fatbrit

Long story short, unexpectedly ended up in hospital for a week over Xmas attached to tubes and wires and stuff, and being prodded and poked and earnestly lectured to by children who appeared half my age.

Scheisse, I thought -- there goes any further chance of health insurance as both Mrs FB and myself are self-employed. Anyways, one of those administrators that wanders around your bed every day asking the same inane questions again and again proved her weight in gold by signing me up for Obamacare.

It's a magically cheap plan as these things go in the US. The strange thing is that you actually need to declare a pre-existing condition to qualify. Apart from that, you need to be a citizen or PR, and live in one of the covered states.

Michael

Congratulations. So it appears that you got into the temporary risk pool which is funded with only $5 billion per year until 2014 when the exchanges kick in. I think the price is the same as when the exchanges kick in. The following is a calculator that estimates costs when the exchanges kicks in 2014 and if your young, it is pretty inexpensive with very good coverage. I think the only difference is that there is an A, B, and C plan from the exchanges to allow you to save money with higher deductibles but if your income is low enough (less than 400% above the poverty level), you would always opt for the A plan since the rest will be subsidized by the government where as the risk pool only has the best plan which is the A plan.

I bet you will be voting for Obama in the next election.

http://healthreform.kff.org/SubsidyC...spx#calcParams

I thought you had to be denied coverage or caneled first before you could get into the risk pool. Maybe they had more funding than they needed so they loosened the rules and will accept anyone with a preexisting condition.

fatbrit

As I've had to accept Dennis (and his scrumptious wife) aren't viable candidates, I've little doubt Obama's dots will be adjoined with the supplied black marker again.

Michael

Yah, she is not bad but he looks like a whimp.

Sally Redux

Hope you're feeling better.

fatbrit

Doctor's letter documenting pre-exisiting condition seems sufficient to qualify.

fatbrit

They're poking about down there again next month. After they'd shot enough morphine into me, I was all ready to go home. But I was bullied into staying put by a scary Russian doc who palatized every consonant in the English language and who, oddly enough, had pretty well the same manner as my ex. Got out early by promising to go to urgent care every day for my infusions. There's not a good vein left in either of my arms.

Sally Redux

sounds nasty...the doctor that is...all the best!

Bob

Good going...on finding out about this, rather than the doc

Hope you get better quick

Brat1

Ooooo not pleasant, hope you're feeling better and, for once, some good news about health insurance

Brat1

I was just reading up on the Obamacare link. It says you must be without health insurance for 6 months in order to apply?!?!? Were you accepted because of your recent stay in hospital..... just wondering

Michael

That's what I thought also along with first being canceled and then being denied insurance to get into the risk pool.

I know this isn't what you asked but I thought I'd give a little insight.

Unfortunately for you (but then I could possibly be wrong), I don't believe that you would be eligible for either the current temporary risk pool or the exchanges in 2014 since you are eligible for company provided health insurance. Both are a good deal because the government pays 100% of the cost of the additional premium for a preexisting condition and for people below 400% of the poverty level, it even pays a percentage of the premium. It was setup that way since people may abandon their high price employer based insurance for the exchange and therefore driving up government costs.

I think the main difference between the risk pool and the 2014 exchanges is that the risk pool has the same rate for everyone in the pool regardless of age where as the exchanges are based on age. Therefore someone in the exchange will likely have a very low premium if they are young where as the risk pool has just on rate for all so typically a young person pays more in the risk pool. Also there isn't any qualification or wait to get into an exchange except you can't be eligible for employer based insurance.

Brat1

Yeah Michael, I wouldn't qualify anyway, because I'm not a permanent resident or citizen. I wouldn't risk the above, if you have to be uninsured for 6 months, as that would be crazy and will just need to suck it up and pay the phenomenal rates. I tried once again, to apply to Aetna, but they turned me down also, because of the pineocytoma. This is definitely the biggest downside of living here for me. I love everything else so I just need to deal with it in my new positive attitude

Michael

Don't you have a green card in the works which should at least solve that problem when it eventually arrives?

Michael

It is pretty hopeless trying to get private health insurance with a preexisting condition in the US. When I was 55, I was turned down because my medical records indicated that I had "Chronic Fatigue Syndrome" and the only thing that was offered was a risk pool since they had to because I was on Cobra prior to that.