Obamacare / Affordable Care Act : classic or dud?

Hah yeah I've been through 3 people via that route. Acted surprised and bewildered, then told me I should really just go on the site cos they logged in as me and see all these cool plans.

I guess I could give it another shot.

yes. shooting them might help.

If you fail to sign up for medical insurance it's not just a matter of going uncovered now. There is a minimum tax penalty of (iirc) several hundred dollars that you'll pay for the privilege of having no insurance.

― Aimless, Saturday, February 14, 2015 9:23 AM (3 hours ago)

in the case of William's daughter, she might qualify for a low income/affordability exemption

Also, I believe you could add her to your plan, (depending on her age) and there would just be a few extra forms to fill out at tax time if she files her own tax return and is not your dependent.

She's 26, past the cutoff for being added to my insurance. She has health insurance and pays for it herself so she won't get hit with the tax penalty, I'm just cranky at her for not taking advantage of the ACA. She definitely qualifies for the low-income subsidy. She's done all the math, I just don't think she's finished the signup procedure. Maybe she's psychic and knows King vs. Burwell is going to go badly.

I was irritated that this year, the tax credit only applies to people that purchased insurance through the marketplace, as opposed to people that got policies by other means, which means I lose out.

Ok gonna give it ONE MORE TRY.

"Almost Finished...."

FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU

Can anyone recommend healthcare in other countries? Can I fly to a country with real socialized healthcare and get help as a foreigner?

On the front page in green letters next to my name it says "Identity Verified". And yet it will not let me finish my application because "My identity has not been verified"

My bf tried it (self-employed) and got, "You can't choose a health plan until we verify these two documents. Please send or fax them to (xxxxx) before 5-31-2015" or something. So if the deadline for turning in his proof of citizenship is MAY, he can't be held liable for not having a plan by 2-15. Surely? We hope.

Hoping one place or the other hires me soon bc I didn't sign up and don't have the info to hand, but there's a 90-day grace period for getting health insurance by other means. C'mon full time job!

I don't think you need to go through the exchange website. When I was looking to switch from freelancers to Health First, I just called up Health First and was about to sign up. Maybe that's only if you're not going for subsidies? But you should be able to do that through the insurance company directly no? I ended up taking a job at the same time so it's a moot point, but I'm still fighting Freelancers over money.

Maybe that's only if you're not going for subsidies?

Yep.

http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/news/a33865/diabetes-is-a-reason-to-repeal-obamacare/

"obamacare" has already contributed to saving an estimated 50,000 lives

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/fact-checker/wp/2015/04/01/obamas-claim-the-affordable-care-act-was-a-major-reason-in-preventing-50000-patient-deaths/?tid=hybrid_experimentrandom_1_na

time to repeal this evil!

Two years ago I didn't have health care and the health care cooperative I now belong to did not exist, yet. Now I can afford to buy insurance and it was easy to compare policies and make a choice. Pure evil.

I just want to know if Adam Bruneau's 1 1/2 year odyssey to signing up for health care has met with success?!

Hah. No. I checked my trash to see if I missed anything and it was full of emails from Healthcare.gov, saying "It is almost your last chance to sign up!" "Hurry up!" and NONE of them were responding to my requests for help or any of the document uploads I had done or anything. Really looking forward to paying that fee, they are doing a bang-up job in Washington and deserve my money /s

So I lost my contract job that dictates my income level, leaving me with a rather high income level and no substantial current income (I still have plenty of work but it's not nearly at the level it was last year). I could buy private insurance but it seems like they would base my payments on what I made last year, and I couldn't afford it at the moment.

But hold on I am going to try again.

Ok the MY PROFILE page has a green "Identity Verified" with a green checkmark right under my name. At the top it says "You have messages".

In MESSAGES it says "You have a notice available about your identity verification. Download". I download the PDF.

The PDF is dated Nov 28, 2014. It asks for two proofs of ID, which I sent in and received a piece of paper in response to. The paper told me that my identity had been verified, which is what the website currently tells me and has told me ever since Dec of last year.

it seems like they would base my payments on what I made last year

I think you are misconceiving this.

Insurance premiums are set according to underwriting standards, such as your age, smoking habits, and a few other broad criteria. The only income-based adjustments are done by the federal government via tax credits, and the only way to qualify for tax credits is to sign up using a health care exchange such as healthcare.gov or your state exchange. If you buy insurance through the private market, you won't get any subsidy, and your premium will not be related to your income at all.

adam, gonna assume this is a dumb question, but i'll ask anyway -- have you called a government rep?

I have called a variety of numbers, including Experian (the number they first provided when my Identity Verification fell through) and several Health Insurance Marketplace reps. None of them had idea any what to do and just forwarded me to other numbers.

It looks like the private market is the way for me to go. Unfortunately it looks like there are no plans in my area under $200/mo. I will look into Medicaid.

Only women, children, and families.

I am 28 years too young for Medicare. =(

you can qualify for an exemption to the requirement for coverage if your income is low enough.

So far I've been cancelled three times because of obstinate data flow between Anthem and Covered CA. Right now I'm A-OK, but I feel like my insurance is basically ACME/Sirius Cybernetics.

On the other hand, my gf's experience with Obamacare in NY has been pretty good, but there's no way the bureaucracy would have cleared her for CA care.

I've heard (of) Dwight Twilley -- it sounds like a seventies ringer (it's what he is, no?) going New Wave in 1981.

haha whoops

we have off-shore contractors who cancel polices willy-nilly, I can't even determine wtf they were trying to do to begin with. spend 1/2 my work days reinstating them, it's ridic. 6 fucking logins/passwords I have to use for various systems but hey let's give barely-trained not-really-employees the ability to term policies, excellente.

93% of our accounts have at least 1 data discrepancy between our files and the government's, whole system is a mess

Just to recap: Lang broke the law by refusing to get health insurance coverage because he prided himself on being able to pay his bills out of pocket. But he got sick and actually had too little savings to cover even relatively small health care bills. By now open enrollment has closed. But he figured he'd be able to buy in if he got in a jam or wait till he got sick to buy coverage. Luckily the ACA's Medicaid expansion covers him regardless. But the state of South Carolina refused to accept Medicaid expansion even though the federal government would pay for it. Lang is left in precisely the situation that would exist if the ACA had never been passed. So he blames Obama.

that's just one guy, who is most likely going to go blind (needlessly) unless he gets charitable support. his story has gotten enough exposure that it wouldn't surprise me if a conservative kickstarter helped him out.

there must be so many stories like this in the states that refused to accept medicaid expansion. there are 19 states that refused the expansion. over a million people in texas alone that won't gain access to medicaid and are unlikely to get insurance on their own.

die quickly. go GOP

Well I got another document request letter in the mail. It needs information to verify my household income, which is that I have no real steady household income at the moment, so I'm kind of unsure what to send....

you probably want to send a copy of your most recent tax return.

is there any reason (except for politics) that the language at the heart of the supreme court case - the bit that says the federal government can subsidize coverage only in states that set up their own health insurance markets - could be changed via an act of congress?

various articles have discussed the potential fallout of a supreme court decision that would take away the subsidies. if there was no congressional response, millions would lose their coverage and in the process drive up premiums for people that already have insurance (the death spiral). or, states could try to build their own exchanges as fast as they can. or, congress could grant an extension of the subsidies until 2017 (that's the wyden bill with mcconnell's support).

but no one ever mentions just changing the language in that one section of the law itself. is that not an option? with a functioning u.s. congress, couldn't they just introduce a bill to formally amend the law so that it's more clear that any state can receive subsidies, regardless of whether or not they set up their own markets (as the authors of the law clearly intended)?

No, there is no reason other than politics and animus towards the poor and sick. Congress could've fixed the language.

But worry is setting in: http://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/supreme-court-obamacare-republicans-backlash

yep, that specific article is what prompted this thread revive. the politics behind this confuse the hell out of me. clearly there's a large chunk of conservatives who would like to obamacare go down in flames, no matter what. but then there's also growing recognition that some republicans are getting nervous and are trying to figure out how to salvage the whole thing. that article talks a little about the wyden bill to extend the subsidies until 2017, which has mcconnell's support. but...why not just add a handful of words to the original law and fix the problem at its source?

Senator John Thune ‏@SenJohnThune 30 minutes ago
Six million people risk losing their health care subsidies, yet @POTUS continues to deny that Obamacare is bad for the American people.

i think i mentioned this upthread - GOP slimebags attempting to capitalize on confusion

special place in hell etc.

6-3 seems excessive. what about the veneer of bipartisanship?

http://live.scotusblog.com/Event/Live_blog_of_opinions__June_25_2015

*years after the fact, when no one notices or remembers*

oh, i guess it's not a job-killer, oops

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonkblog/wp/2015/08/12/no-obamacare-isnt-killing-full-time-jobs-new-evidence-shows/

One provision of the law, which is widely known as Obamacare, requires businesses with more than 50 employees to offer health insurance to those working at least 30 hours a week. That mandate took effect this year.

Republicans, and some Democrats, worried that employers would look for ways to get around the mandate, either by giving their employees fewer than 30 hours, or by hiring fewer people.

..."The data, to date, basically say that that hasn't happened, at least on aggregate basis -- that there really hasn't been nearly the change that some people were expecting," said Chris Ryan, a vice president at the payroll-management firm ADP.

Analysts at ADP studied the payrolls of the firms' clients, about 75,000 U.S. firms and organizations. They expected that as businesses prepared for the mandate to take effect, they would adjust their employees' schedules, limiting them to no more than 30 hours a week. Yet ADP found no overall change in employees' weekly schedules between 2013 and last year.

According to ADP's analysis, shifts in scheduling were trivial in every sector of the economy, even in industries that rely heavily on part-time work, such as leisure and hospitality.

man, it's going to be hard to keep track of all the admissions and apologies from the GOP and fox news, whoa now

Love the language they often use. Job KILLER. It is going to MURDER jobs. Jobs are going to meet their mortal end. Quite unlike actual humans if they don't see a doctor.

if Nixon's Plumbers were around they'd be working overtime to get Sanders the nom.

well i guess this is the rong thread