Forum Replies Created
-
AuthorPosts
-
bearishgurl
ParticipantMany of the same issues in this year’s general election were on the front burner in the general election of 36 years ago. Watch this moving concession speech at the DNC by Ted Kennedy (~5 mins) where he lost the nomination to President Carter (who ended up losing his 2nd term bid for the White House to Reagan):
Whatever really happened that night at Chappaquiddick that he was never quite able to live down, it is clear from this speech that Ted Kennedy truly did love his country. May he (and Mary Jo Kopechne) R.I.P.
May 17, 2016 at 12:59 PM in reply to: The dire climate of CA public university admissions for freshmen #797662ParticipantHere’s a good debate with the five “top” candidates vying for Boxer’s seat on the ultra-crowded (34 + write in) CA ballot.
Aired from Stockton on 4/25/16. Conlon is not there as he announced his candidacy late in the game.
1 hour, 22 mins. Going to finish watching it later tonight.
May 17, 2016 at 12:21 PM in reply to: The dire climate of CA public university admissions for freshmen #797660Participant[quote=no_such_reality] . . .
And not to pick on countries however don’t want to see us go here.Riot after teachers try to stop pupils cheating
Or here
Test cheating stirs outage, then people start dying
Which is seems like we are.[/quote]NSR, I read these two articles. They are unfortunate, but of course you understand that it is not the problem of CA resident UC applicants that the educational systems in the countries which supply their two largest groups of “foreign competition” for slots in the UC are “corrupt.”
These countries need to focus on cleaning up the graft in their own backyards. It’s not our problem. We citizens of the US and residents of CA don’t owe prospective applicants to the UC from foreign countries a damn thing. End of story.
May 17, 2016 at 12:10 PM in reply to: The dire climate of CA public university admissions for freshmen #797658ParticipantFilling out my mail-in ballot now. I’m voting for Greg Conlon to replace Boxer in the US Senate. He will introduce legislation to limit acceptance to non-resident applicants to the UC in favor of creating thousands more seats for qualified residents.
GREG CONLON COMMENTS ON THE FUTURE OF
CALIFORNIA’S HIGHER EDUCATION SYSTEMFOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Wednesday, March 30, 2016
Contact: Greg Conlon (650)-315-4956(Palo Alto, CA) – California is taking away an outstanding educational opportunity from some of its best and brightest high school graduates by limiting their access to the University of California system. US News and World Report ranks UC Berkeley and UCLA 20th and 23rd in the nation, yet 30% of their students come from out of state. That amounts to approximately 8,500 students each out of a total of 27,000 to 30,000 students, respectively. While out-of-state tuition costs $36,000 per year, or $23,000 more than in-state tuition, this additional revenue supports only about 6% of UC System’s expenses.
Is this really what we want to do — give away about 17,000 spots a year in these two schools to out-of-state and out-of-nation students and deprive our own top students of this educational opportunity and future high-paying jobs?. My answer is no. The State of California has decreased its funding of the UC System in total from 18% of the State’s general fund in the late ‘70’s to 11 to 12% today. These decreases compare with increases in health and human services, corrections and rehabilitations, and K-12 education from 60% to 80% of the State’s General Fund expenditures. These statistics are available from a Study of Public Education in California by the League of Women Voters of California Education Fund.
Meanwhile other universities that are ranked equal or higher than our two top public universities are charging about $10,000 more per year (average $48,000 per year) in student fees. So not only are we giving away these top spots to non-state students, we are doing it at a discount compared to similar top 20 universities in the nation (see US News and World Report Rankings).
As a candidate for the U. S. Senate, I believe a federal policy regarding issuance of student visas to out-of-nation students can positively address the inequity of educational opportunity for California’s equally qualified best and brightest students. I propose that out-of-nation students (who are primarily from China and India) be subjected to requirements similar to those currently imposed for issuance of “Green Cards” for foreign persons to obtain work visas. My recommendation is that each University would have to demonstrate that there are no equally qualified in-state students, based on test scores and GPA, who could fill the available slot for admission. Only then would student visas be issued. While the loss of higher tuition revenue would have an impact, I believe we can find ways to make up much of the lost revenue. First the California legislature should try to increase appropriations for the UC System and reverse the trend of the downward spiral. Second, based on my experience in both the private sector as a businessman and CPA and my public sector experience as President of the California PUC, it is not out of the question to find some savings to recover some of the 6% in the University System expenditures.
This is not an easy problem to solve but by addressing this issue we can increase the chances for California’s best and brightest to receive a high-quality education and gain access to future high-paying jobs right here at home. If you agree with my recommendations and comments please support my campaign with a donation so I can win my election and try to implement these recommendation.
May 16, 2016 at 6:44 PM in reply to: The dire climate of CA public university admissions for freshmen #797620Participant[quote=no_such_reality]I’m perfectly fine with foreign students taking spots, especially if they’re paying true cost.
For a CA resident, UCLA tuition & fees is only $13K. Books add another $1500. The rest of expense is just living in LA.
Out of Staters pay another $26K.
To me, its much like the buy your citizenship immigration. AKA EB-5 Immigrant Investor Program. Just another pay to play program.
But if we want to reap, then reap, lets really go get the best and brightest of the world and keep them here when they graduate.[/quote]No one has any control over what a (foreign student) recent UC graduate chooses to do with their “prestigious” UC bachelor degree. They could take it back to work in the Middle East, where a portion of them are from. That’s what foreign graduates of US universities did back in “my day.” :=0
And you must be aware, NSR, that it’s not cheap to live around UCLA … not even in the “marginal” areas. The rent around there is a lot higher than SD (ex: urban communities such as Hillcrest and UTC).
May 16, 2016 at 6:11 PM in reply to: The dire climate of CA public university admissions for freshmen #797618Participant[quote=no_such_reality][quote=FlyerInHi]BG, I’m not talking resale value of the toys. I’m talking prioritizing education over toys. All the toys over 2 decades can pay for a top education.
Lots of the foreign students you don’t like coming here… The vast majority of those families are not filthy rich; they just want upper middle class jobs for their kids. . Their families prioritize, and education is top priority. Same goes for many American families who value education.
Families who value education want the top schools, private and public. It’s not just the UC campuses, but UT Austin, university of Michigan, etc… It’s like people who like trucks want the badass trucks, or people who like American Harleys, or sports cars….whatever. We want the best brands and are willing to pay (money, time or effort)[/quote]
If you’re willing to pay then why are we funding it with tax dollars? If they’re willing to pay then let’s treat it like the business it is and real a profit. From the decades of investment te tax payers have made and channel than funding back to provide for the masses.
And I agree, I do have some resentment about the increased competition. But it isn’t about having to compete, it’s about having to compete where Lance Armstrong doping is the norm. Pop Warner coaches getting suspended over bounty programs for knocking players out, parents doing their kids mission project. And the use of tutors and kimono when it gets so prevalent that teachers adjust their curriculum assuming you are have at least one.[/quote]Agree NSR. My main beef with non-residents taking up CA university slots which should go to residents is that the vast majority of them never paid any taxes in this state (which, in turn, fund our university systems). They’re taking up thousands upon thousands of slots for resident applicants who didn’t get admitted simply because they pay less tuition. And at the UC, non-residents have been admitted in droves since 2011 under less stringest criteria than residents, according to the recent state audit.
If CA’s graduating HS seniors cannot get admitted to public university right out of HS (preferably one within commuting distance to parents’ homes), then they have no other choice but CC (for a publicly-funded college education). And completion of a transfer degree at a CC no longer guarantees admission to CSU/UC as a junior (esp a campus within commuting distance of their parents’ homes) …. the reason being that the bar of entry is now nearly 4.0 GPA (CC overall GPA) for locally-based, transferring-in juniors (at least to SDSU). Of course, it may very well be less for campuses located in CA’s “armpit” and its rural areas which don’t have a HUGE body of incoming freshmen from HS districts in their immediate areas which they offered admission guarantees to and they ALSO don’t have a HUGE amount of non-resident apps to consider (both from prospective freshman and transfers).
It’s not right to leave prospective qualified CA HS graduate-applicants swinging in the wind (rejected for admission) with only CC choices all the while admitting non-residents in their place! CA University systems are supposed to exist, first and foremost, for CA residents. Every qualified HS graduate who desires a public university education in their own damn state is entitled to one. I don’t care what anyone else thinks.
I have no problem with CA private institutions (ie Stanford, USC, the Claremont Colleges, Cal Tech, Pepperdine, etc selling ALL of their seats to the highest bidder from in state, OOS, OOC or even from Mars! That’s their perogative as CA taxpayers are not funding them in any way, shape or form.
May 16, 2016 at 4:29 PM in reply to: The dire climate of CA public university admissions for freshmen #797614Participant[quote=FlyerInHi]BG, I’m not talking resale value of the toys. I’m talking prioritizing education over toys. All the toys over 2 decades can pay for a top education.
Lots of the foreign students you don’t like coming here… The vast majority of those families are not filthy rich; they just want upper middle class jobs for their kids. . Their families prioritize, and education is top priority. Same goes for many American families who value education.
Families who value education want the top schools, private and public. It’s not just the UC campuses, but UT Austin, university of Michigan, etc… It’s like people who like trucks want the badass trucks, or people who like American Harleys, or sports cars….whatever. We want the best brands and are willing to pay (money, time or effort)[/quote]FIH, it’s pretty clear here that you have no idea how much it costs to raise kids today …. anywhere in the country. Sending 3-4 kids to a top university (public OR private) for 4 years each could easily set the parents back ~$1M … assuming they had it lying around or could get their hands on that much money.
The vast majority of parents haven’t even saved 1/20th of that for their kids’ college. It’s not because they spent it on “toys.” It’s because they have been barely making enough to keep their families afloat for the past decade-plus with both of them working FT (ESP in coastal CA).
Hence, Bernie’s “message” resonating with millenials and joe and jane 6p which you are so much in agreement with :=0
May 16, 2016 at 3:21 PM in reply to: The dire climate of CA public university admissions for freshmen #797612Participant[quote=FlyerInHi]BG, you proudly stated your brethren in flyover country have paid off houses, cabins, trucks, SUVs, expensive toys, etc…
Why would the kids need any loans? A top education by comparison is not expensive — just the equivalent of a few toys.[/quote]It’s NOT “the equivalent of a few toys” for even one kid’s private college education for four years, much less for a family with 3-4 kids in the pipeline. All those “toys” you’re talking about here aren’t worth on the resale market what you think they are.If these flyover-country HS seniors DO apply to a CA public university (because their parents can afford non-resident tuition), of course they are going to apply to a campuses with coastal locations as their 1st, 2nd and 3rd choices. There would be no reason for them to choose a CA campus in an “armpit” location. If they wanted that, they could apply to public universities in their own states and pay far less tuition :=0
This is a large part of the reason why degree programs in CA public university campuses in or near coastal locations are so impacted.
Foreign applicants are less picky about location and more interested in applying to particular CA campuses which have programs they want to pursue.
ParticipantOne of my kids has tix for the “real” Burning Man Festival again this year :=0
May 16, 2016 at 2:02 PM in reply to: The dire climate of CA public university admissions for freshmen #797606Participant[quote=FlyerInHi]Carli, I sorta agree with you and NSR.
You’re saying that competing for the top school may not be worth the tradeoffs. I can accept that.But there are so many things in life that require tradeoffs. Like saving to live in the best neighborhoods, or driving expensive cars, or buying branded luxury products. Do those things define who you are?
If you can go to a top school, then why not? Because you can. I don’t see anything wrong with making that a priority. I have the inkling that some people don’t like the hyper competitiveness because they cannot or don’t want to participate. They are welcomed to sit it out.[/quote]FIH, just because your (CA HS student) kid elects to “sit out” the “hyper competitiveness” and just take the necessary A-G reqs to get admitted to CSU while in HS doesn’t mean they will not be successful in life. Nothing could be further from the truth. Personal attributes (and sometimes innate talent) are more important in a lot of “real world” occupations than name of institution on the job applicants college diploma and/or their college GPA (within reason).
I agree that applying to a top (private) university or college is a good idea for the qualified HS student IF they have a reliable and able benefactor for the long haul. Otherwise, it’s pure folly. Holding a large student loan is horrendous and can easily impair the former student’s financial life in adulthood for decades … even for a lifetime! Better to stay far away from them and apply to institutions which you know you can afford NOW and for the long haul. Yes, even if you have to work 20+ hours per week while attending university and attend classes during the summers in order to graduate on time.
May 16, 2016 at 1:45 PM in reply to: The dire climate of CA public university admissions for freshmen #797605Participant[quote=carli][quote=no_such_reality][quote=FlyerInHi]
Academic competition is like competing for sports. You get grades and degrees, like trophies or sports stats. Bragging rights and glory. Why not, if you can? BTW, sports is also a lot more competitive than in the past.
[/quote]For 99.99%, they’ll be just as fine with a regular college degree. They’ll get in. Sports highlights my point. The kids are starting to have to commit like they’re going to train for the Olympics to just play highschool sports.
Texas A&M has just as many Fortune 100 CEOs as Harvard. It also has any average GPA 3.5, SAT scores of 1800 and a 71% admission rate.
The branding mantra of fighting to get into Ivy or ‘top tier’ is the big lie, just like the lie of sports.[/quote]
I completely agree with this. For many kids these days, high school is rigorous and competitive enough without striving for admission to a top tier school. Unless admission comes as a natural byproduct of the kid’s skills and accomplishments (even then, it’s like winning the lottery), why add unrealistic pressure to get there? Kids should know that their future success is not dependent on a degree from one of these schools. Not only is it not dependent, their future success will be unaffected by their choice of a top tier vs. middle tier school. It is affected by many other factors, such as drive and career track record, but not where the degree comes from.
FIH, if you’re still unconvinced, try reading Frank Bruni’s book, “Where You Go is Not Who You’ll Be” about this very topic.[/quote]I looked up the book on Amazon just now and glanced over the reviews and agree that HS students shouldn’t endeavor to apply to expensive private colleges (incl Ivies), especially those who only admit 5-7% of freshman applicants. Unless their families are VERY well-heeled to have saved a substantial college fund for them or they have a reliable, iron-clad benefactor for the long haul, it’s not worth taking out a ridiculous sum of student debt (over $100K, which will take them decades to pay off) for a college freshman straight out of HS to attend a “name-brand” school. I feel the expensive private schools often entice many freshman applicants whom they decide to admit with “full ride” scholarships for their freshman year only, leaving them footing the HUGE tuition bills in the following years after they have already accepted their admission offers, matriculated into the student body and settled in. This puts these students (who can’t afford to continue there without copious amounts of financial aid) in the position of having to leave the institution after freshman year and spend the next 6+ months (while NOT a student or while a JC/CC student living at home) applying to public universities that they and their families can actually afford IF they shun student loans (as 99% of them should, IMO). In CA, these private-school “financial castoffs” won’t likely be able to be admitted to any CA public university as a sophomore and will be told to finish up their GE’s at a CC and reapply as a transferring-in junior (spend at least a year at CC).
Folks, this is why it is SO IMPORTANT to get your HS senior on board to committing to the RIGHT university for them (public if cost for 4 years is an issue) which they can reasonably finish their degree program and graduate from! It is way harder to get admitted to a public university in CA as a transferring in junior and next to impossible to transfer in as a sophomore or senior. Once your HS senior enrolls in any college (even CC), it is a different ballgame than HS and their HS GPA will most likely go down, making them less desirable to any 4-year university as a transfer student. It’s better to use any trick in the book, by hook or crook, whatever it takes, to get accepted to university as a freshman. Once in and matriculating, performing above the level of academic probation and satisfactorily progressing in their degree program (ie, declared a major upon applying and following their 4-year plan religiously) as well as NOT requesting financial aid from the university itself, then they get to stay. At that point, it doesn’t matter how great the credentials are of the thousands of (later) HS and CC applicants to that particular campus who are ready, willing and able to take a matriculating student’s seat. The vast majority will be turned down for admission due to impaction.
Parents and their HS student need to decide together where their student can realistically afford to attend and successfully finish a degree program while the student is still a HS junior. By the time their senior year rolls around, the deadline for admission as a freshman at a CA public university (11/30) is fast approaching and they should have already visited the campuses of their interest during the summer, while the student had more time to do so.
Fortunately, me and my kid’s other parent (often with kids in tow) have traveled extensively by road all over the state (I attended elem school in Alameda County and my kid’s dad has a few relatives in Alameda and Santa Clara Counties) and so we already knew what the various lifestyles and typical weather and traffic were like in other CA locales to be able to explain this to our kids (who were born and raised in SD Co). My kids were admitted into their respective CSU campuses with HS GPA’s of just 2.9 to 3.3 and SAT scores of 980 to 1380 (not counting essay portion). BUT, instead of buckling down and studying hard in the many AP classes offered to them in HS (they only successfully passed one AP exam each) they spent their MS and HS years on stage touring HS’s throughout SD County and the entire state (with several National competitions in other states) nearly year-round in show choir after studying dance since the age of 3-6. My youngest kid did NOT have anywhere near the avg GPA OR SAT score of an average out-of-area freshman admitted to the campus in which they accepted their admission offer. (I was shocked when I found out they were admitted, albeit in “late rolling admissions”). However, they DID have other things going for them that this campus had been trying to recruit.
My kids are mostly “city people” who are heavily gregarious to the point of being “social animals.” That’s how their dad is (more than me :=0). In addition, they are self-promoting “relationship builders” and “masters of the `selfie'” . . . lol. They are the type of kids who do best at a large urban campus with a Greek presence and plenty of opportunities for on and off-campus assimilation and employment.
My kid(s) are successful and self-supporting (in a more expensive locale than SD County) and I believe my youngest will be as well, as soon as they are able to obtain an internship in their field and graduate with a job offer in hand, using connections they made while in college as a springboard to the “real world.”
I’m not so sure that a college graduate’s name of institution or GPA matters much in non-stem careers. I think what DOES matter is making connections helpful to getting your foot in the door at your first job in your field while in college and being able to “properly handle by yourself” meetings with important connections set up FOR you by academic advisors or relatives. I think that being able to think on your feet, ability to “talk it until you walk it” as well as grooming, dress and demeanor is just as important if not moreso when it comes to landing your first FT job out of college.
For example, when you look at all the notable journalists who graduated from SFSU’s “cinema” and “journalism” depts (nka the Dept of Film, Television and New Media Production), you will see dozens of recognizable names on the list:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_San_Francisco_State_University_people
Several programs offered by CSU campuses (as well as ROI by campus) have been rated higher than UC campuses (excepting Cal) by Forbes and US Newsweek in the past decade which boast of hundreds of notable alumni in entertainment and politics as well as ALL employment fields:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:California_State_University-related_lists
The CSU is definitely a “better fit” for some students than the UC in different ways. A bachelor degree from a CSU is by no means “inferior” to a UC degree (of like kind and/or in the same general field) to an employer. The endless striving among CA parents attempting to ensure their MS/HS student qualifies for at least UC admission has just turned out to be a lot of effort and strife for naught as we have learned from the recent state auditor’s report showing that since Fall 2011, the UC admitted non-residents with lower creds than CA residents … for the sole purpose of getting their huge tuition premiums for their coffers.
If your student attends a large, CA flagship U and graduates 4 years later with a 3.5 or higher GPA, yet meets few people in college, doesn’t hold a job and/or internship while in college and generally keeps to themselves on campus, I don’t see how they are going to be able to easily get out there and compete with all their “social-animal brethren” in the “real world” for jobs in their field. That is, if the job they trained for is NOT a job typically performed in solitude. (Carli, I’m not saying this describes your soon-to-be graduate.) I had a kid who declared a social work major at SFSU upon acceptance but it was terribly impacted to the point of there being little chance to get admitted into the program so they decided early on (freshman year) to change their major to business which worked out great for them.
Participant[quote=joec] . . . I agree that ACA still needs a lot of work and why for me, probably the most important thing in the election is healthcare and I want single payer.
Cut benefits, destroy the current healthcare/insurance/drug companies/monopolies/power.
The problem is only in America, if you have 1 medical emergency you can’t pay for, you will be bankrupt if you don’t have decent coverage.
At that point, might as well go to jail.[/quote]joec, IIRC, you are a CC customer. I take it that you are planning on voting for Bernie Sanders in the primary.
I am a CC customer and also (pretty much) a one-issue voter this year. That is, I want obamacare repealed and replaced and it can’t be soon enough for me. So I’ll be voting for Trump in the primary. But if a one-off incident is somehow successful in derailing his candidacy at the convention (highly unlikely), I’ll be voting for Sanders in the general election IF he gets the nomination. If he doesn’t, then I won’t be voting for president in the general election.
I’d take a single payer system any day of the week (with an option to “upgrade” it with a supplement) than the horrendous pile of horsesh!t we are currently living with. I predict obamacare premiums will go up $250-$300 month in 2017 in my age group and region … with dozens more local providers (maybe hundreds) dropping off the few available plans we have to choose from.
Participant[quote=FlyerInHi]In my view, everyone should have baseline single payer coverage. If you want more, pay extra or your employer can pay for you. I believe republicans would agree with that, unless they believe that some people should go without coverage altogether . . . [/quote]FIH, you ought to be supporting Bernie Sanders. Just out of curiosity, do you plan on voting for Bernie?
Participant[quote=flyer]BG, you make some very good points, and I think the reason many people don’t understand your level of concern regarding medical coverage, is because they are not yet 50+, so they are not yet in the health coverage danger zone.
Very few younger people will have lifetime health insurance at any level provided by their employers as we have, so, if they should find themselves without coverage during that critical time of their lives, and the government doesn’t find a way to continue to subsidize them indefinitely without going bankrupt (good luck with that) they will eventually understand exactly what you have been talking about. Sometimes experience IS the best teacher.[/quote]Thanks, flyer. I tried to explain the obamacare debacle ad nauseam on this forum, replete with dozens of links explaining in intimate detail all the dozens of problems with dealing with the exchange. (Even enrolled health exchange agents, who have their own screens and special passwords on Covered CA have massive, intractable problems with their clients’ accounts.) This is all due to Covered CA’s (CC) and Medi-Cal’s utter incompetence due to too many fingers in the pot, too many working parts which are NOT working in tandem with one other, poor interpretation of the law as well as having the hopelessly understaffed IRS involved in this mess. The ~30 or so links I posted here are just the tip the iceberg.
Be prepared to spend 4-36 hours PER MONTH “maintaining” your OWN CC account if you are over 55 and your monthly income is within ~250% of “poverty level.” CC (and Medi-Cal) will do whatever it takes to get your income down below the Medi-Cal threshold and will do it behind your back without notice …. all the while you believe you have coverage because you paid your premium on time. Once you’re thrown into “the system” (involuntarily) you’re stuck in there for a minimum of 9 months and often the entire year (and longer, if you don’t file a timely appeal and pursue it thru to administrative hearing). One stuck in Medi-Cal can’t buy off-exchange individual coverage after the “enrollment period” is up because Medi-Cal is considered to be “ACA-compliant.” In any case, the only choices off-exchange in SD County are a handful (2-3) HMOs and 1-2 Bronze-level PPOs. Everything else is gone.
I’m probably one of the most anal-retentive ex-bureaucrats you will ever meet and I have never seen anything like this colossal mess that is the ACA …… ever. Never in my lifetime did I think I was going to have to keep copious records in paper (mostly everything in every file off my CC account and visit it very regularly (at least once per wk) to see, what, if anything was done behind my back. Nor did I think I would have to wait up to 3 hrs to speak with a CC rep on the phone and log every single name and agent number and everything that transpired during the call (I’ve taken to recording them). I feel all this must be done because CC tries to cover their errors after the fact (when they’ve been pointed out by a customer or agent to a supervisor) by deleting the erroneous entry in the customer’s case, or worse, locking the customers CC case so they (and their agent) no longer have access to it.
CC needs to be dismantled forthwith and all those clowns running it and “working” in it let go (maybe 5-10% of their reps attempt to be honest to customers but don’t have the skills or computer access to fix their problems).
Nor did I think I was going to have to deal with County Social Services (Medi-Cal) and discuss all my private business with them. WTF?? Are you joking me? Ha, ha, I used to be one of YOU!
If a CC customer over 55 pays less attention to their CC account than I do (most everyone), then they’re setting themselves up for forced Medi-Cal placement for the purposes of “Estate Recovery.” I feel sorry for those CC enrollees for which English is not their first language. I’ve helped several people with their CC problems and was successful and am probably now nearly qualified to be one of their enrolled agent/navigators but I don’t want the job. It’s too time-consuming and NOT financially rewarding for the time you put into it. I applaud those agents with the patience of Job who assist in signing up many families on Medi-Cal and take care of all of their inevitable enrollment problems, which take many, many hours to fix. I think it is really unfortunate that so many middle-income people are unwittingly thrown into that system (over 12M now in CA) when it didn’t have enough providers to serve the <3M who were in it prior to obamacare.
In addition, CC issued tens of thousands of Form 1095's this year to exchange customers which were in error, refusing to correct them and causing these poor slobs to have to file extensions on their tax returns. Lots of these working stiffs were expecting large refunds (even the EIC) and cannot get those refunds until they can file their returns. These erroneous 1095 forms were sent to customers who changed plans from Jan-March (before open enrollment ended) or who were required to "prove their incomes to CC during the year, causing CC''s "system" to boot them out and set them up as a "new" client with a "new" plan with a slightly different subsidy and even a different premium (if they had a birthday since they signed up for or renewed their plan) under the same case number even if they kept the same plan as they always had! The “system” then mailed them a new “Welcome to CC” letter and started their account all over again. This happened to me when I was required to prove my income again in March 2016. I rec’d a new welcome letter from CC this past April with my new subsidy ($26 difference) and I have been with them since 1/1/14! So this group who rec’d the erroneous 1095A forms from CC are enrollees whose APTC and possibly monthly premium changed one or more times during the year (it wasn’t the same amount every month). I fully expect to get an erroneous Form 1095A from CC for tax year 2016. When it doesn’t match the subsidies I (and my carrier) state that I was/they were paid on my 2016 Form 8962, I’ll get a “12C letter” from the IRS about 2 months after I file my taxes. It’s okay. I now know the drill.
This doesn’t even take into account the intransigent problems with the exchange carriers. These problems mostly have to do with billing (carriers taking too much from customer’s credit cards and bank accounts), wrong start/stop dates of enrollment, failure to issue a timely member ID card (or one at all) and failure to delete providers from their website when they drop out of serving exchange customers.
We exchange planholders are forced to put up with all this crap (daily/weekly/monthly) just for the “opportunity” to get an (often small) subsidy to help us pay our now exorbitant premiums under “obamacare.”
I could go on and on …. and on. Suffice to say that CC and their uber-tight bedfellow, Medi-Cal, is still a colossal, effed-up mess for everyone who finds themselves involved with it. In my humble opinion, these problems are not fixable. My being “bumped” from my plan last November while I was on the road, traveling and having to get it reinstated (again) seriously caused me to develop high blood pressure (136/94) just after Thanksgiving last year (I never had HBP in my life). Thankfully, I was able to get it lowered without medication before the holidays.
Honestly, I don’t think too many Piggs have actually read any of my eye-opening posts re: the mechanics of the ACA. I mean …. you’re right, flyer. Why should they care? The truth is, they don’t want to know. The ACA really doesn’t affect worker bees who have employer coverage too much. And Estate Recovery doesn’t apply to people under the age of 55 who sign up for Medi-Cal.
Until one actually walks in another’s shoes, they can’t possibly know or understand why they feel the way they do.
-
AuthorPosts
