first 2. Also, on my desktop, the site does not work with Chrome. I used Internet Explorer. I live in FL and for some reason the system thought I lived in GA. I exited and added a new application that showed FLorida so I now have two applications. I filled in the FL application to the end. When I clicked submit, it displayed please wait and then nothing happened. I did this 3 times. I then logged out and got the PDF like you did, but I can't look at plans yet. I called the help line, but they said the wait time was 20 minutes and it's late so I'll try tomorrow. Getting closer, but still not there

 

[tomz]

I wonder what happens to these "zombies" accounts. Hopefully they will get automatically deleted somehow, and not cause problems later down the road.

When i couldn't sign on with one of my zombie accounts, I did a chat and asked the rep to delete my bad accounts. He said he couldn't do that.

 

[tomz]

When i couldn't sign on with one of my zombie accounts, I did a chat and asked the rep to delete my bad accounts. He said he couldn't do that.

I logged on bright and early to avoid the rush. My account was still there and the profile info was correct and I still have a zombie application for GA and the valid one for FL, but I can't see any plans. Tried a chat - the rep came on very quickly and then disappeared so I called the helpline. Right now my Florida application says approved and I have received about 15 PDF notices of eligibility explaining the subsidies. The notices are all identical. My next step, according to the notice, is to choose a plan, but there are no options anywhere for that. The rep put me on hold for a few minutes and came back and said he couldn't handle the problem and promised that I'd get a callback within 2 business days. We'll see.

 

[Dawg52]

What a joke. I logged on again this morning and it prompts me to resume application. Then I get an orange box telling me to go to details of application to fix any outstanding issues. I do that and get an error message saying page cannot be found and to contact them with error message given. I contact them through chat and they simply tell me to keep trying that glitches would soon be fixed. Right.

This is the same message I got a week ago. How in the heck do they expect to have people enrolled by the time this is suppose to go in effect? They need to waive all this BS for a year until they get a handle on it. This is no way to implement a new system.

 

[DallasGuy]

What a joke. I logged on again this morning and it prompts me to resume application. Then I get an orange box telling me to go to details of application to fix any outstanding issues. I do that and get an error message saying page cannot be found and to contact them with error message given. I contact them through chat and they simply tell me to keep trying that glitches would soon be fixed. Right.

This is the same message I got a week ago. How in the heck do they expect to have people enrolled by the time this is suppose to go in effect? They need to waive all this BS for a year until they get a handle on it. This is no way to implement a new system.

I created an account last week and by this weekend it was unusable. I noticed that they changed the requirements for creating a userid and password and my old userid no longer met those requirements. No matter what I did, it wouldn't recognize my original userid. So I created a new one on Sunday with a different email address and I was able to complete my application and get to the point where I could see the plans offered to me along with the cost. So my suggestion is if you're having lots of problems with your old userid, create a new one with a different email address. It seems to be working much better as of Sunday.

 

[Accidental Retiree]

Some In-Network Doctor and Hospital Selection to be Limited in CA

I'm familiar with some of the insurance companies and know our providers are in-network. Some of the other insurance companies have very few providers in our area. I know this may change as all this catches on. Some of the links to provider directories don't work so I'll wait and see if that gets updated.

I would have thought that, too, about my doctor, but there are going to be some limitations, at least in CA, if I understand this article correctly. From the article:

"Moreover, once consumers are able to see which medical providers are part of the insurance networks, they might be in for a bit of a surprise: In an effort to keep premiums low, some major insurance companies are limiting the numbers of doctors and hospitals they are offering consumers.

Blue Shield of California confirmed to this newspaper that it will offer only 50 percent of its network doctors and 75 percent of its network hospitals to those who sign up for its exchange plans. Anthem Blue Cross of California will offer 95 percent of its hospitals to exchange customers -- but only 60 percent of its network doctors to consumers, said company spokeswoman Leslie Porras.

. . .

Similarly, Blue Shield spokeswoman Lindy Wagner said the company is confident that its networks will be adequate for its Covered California customers. "We want to keep our exchange product affordable," Wagner said.

California's new health exchange still doesn't list doctors and hospitals - Inside Bay Area

 

[rbmrtn]

I created an account last week and by this weekend it was unusable. I noticed that they changed the requirements for creating a userid and password and my old userid no longer met those requirements.

I saw the same thing and that may be why my original one doesn't work. The original ID works in the sense the system doesn't return an error on it like you get if the ID or password is incorrect. But when I use it, the login page just reloads with no errors as if I never put in anything.

I also created several more accounts using the new criteria for the user id, and finally got one that got logged into the account screen. But that one is now linked to an email account I never use....

 

[ERhoosier]

Situation here appears to be similar to Accidental Retiree's CA info, or perhaps a bit worse. In my area BCBS plans have historically included all 4 major hospital systems. For Exchange Plans, however, the local BCBS affiliate (now >50% of state's individual HI market) has stated it will only include the smallest of the 4 despite projecting 150,000 Exchange enrollment. Having lived in the area for many years, this has the potential to be an access nightmare for patients.
Anthem to omit some big hospitals from exchange network | 2013-09-14 | Indianapolis Business Journal | IBJ.com

IMHO- It is wise to get current, accurate provider network info on any Exchange Plan you are considering.

 

[PatSea]

I have been helping my sign sign up for this health care. Have opened three different accounts. Around noon today EDT I tried to sign in and the message came back to call an 800 number, which I did. A rep came on within about 1 minute. I explained the difficulties I was having, my frustration with the system. She said the site was not working because of the large number of users. She suggested I sign on "in the middle of the night when traffic is lighter". At this point, with my frustration boiling over I said "let me get this straight - Obamacare is the greatest thing since sliced bread, but I must get up in the middle of the night to sign on? You must be kidding me!" She was at a loss for words. I explained that my frustration was not aimed at her, that she appeared to be trying her best to help me.

 

[Sue J]

And if you try to log on late at night you get the "The System Is Down for Maintenance" message!