[ExI] healthcare mash

[spike]

>... On Behalf Of Mirco Romanato
Subject: Re: [ExI] healthcare mash

Il 29/11/2013 20:13, spike ha scritto:


>> .for what I think will happen this evening and tomorrow.  I will give 
> HealthCare.gov another try, and report back on how it goes...


>...How went your new and improved experience with HealthCare.gov?
Inquiring mind want know.

Mirco
_______________________________________________

Hi Mirco, I haven't tried it myself, but I am hearing mixed reviews.  I did
go in and work their anonymous-shopper feature, which does exactly what we
were discussing here: just estimate prices depending on one's anticipated
income and state.  The results of that told me what I already knew: these
prices are waaaay above what I was paying before, and it is way cheaper to
buy the risk and pay the fine for the first couple years at least, even
assuming one chooses to pay it.  I am choosing to stay out for now.

I am reading what the medics and insurance people are saying: the process is
causing adverse selection to kick into high gear.  This will cause the
clientele of doctors to be much older and sicker and the insurance rates to
go up sharply next year.

I have heard that the repairs have been primarily to the front end: the user
experience is better now, but the application information from the site to
the insurance companies is still about the same as before: somehow it is
incomplete or garbled in the transmission.  This will allow the insurance
companies to do data-mining on applicants to discover if they have some
condition which would make them an undesirable customer, which then allows
the insurance company to decide which applications have been delivered with
corrupted data.  The data is still not encrypted: anything you tell
Healthcare.gov becomes the equivalent of public domain information.  Ready
to proceed?

In any case, I would think that had HealthCare.gov initially had this
anonymous-shopper feature working to start with, they never would have had
all these problems.  Surely there were others doing the same thing I did:
try to set up a pseudonym account to find out what the costs would be, in
order to do retirement planning.  If I believe what I read in the press,
this feature worked all along, being one of the few components that did work
properly. (it is very simple so no surprise there.)  The decision was made
very deliberately by the government to turn off that feature.  They didn't
want the customers seeing those prices without being able to see all these
wonderful government subsidies available.  Consequently, proletariat hordes
went to the site looking for price quotes, which caused the crash.  They
didn't want healthy people going there and doing what I did: comparing our
current price with the new price and deciding with no further investigation
to just pay the fine, even if that action risks a retaliatory IRS audit.  I
personally am not so much at risk: I will already be on the list for a
retaliatory IRS audit just from what I have posted on the internet, but if I
get one, mine will likely be pretty boring: I have no deductions and just
fill in the blanks using TurboTax.

The promised subsidy is nearly worthless, for it is a promise by the same
government which promised 34 times that if you like your current plan you
can keep your current plan, and if you like your current doctor you can keep
your current doctor (period end of story.)  Turns out this is not true
period end of story.  So we get a half-hearted apology.  What if one signs
up for one of these plans assuming this promised subsidy, and the government
(which still hasn't managed to pass a budget in years) decides to not pay
those subsidies, or underpays?  What do we get then?  Another apology?  

The nightmare begins: the news agencies can trot out case after case of sick
people who had years invested in their doctor, who had insurance companies
who were paying, but whose policies were cancelled and the policies
available will not cover their previous doctor, in whom they had years of
investment and personal relationships.  The news agencies will feature prime
time interviews with people who will say they have given up and must now let
nature takes its course, goodbye cruel world, and will my government please
have mercy on me and end my suffering, send an agent to my house to shoot
me, etc.  News agencies love this kind of thing.

And what happens to those subsidies when the other party takes over, the
party which was saying all along this program will not work, the party which
voted in perfect unanimity against it?  Do you suppose the other party will
pay those subsidies?  Is it not easy enough to foresee what will happen in
the upcoming elections in November 2014?

spike