-- A $12,600 deductible. CNNMoney reported that one family “found a bronze-level plan for roughly $357 a month, after their subsidy, which they could swing. But it comes with a $12,600 family deductible.”
-- Enormous rate increases. A research group found that a 30-year-old male nonsmoker “will see his lowest cost insurance option increase 260 percent.”
-- Some who already buy their own insurance are receiving cancellation notices -- and offers for expensive new policies. The Christian Science Monitor reported on a North Carolina family who had been buying Blue Cross and Blue Shield insurance for $380-a-month. “BCBS is offering them a new plan for three times the cost, $1,124.50 a month, still with an $11,000 deductible,” reports the paper.
-- A California couple said that the Obamacare policy suggested to them included a 40 percent increase in their doctor's office co-pay. “Our co-pay skyrocketed from 0 percent to 40 percent and the maximum out-of-pocket increased an additional $2,300,” according to a letter in the Fresno Bee.
-- Kaiser Health News found a lack of competition in some pockets of the country. “Eighteen percent of counties have only one insurer offering plans and 33 percent of counties have only two insurers competing....”
◼ If you think the ObamaCare exchanges and premiums were bad - HotAir
Bear in mind that Democrats claimed that the ObamaCare exchanges would make insurers treat individuals better in relation to group insurance plans. Instead, they’ve made the markets for individuals even worse than before, thanks to the deluge of costly mandates imposed on insurers, who must pass the cost of risk pools to the consumers.
...Plus, we’ve now made it a crime for consumers to refuse health insurance, although many will make that choice anyway:
Millions of Americans may be wrestling with computer glitches to try to sign up for Obamacare — but many people eligible just won’t bother and will pay a price for it.If you have to pay the first $4000 out of your own pocket on insurance premiums that have doubled, why bother at all?
Some will flout the mandate to buy coverage on ideological grounds, a health insurance version of civil disobedience.
Some will opt for the penalty because it’s cheaper than paying for insurance, even with subsidies — as long as they don’t get sick and have to pay their own medical bills.
And some are so confused about the president’s health care law that they may not even realize they have to pay a penalty — or a tax, as the Supreme Court called it — until they get slapped with the fine when they file their 2014 tax returns. And sign-up rates may be affected, too, if the technical problems on the exchange websites persist.
◼ Obamacare's Website Is Crashing Because It Doesn't Want You To Know How Costly Its Plans Are - Avik Roy/Forbes
A growing consensus of IT experts, outside and inside the government, have figured out a principal reason why the website for Obamacare’s federally-sponsored insurance exchange is crashing. Healthcare.gov forces you to create an account and enter detailed personal information before you can start shopping. This, in turn, creates a massive traffic bottleneck, as the government verifies your information and decides whether or not you’re eligible for subsidies. HHS bureaucrats knew this would make the website run more slowly. But they were more afraid that letting people see the underlying cost of Obamacare’s insurance plans would scare people away.
HHS didn’t want users to see Obamacare’s true costs
“Healthcare.gov was initially going to include an option to browse before registering,” report Christopher Weaver and Louise Radnofsky in the Wall Street Journal. “But that tool was delayed, people familiar with the situation said.” Why was it delayed? “An HHS spokeswoman said the agency wanted to ensure that users were aware of their eligibility for subsidies that could help pay for coverage, before they started seeing the prices of policies.” (Emphasis added.)
◼ HHS Spent $1.5M in FY2012 on TV Studio Used to Promote Obamacare - Washington Free Beacon
What Sequester?
