Via Charles Gaba at ACASIGNUPS.net:
“Because of the unprecedented demand and volume of consumers contacting our call center or visiting HealthCare.gov, we are extending the deadline to sign-up for January 1 coverage until 11:59pm PST December 17.Hundreds of thousands have already selected plans over the last two days and approximately 1 million consumers have left their contact information to hold their place in line.Our goal is to provide access to affordable coverage, and the additional 48 hours will give consumers an opportunity to come back and complete their enrollment for January 1 coverage. ”
–Kevin Counihan, CEO of the Health Insurance Marketplaces
There were several questions in comments over the past day about what to do if you were stuck in Healthcare.gov . I thought there was a good chance of a 1 to 3 day extension and told people to get as deep as possible but quit right before they hit the rage quit point. So everyone now has another 48 hours to get enrolled on healthcare.gov for January 1, 2016 coverage.
Elizabelle
Wonderful news.
I am impressed at how much Healthcare.gov stays in touch by email and phone. Not an issue for me; I now have coverage (which I am using), and might switch plans by January 15th, but am good for now.
It’s still too expensive, but I am grateful to have it at all. In the richest and most exceptional country in the world. (And I am in good health.)
MomSense
They did a great job of sending out reminder emails this enrollment period. I ended up calling and talking to a human being who signed me up for a better plan $200 cheaper. Also bundled a dental plan that is much better than my previous plan.
Apparently Maine Community Health (Co-op) is not accepting new patients but I am grandfathered in. I hope this is not because they were screwed over by Republican fuckery with risk corridors.
Richard Mayhew
@MomSense: A bit of A and Maine Co-Op went into New Hampshire and probably picked up a pretty sick population so they have to be careful with their reserves.
Steeplejack
I was pretty sure that my insurance plan (with Kaiser Permanente) would roll over automatically for 2016, but I got so many hectoring—and increasingly hysterical—e-mails from various entities connected to HealthCare.gov that I got on the site yesterday to see what was up.
First of all, the site is vastly improved from the fiasco of 2013 and even from last year. Although I couldn’t log in all the way, there were options to be notified by e-mail when I could log in and options to go ahead and shop for plans by ZIP code without logging in. And the site response time was fairly zippy. I took a look at what was on offer and confirmed my decision to keep my current plan. I figured the premium would go up—and it did, by 7.5%—but the plan is pretty good, I am a “low utilizer” anyway, and I just need another year before I hit Medicare eligibility in January 2017. It did look like Kaiser has reduced the number of plans offered on the exchange, but I could be wrong about that.
Afterwards, just to be on the safe side, I called Kaiser and confirmed that my plan does roll over automatically. Strange that they didn’t send me a notice about that—and the increase in the premium—which I seem to remember getting last year. Oh, well, as one of its own (medical) executives was quoted as saying, Kaiser is an excellent health-care system attached to a mediocre insurance company.
sam bolini
I currently have an ACA plan, in New Hampshire, a high deductable HSA compliant policy thru Anthem BCBS. For 2016 they wanted a 10% premium increase and another 1,000 on the deductable. So I went back to the marketplace and switched companies. Now with Minuteman (who has only been in NH a couple of years) for a $200 monthly premium reduction with a slight increase in the deductable. Still a bad deal, I’m out close to $14,000 before they pay dime one. But much much better than BCBS.
Like Steeplejack, I saw a great improvement in the http://www.healthcare.gov site. On Monday (the 14th) most of the time I got to log straight in. When I got a wait page it was always for under 10 minutes. The site design is fairly clear and the response, once you are logged in, is snappy, easily the equal of any major e-commerce player. The alternate plans were presented clearly, there are several filters and a compare plan function, all of which work well. To check that everything was set, I followed up with a phone call yesterday. Wait time was reasonable at 20 minutes. The rep was polite and efficient and knew her stuff. So all in all the marketplace works quite well.
Full disclosure: I remain completely unhappy and mad about the whole situation. The “insurance” companies are not health care and their entire business model is to collect premium and deny payouts. The ACA in effect made the government their “bag man” by funneling them customers who practially and legally have no other choice than to buy their defective over priced product. Tony Soprano would be proud.
MomSense
@Richard Mayhew:
I hope they don’t get in to trouble because I really like this company.
MomSense
O/T but did the Republicans discuss health care even once last night? I can’t remember what the topic was supposed to be but it seems like they only discussed Daesh in Me Strong, Obama/Clinton Weak Me for hours.
They don’t seem to be dealing with any of the day to day concerns of ordinary people. I’m much more likely to sprain my ankle while being dragged through the woods by my dog than blown up by terrorists.
Gin & Tonic
@MomSense: O/T but did the Republicans discuss health care even once last night?
You must be joking, right?
JPL
OT.. My Boston friend just called and said Brady has a news conference at 11:45 to announce his support for Sanders. What do you say now, Brady haters?
WV Blondie
I switched plans – living in WV I only have one choice of provider (though multiple plans). Everything went fine at the HCA website, except … I haven’t been able to pay for January. Not through HCA, not through my provider’s website – though I suppose I should be grateful the provider does show the plan switch. Do I have to the end of the month to pay the premium?
MomSense
@JPL:
Ha! My Mom is also a Sanders supporter and will be very pleased to hear this. She has been in a bit of a tiff with “her Brady” over Herr Trumpler.
JPL
@MomSense: All I could find is at Patriots.com they have Brady’s press conference scheduled. I’m going to stream it.
Chyron HR
@JPL:
Which one, Mike or Carol?
Roger Moore
@JPL:
He’s a flip-flopper!
benw
@JPL: two questions: (1) is a sports star holding a news conference to announce a change in candidate support a normal thing? I’ve never heard of that before. And (2) how does someone support Trump until now and then switch to Sanders? I suspect shenanigans. Also, Brady still SUCKS!
? Martin
Eventually this GOP Obamacare fever will break. Perhaps it has already started.
This will cause much distress with my mom but like a good son I’m trolling her now on IM.
? Martin
@benw: 1) It’s Tom Brady who is much prettier than your average sports star, so of course it’s appropriate. 2) I’m guessing he liked hob-nobbing with Trump on the golf course but Ms. Bündchen decided to have a conversation with her husband and remind him that it would not do to have him even with implicit support for a fucking fascist lunatic.
Mnemosyne (tablet)
@sam bolini:
FWIW, I’m still convinced that the initial purpose of PPACA is to squeeze insurance company profits until for-profit companies give up in disgust and only the nonprofits remain. Once that happens, it will be easier to transition the rest of the way to a single-payer system, though insurance companies will never go away entirely. Even single-provider systems like the NHS still have insurance you can buy to get private hospital rooms and other little luxuries.
If we had a normal Congress that was willing to continue putting the squeeze on with further regulations, we’d probably be seeing for-profits start rage-quitting by now, but we don’t.
Mnemosyne (tablet)
@? Martin:
I think Republicans really don’t get that when they start ranting about “immigrants,” white immigrants hear that shit and feel threatened, too.
Sad_Dem
Currently I get Kaiser through my employer–if my job were to end, could I stay on Kaiser, say its copper plan?
JPL
@benw: He never supported Trump’s candidacy but he did say Trump was a friend.
I haven’t been able to find out any other information yet, so far, it was someone on Sports radio who mentioned it.
benw
@? Martin: (1) so dreamy and (2) but the other side thinks Sanders is a fascist lunatic, so Brady’s no better off.
@JPL: I guess we’ll have to wait and see what it’s all about. That’s no fun!
? Martin
@Mnemosyne (tablet):
Yeah, there’s a hint of that, but really the goal was to get the provider costs in line. There really wasn’t a lot of economic waste at the insurance level. The bigger problem there was the lack of coverage, not out-of-control costs. Insurance companies are actually pretty good about getting costs in line because they often run annuities out the back end which require that they run reasonably lean. So the idea was to partner with the insurers (since the government is also an insurer at the Medicare/Medicaid level) and use that partnership to go after the hospitals, doctor groups, device makers, drug companies and so on. The drug companies themselves are a very powerful block largely because they are multinationals, so Obama cut a side deal with them, which put all of the focus on lowering provider costs. That was important because the provider costs are what is gutting Medicare and the only way to save Medicare is a strategy along the lines of PPACA – and saving Medicare was the real point of PPACA. If some for-profit insurers went under, oh well.
JPL
@benw: Well this is all I found..
Brady press conference ends abruptly when he is asked two questions about Trump. “Like I said I’m just here to play football” and walks off
So at this point, it’s just a rumor.
Triumph
Hey Richard or anyone out there:
My situation is as follows- I chose a different plan with the same provider. I successfully registered for that plan on the 13th. Then I received a card from the same provider (Kaiser) that makes me think they just signed me up for a comparable plan to what I had last year. When I log into my Kaiser account online, it glitches when I try to go to the “pay your premium” page.
Question: I’m gonna have to spend time on the phone talking to actual people fixing this, aren’t I?
Richard Mayhew
@Triumph: Most likely you will need to go through Customer Service Heck to get this resolved.
My bet is that the 834 file with your sign-up information got blown up somewhere in the process and the membership system is not reading your file right. (That happens all the time, Mayhew Insurance has 5 FTEs devoted to fixing that problem during open enrollment, can’ pay me enough to do that)
Call, tell them what you told us with relevant details and they should be able to resolve it in a day or three.