So how much is your insurance going up due to Obamacare?

Well, I *do* need a personal relationship with my doctor, as does my wife.

And while, sure, I can continue to see my existing doctor for minor stuff, for anything *major*, I'll apparently have to go through The Other Guy if I want things covered. I don't want to see The Other Guy. Ever. I deal with interacting with these doctors several times a week for medical calls for other people, I'm not going near The Other Guy. Some twit in an office decided he knew better.

My "bad evil" insurance policy I had, before The Powers That Be decided I was being swindled and could not be allowed to purchase such a poor product, allowed me to see *anyone*, and be covered, which was critical for our circumstances.

I don't have much polite left to say about the situation, if I had something truly life-threatening and was thrown into this situation, I'd be well and truly angry.

Cheers.

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Originally Posted by bae

There are lots of doctors in my network, true. They all, except for the one I was assigned by some faceless functionary, require 1-2 days' travel to get to, and perhaps $75 in travel expenses for ferry fares and whatnot. I might as well count doctors in Manhattan in my list...



I'm not asking for "more doctors in rural areas". I'm asking simply to be able to keep my *existing* doctor in my rural area, the one who has been treating my family for well over a decade, a doctor we have a happy personal relationship with.

So, the "issue" I am having with the ACA is it ended up with me having useless coverage, and told to use a doctor I wouldn't take a patient to with a splinter, much less trust with my own health.

So, yay. Rob and his progressive minions interfering with my existing health care solutions has resulted in me being hosed.

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Well, you're not exactly required to buy from that particular company, are you. Why don't you call your prefered dr. and ask them who they accept. Then shop that companies plans. It's not exactly like you're going hat in hand.
sheesh! It ain't rocket surgery!

Peggy,

You are welcome to spend a zillion hours on this state's web site and on the phone with their helpful representatives to try and accomplish that, as my dear wife did. We were lucky to get them to assign us *any* plan by the deadline, they didn't tell us what it covered, or who the company was even, "all that will be sorted out later".

Then again, they only had as much time to get this to work as it took to fight WWII. So maybe we should cut them some slack.

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Originally Posted by bae

Peggy,

You are welcome to spend a zillion hours on this state's web site and on the phone with their helpful representatives to try and accomplish that, as my dear wife did. We were lucky to get them to assign us *any* plan by the deadline, they didn't tell us what it covered, or who the company was even, "all that will be sorted out later".

Then again, they only had as much time to get this to work as it took to fight WWII. So maybe we should cut them some slack.

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Bae, I gotta say on this one I'm seeing it sort of kind of your way. Please don't go into cardiac arrest, ok? LOL.

I don't care for how Obama stated that if you liked your insurance you could keep it and your current doctors, too. There should have been some kind of warning to one and all that catastrophic plans would be eliminated and brought up to par with extensive plans. I myself would not prefer a catastrophic plan, to me that just begs bankruptcy, but then I am not you and you are (or should be) free to make your own decisions as to what constitutes adequate coverage. Oh, wow, I'm getting conservative here, or what? The flip of that is that I get to disagree with what you consider adequate and make my own choices, which I have a feeling that Bae here would be OK with (?).

I would also agree that when you were directed to this new plan, you should have been informed of all the distance from being homeless information - premiums, deductibles, co-pays, exclusions, any costs that could have you in financial upheaval. I don't like the way you say this transfer to this new plan was handled.

Personally, I can understand why you would want to keep the same doctor, too. I have a doctor in Mexicali that I trust and that has a large American and also Canadian clientele and his costs are very reasonable. This is what I have had to do given what American health care has become but I'm OK with it and I will keep this doctor, even with Medicaid. I do agree that for basic visits, I wouldn't need to see the same doctor on either side of the border, but I would keep track of all US visits and bring this information to Dr. Ramon next time I saw him. I do think it's good to have a doctor/patient relationship and I am seeing that some of these plans erode this. I can understand dissatisfaction with this, too. For myself, I am going to keep Dr. Ramon in Mexicali, but what do untold millions of others do who can't just hop into a bus and ride on off to Mexicali? This is not practical for most people due to geographic distances/work requirements.

Long and short of it, Bae, I do see where you have some valid points. And this comes from one of the board's liberals. Rob

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Originally Posted by Alan

Strangely enough, if there's a Walmart on your island and you're interested in becoming a greeter, you can get much cheaper insurance and a much larger network of doctors and hospitals under their employee plans than you can under Obamacare. http://washingtonexaminer.com/surpri...rticle/2541670

I hope Rob sees this...he could get a really nice policy with lower deductibles for as little as $40 a month.

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Alan, I did see this.

Gotta say that I have not cared for WalMart much for years. I have the standard dislikes of the company - low pay, scheduling done by computers and not humans so you can't really make any plans/have another job/go to school while you work for them, increased reliance on government programs due to low Wal Mart pay, how this company tends to force mom and pop stores to close down as they can't compete with predatory pricing, do you want me to go on? I could for some time.

It is nice to see something POSITIVE about Wal Mart for once, and if this all is true, more power to them for being for once HUMANE in one area if in no others. I might not like admitting this but as I've said before, I do believe in giving credit where credit is due. Here in this one area Wal Mart deserves some credit in my book. Rob

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Originally Posted by bae

Peggy,

You are welcome to spend a zillion hours on this state's web site and on the phone with their helpful representatives to try and accomplish that, as my dear wife did. We were lucky to get them to assign us *any* plan by the deadline, they didn't tell us what it covered, or who the company was even, "all that will be sorted out later".

Then again, they only had as much time to get this to work as it took to fight WWII. So maybe we should cut them some slack.

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California has a list of the doctors for each plan right on the Covered California site. It takes under a minute to check is a doctor if on a certain plan. Also we were not assigned a doctor. We can go to any one of thousands of doctors in the network for our chosen plan. I don't think assigned doctors are a requirement of the ACA. Maybe if you sin up for an HMO it is a requirement of the HMO?

Your post had me curious so I checked out the exchange for Washington state. It has detailed plan comparisons as well as doctor look ups. Did your wife use the plan at www.wahealthplanfinder.org?

I don't know where you live so I just used an Oak Harbor zip code on Whidbey Island. I found 27 different plans to choose from three different providers.

I am not sure where this no plan information available, lucky to get a plan or doctor assigned to you, or any of that is coming from. Your state exchange site looks very similar to the California exchange site with a wide variety of choices of plans and doctors available and easy to see and compare online. Have you looked at the www.wahealthplanfinder.org site?

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Originally Posted by try2bfrugal

California has a list of the doctors for each plan right on the Covered California site. It takes under a minute to check is a doctor is on a certain plan. Also we were not assigned a doctor. We can go to any one of thousands of doctors in the network. I don't think assigned doctors are a requirement of the ACA.

Your post had me curious so I checked out the exchange for Washington state. It has detailed plan comparisons as well as doctor look ups. Did your wife use the plan at www.wahealthplanfinder.org?

I don't know where you live so I just used an Oak Harbor zip code on Whidbey Island. I found 27 different plans to choose from three different providers.

I am not sure where this no plan information available, lucky to get a plan or doctor assigned to you, or any of that is coming from. Your state exchange site looks very similar to the California exchange site with a wide variety of choices of plans and doctors available and easy to see and compare online. Have you looked at the www.wahealthplanfinder.org site?

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I'm not 100% but I think Bae lives on one of those rural islands where you are closer to Canada than the United States (?). Whidbey Island is not too far from Seattle if I remember right, so there are of course going to be more doctors accessible there as there are more people in the area. I can see where being rural may work against you with some of these plans having narrower networks. Rob

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Originally Posted by gimmethesimplelife

I'm not 100% but I think Bae lives on one of those rural islands where you are closer to Canada than the United States (?). Whidbey Island is not too far from Seattle if I remember right, so there are of course going to be more doctors accessible there as there are more people in the area. I can see where being rural may work against you with some of these plans having narrower networks. Rob

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The plans available, doctor networks and plan comparison features for Washington State are all online on the state's exchange web site. I am not able to reconcile that with: "We were lucky to get them to assign us *any* plan by the deadline, they didn't tell us what it covered, or who the company was even, "all that will be sorted out later".

Correct, Rob, I can swim across the border to Canada if need be from here :-)

Luckily, I'm still young enough the friendly Canadians might just let me move there :-)

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The plans available, doctor networks and plan comparison features for Washington State are all online on the state's exchange web site.

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interesting because I think that was precisely the feature that did NOT work in covered california, the doctor and hospital look up.

Yea this is an old article, but it hasn't worked even recently:
http://articles.latimes.com/2013/oct...ctors-20131017

My task is the usual hopeless one: try to convince people to keep their existing plans rather than going with a covered plan and saving from $8-$20 a month - ie money spent on lottery tickets or something :~) I mean really for people that just simply waste money! But heaven forbid paying money for decent health insurance - oh noes, not that, better buy another shirt to add to your pile of 500 shirts or something - family >8)