Affordable Care Act - catastrophic plans cancelled

[colemj]

Originally Posted by SV THIRD DAY

I so liked the GI Doc I have in Mazatlan, MX that I will be flying down for my yearly Colonoscopy rolled into a little Vacation...heck now that I think about it, if I work it right I can stuff myself with Tacos and not have to ingest the calories from them...ha h ha ...A WIN!

You didn't really mean to use the phrases "yearly colonoscopy" and "stuff myself with tacos" in the same sentence, did you?

Mark

[transmitterdan]

Originally Posted by svmariane

P.S. - STILL cannot access/enter the Federal ACA website from here in American Samoa. (sigh)

James, et. al.

What error are you getting? Are there any other locations outside the US from which one cannot access healthcare.gov web site? I ask because I have several friends outside the US and am worried they cannot create an account. Personally I tried to create an account but the system insisted that my chosen account name was unacceptable with no hint as to what was wrong with it. No matter what account user name I selected it was unacceptable to the system so I gave up.

Dan

[colemj]

Originally Posted by transmitterdan

James, et. al.

What error are you getting? Are there any other locations outside the US from which one cannot access healthcare.gov web site? I ask because I have several friends outside the US and am worried they cannot create an account. Personally I tried to create an account but the system insisted that my chosen account name was unacceptable with no hint as to what was wrong with it. No matter what account user name I selected it was unacceptable to the system so I gave up.

Dan

We are outside the US and we can access the web site but cannot create an account to go any further. For us, it all goes haywire at the security questions - it tells us we are giving identical answers for different questions.

Mark

[CatInHand]

Originally Posted by SV THIRD DAY

Anytime the Government is giving money to people/organizations/groups, etc that they have not earned (like a pension, retirement, health care as part of a job) that is by definition a government hand-out or welfare.

ah. A job that provides health care is something you have earned. A job that doesn't provide healthcare means you need government welfare.

So being an active part of my community doesn't "earn" me healthcare, but a corporate job does?

[capngeo]

Folks, the staff has been pretty forgiving in this thread, but the political rants have not gone un-noticed…. Please stay on topic and avoid thread closure!

[Mambo]

Originally Posted by svmariane

Just a quick fact check...

Who is going to pay? Me. Maybe some of you who are reading this, too. Or at least for a bit of it, one way or another.

We already all pay.

Until we reach the day where we let people die in the streets then we all pay for the care of the uninsured. The real kicker is that under the current system we not only pay for the healthcare -- we pay for it in both the most expensive and least effective manner. We treat poor people in emergency rooms and don't provide them with preventative care. It is the worst of all worlds. That is why the US has some of the highest healthcare costs and some of the worst healthcare outcomes.

But it is not just that bad . . . it is actually far worse: Our economy is dragged down by the inefficiencies of an uninsured workforce. It is not just that Aunt Sally can't pay her insurance bill and gets sick because she didn't have preventative care; its that Uncle Joe has to quit his job to take care of her and that the small business down the street doesn't get paid because they went bankrupt and that their neighbor's home value is impacted by the foreclosure Joe and Sally's house . . . on an on . . . unintended externalities from an uninsured workforce.

The ACA is a flawed first step. But it is a necessary first step. From what I see, the impact on cruisers will be minimal and largely positive. I think this discussion will be fascinating in 6 months!

[CatInHand]

Originally Posted by transmitterdan

James, et. al.

What error are you getting? Are there any other locations outside the US from which one cannot access healthcare.gov web site? I ask because I have several friends outside the US and am worried they cannot create an account. Personally I tried to create an account but the system insisted that my chosen account name was unacceptable with no hint as to what was wrong with it. No matter what account user name I selected it was unacceptable to the system so I gave up.

Dan

Curious. I wonder if it's some sort of encryption issue from the country you are in. It will be interesting to hear from others trying to access from outside the US. It seems like it would be a pretty small number so it may take a while for the comments to start showing up.

[Stugots]

Originally Posted by CatInHand

Curious. I wonder if it's some sort of encryption issue from the country you are in. It will be interesting to hear from others trying to access from outside the US. It seems like it would be a pretty small number so it may take a while for the comments to start showing up.

I don't think this error is location driven. The problems with security questions were brought up in the news almost immediately after the site was rolled out. I would suggest calling in if possible. The website sounds like a disaster.

[skipmac]

Originally Posted by Mambo

We already all pay.

Until we reach the day where we let people die in the streets then we all pay for the care of the uninsured. The real kicker is that under the current system we not only pay for the healthcare -- we pay for it in both the most expensive and least effective manner. We treat poor people in emergency rooms and don't provide them with preventative care. It is the worst of all worlds. That is why the US has some of the highest healthcare costs and some of the worst healthcare outcomes.

100% correct. Go to an ER with a real problem and see how many people are sitting in the waiting room with minor, routine medical problems. I tried to go to an ER a few weeks ago with a vision problem that could have been serious. I was told 5-6 hours to see a doctor due to the dozens of people waiting for free, non-urgent medical care.

My daughter is doctor in emergency medicine and when she worked in an urban hospital many days she spent the majority of her time treating everything from chickenpox to toothaches.

Of course, Saturday night on a holiday weekend things got a bit more interesting.

[SV THIRD DAY]

Originally Posted by colemj

(to the Mods - Rich and I know each other - I am positive he takes that comment as the joke I meant it to be!!!!!!)

Absolutely Mark....
Once I got tossed out of the Tea Party Terrorists for wanting to push granny over the cliff....it's been all down hill for me since.


My goal is to find a high deductable (aka Catastrophic) plan that is now illegal in the "free" US of A, for health our families health coverage. There is already talk of these plans coming on the market for people who choose to ignore the ACA. If I don't care about satisfying the ACA requirements, then I have many more options open to me. Then I will just pay the ACA fine and tell the micromanaging tyrants to kiss my a$$, politely of course. That way I get the best of both worlds: The Health Care plan I want without the associated Govent chains...how could that be such an evil/bad idea? Just wait...

Oh and maybe I sould have said that I would support a Single Payer system like our friends in Canada have over the ACA debacle. Why....OMG RICH are you crazy...
No not at all...it makes perfect sense, just turn the VA System or Medicare into the single payer and Viola...done. Calculate how much it would cost per year and add the needed percentage onto the current tax rates. Done..what's the problem?

[pbiJim]

I'm certainly no expert on this subject, but I would expect that the OP could probably purchase the (non-Obamacare compliant) policy of his choice in a foreign country & then just pay the minimal Obamacare non-compliance fine.

If you are cruising & not working, then your income should be low enough to keep the fine pretty small, at least for the first year or two, until the fine rates start to ratchet up. By that time, hopefully Either Obamacare will no longer exist or you will have had time to figure something else out.

[CatInHand]

Originally Posted by Stugots

I don't think this error is location driven. The problems with security questions were brought up in the news almost immediately after the site was rolled out. I would suggest calling in if possible. The website sounds like a disaster.

Not an issue here. The WA state system has been talked about for it's ease of use and lack of problems. I'm afraid I've ignored the problems with the federal system since I figured they'd get the kinks worked out at some point.

[Boatguy30]

Originally Posted by skipmac

100% correct. Go to an ER with a real problem and see how many people are sitting in the waiting room with minor, routine medical problems. I tried to go to an ER a few weeks ago with a vision problem that could have been serious. I was told 5-6 hours to see a doctor due to the dozens of people waiting for free, non-urgent medical care.

My daughter is doctor in emergency medicine and when she worked in an urban hospital many days she spent the majority of her time treating everything from chickenpox to toothaches.

Of course, Saturday night on a holiday weekend things got a bit more interesting.

I'll just quickly point out that all that care will be billed at full retail and is technically not "free" also in many hospitals you sign a form pledging your home as payment as a homesteaded property can usually not be taken in a judgement in FL.

I happen to have a high deductible plan I bought in 2012 so could not be grandfathers, but Humana told me it would be available next year. Renewal is not until march 2014.

If you live in a state not doing Medicaid but don't make enough money for the exchange, you don't have to pay the fine. I just have to figure out if the new policy rate is lower than the additional taxes I would pay on self employment income I would have to over report.

To the op, let's assume he is a smoker. I think that adds something like 25%. NC has a historically high rate of smokers and lots of people without insurance driving up hospital costs. So it may well be that NC is one of the more expensive states. Interestingly many other rural red states are also high like Wyoming.

[Doodles]

Originally Posted by SV THIRD DAY

Absolutely Mark....
Once I got tossed out of the Tea Party Terrorists for wanting to push granny over the cliff....it's been all down hill for me since.


My goal is to find a high deductable (aka Catastrophic) plan that is now illegal in the "free" US of A, for health our families health coverage. There is already talk of these plans coming on the market for people who choose to ignore the ACA. If I don't care about satisfying the ACA requirements, then I have many more options open to me. Then I will just pay the ACA fine and tell the micromanaging tyrants to kiss my a$$, politely of course. That way I get the best of both worlds: The Health Care plan I want without the associated Govent chains...how could that be such an evil/bad idea? Just wait...

The solution is simple. Just give up your citizenship and move to some place like Thailand where medical services are good and cheap. You will also pay a lot less income taxes, property taxes, etc. Weather is nice (no snow) and so is the sailing.

Plus your body will thank you since you won't be so stressed out over the ACA thing.

[SV THIRD DAY]

Originally Posted by pbiJim

I'm certainly no expert on this subject, but I would expect that the OP could probably purchase the (non-Obamacare compliant) policy of his choice in a foreign country & then just pay the minimal Obamacare non-compliance fine.

If you are cruising & not working, then your income should be low enough to keep the fine pretty small, at least for the first year or two, until the fine rates start to ratchet up. By that time, hopefully Either Obamacare will no longer exist or you will have had time to figure something else out.

Double Bingo...
Remember when I said as Cruisers we needed to think outside the Box!
Don't be trapped in the system folks. There is always a way around the artificial economy laid down by the wizards of smart in Govent.



“There is no Spoon”