[quote=no_such_reality]California runs the California exchange. California communicates enrollment info. California screws it up. And many other states too, I’m sure
As for your premiums rocketing and blaming ACA, frankly you apparently haven’t been listening for the last 20 years as businesses have been complaining about double digit premium growth since then.
Your just seeing it for a change. Nothing new. My prior employer screwed up my coverage the same way. People make mistakes and the more protected they are the more careless they are in performing their job duties
You rant you want to exclude coverage, what do you think your premiums will do when everyone under 50 starts dumping coverage for Alzheimer’s, dementia and all the other typically older conditions?[/quote]NSR, Alzheimer’s and dementia are typical diseases of those over the age of 65 and already on Medicare so your argument in this regard is moot. If young people don’t want to sign up on the exchanges and decide to be subject to the penalty instead, I don’t care. A lot of them just out of college, yet too old to be their parents’ policies aren’t making much and thus their penalty won’t be much. This group can go on Medi-Cal. It won’t affect their futures or estates one bit. They can stay on Medi-Cal until they get a job with coverage. I’m all for the Medi-Cal Kids program as well. Medi-Cal is fine for the younger groups but it’s NOT okay if it is “force-placed” on someone who very clearly has been affording and can afford their own healthcare premiums until they reach the age of 65 (with or without a smallish subsidy). Once someone over the age of 55 is “force-placed” on Medi-Cal” (esp behind their backs where they may not even be aware of it for the first month or two), their county SS Medi-Cal worker is the only person who can release them off Medi-Cal and will only do so if the ex-CC enrollee successfully PROVES their (allowable) monthly income to their Medi-Cal worker which is over the Medi-Cal threshold OR proves that they have purchased ACA-approved coverage OFF the exchange and that coverage has already started! (One CANNOT sign up for a plan on the exchange if they are currently on Medi-Cal. The exchanges’ websites will not permit this.) Even then, it takes Medi-Cal 4-12 months (avg of 8-9 mos) to “release” a former CC enrollee off Medi-Cal (who never should have been ON Medi-Cal in the first place! Meanwhile, a state tab of $625 to $635 month is running for their Medi-Cal managed-care premiums paid on their behalf (which they never signed up for and never used) solely for the purpose of “estate recovery.”
THIS is the “vise grip” which is regularly employed on the over-55 CC-enrollee cohort in CA. It’s a big “gotcha” and a potential future GOLD MINE for the state! As such, the “individual mandate” for this group could very well prove to be unconstitutional if it was tested in Federal Court.
This is also why I’m going to close my CC account at the end of this year after obtaining coverage OFF the exchange eff: 1-1-17 during “open enrollment” in the fall. Hopefully, the ACA will eventually be repealed and CA will get back those six major carriers who left the state’s individual health-plan market at the end of 2013 and there will be “competition” among sellers of nationwide PPOs which don’t cost $2200+ month. These companies will all come back if they can medically underwrite people again. People with bad health can apply to the state insurance pool which every carrier will have to join who is doing biz in the state. They will rotate accepting applicants with pre-existing conditions, much like auto insurers in the state pool do with driver’s with SR-22 filings and too many points on their licenses. Those premiums will be “affordable” by being “subsidized” and the truly “poor” with pre-existing conditions can go on Medi-Cal … as it has always been. The healthy applicants for individual healthplans will each pay a small surcharge in their monthly premiums to help cover the premiums of the “state pool applicants with pre-existing conditions.” This won’t be NEAR AS EXPENSIVE for the healthy group because their premium amount will be based upon their past usage and overall health as determined by the results of their carriers’ physical examinations administered to them during the application process. In addition, there will be six more major carriers in the state to compete against one another and ALL offer PORTABLE NATIONWIDE PPOs, which is what most boomers want. Actual subsidies will only be offered to those who have pre-existing conditions which would typically cause their healthplan rates to skyrocket. All the people who are healthy and receiving subsidies now won’t need them because their healthplans will be much cheaper.
I also like Trump’s idea of “public hospitals.” (UCSD Hospital in Hillcrest back in the ’70’s and ’80’s, along with the now defunct “Physicians and Surgeon’s” Hospital in SE SD used to be SD County’s “public hospitals.”) “Public hospitals” can provide care to the uninsured indigent who fell thru the cracks and get reimbursed the Medicare rate for their care by the Federal Government.
The “individual mandate” needs to be scrapped as well, imho.
After I “prove” my income to CC once again next month, I won’t be “proving” any more of my personal biz to (supremely incompetent) state and local bureaucrats anymore. I have already given them several years access to my tax returns when I signed up to CC, I spent nearly my entire working life playing stupid games with bureaucrats and the truth is that I don’t have to anymore. It’s nothing but a fool’s errand. I paid all my exorbitant health premiums (yes, even MY share of my health premium is way more than it should be) on time since the ACA has been in force and I am now done. It is illegal to dump someone’s coverage if they have paid their premium on time for that month. The carriers who elected to participate in CA’s exchange are weak and have caved into CC, lock, stock and barrel. They will tell you that they have absolutely no say in anything regarding the continuity of coverage of any of their planholders who signed up through CC whilst taking your money every month. CC runs the show and I don’t want incompetent bureaucrats with thousands of $10-$15 hr employees (most of whom don’t even have associate degrees and a good portion who undoubtedly only received GEDs) fvcking with my income and bumping me from my health coverage behind my back after I already paid my premium for that month … ESPecially when I am on frequently on the road for weeks at a time where anything can happen to me in the blink of an eye. I don’t need that kind of stress and am no longer in a place in life where I have to play with these idiots. End of story.
