[quote=all][quote=no_such_reality]Sadly, one plow through coveredca debased me of any fantasy of retiring when I saw what happens to my health premiums heading into my 50s with a family.[/quote]
Do you know why there is big difference in premium between plans in the same tier? I am looking at HMO 90 – Molina is 20% more than HealthNet and Anthem BlueCross is another 15% more expensive than Molina.[/quote]
Similar to real estate’s location location location, for health plans it’s network, network, network.
The health exchange plans suffer from limited networks. Blue Cross plan has one of the better networks compared to it’s corporate plans, where you you are limited to about 50% of the doctors for choices compared to the corporate they offer.
[quote]In Los Angeles County, for instance, Health Net customers in the state exchange would be limited to 2,316 primary-care doctors and specialists. That’s less than a third of the doctors Health Net offers to workers on employer plans. In San Diego, there are only 204 primary-care doctors to serve Health Net patients.
Other major insurers have pared their list of medical providers too, but not to Health Net’s degree. Statewide, Blue Shield of California says exchange customers will be restricted to about 50% of its regular physician network[/quote]
For me, frankly, I look at the Kaiser numbers. Not because I’m a big fan of Kaiser-care, I’ve never had them, but because they’re the 800 lb gorilla in California and I suspect they really do know what they’re doing with their pricing. IMO, I expect Kaiser’s numbers next year to do a typically health care inflation raise and suspect the other ‘cheap’ plans are going to jump to where Kaiser is on pricing.
