I know I’m wasting my time because we are helpless to get anything done individually. BCBS has a monopoly in our state too. We all know that healthcare insurance and provision is only for the poor and is an insane system otherwise.
I HATE BCBS with a purple passion. Every year I end up spending days getting the new insurance established. The system is not geared to an individual who actually pays for it himself as I do. I have not figured out how a person making one dollar over the “assistance” threshold can suddenly afford the full hit for insurance but that is yet another story in this whole effed up mess.
I don’t want to rant or digress but make a couple of very serious recommendations. BCBS are incompetent. You need to protect yourself as much as you can.
1. If you don’t get a subsidy you don’t need to go through the exchange. Go to BCBS directly. There may be a little less tracking of you and the exchange is just another way to make people believe the gubment is actually doing something. It will confuse them at first because those of us that actually BUY this shitty insurance ourselves are as rare as unicorns.
2. NEVER and I mean NEVER EVER EVER use BCBS helpful Auto bank draft feature. Pay the bill yourself every month and make sure you get it in sooner than later. It takes BCBS days to even recognize your payment and post it. Why not use the “helpful” bank draft feature? One of the people I know well lost a lot of money this way. BCBS all but cleaned his bank account out, it took him ages to get just a portion of his money back, no recourse was available. He just plain lost money he didn’t have and he gets the subsidy. I am grudgingly considering paying my bill for the whole year all at once but I figure they will screw that up as well.
3. Check your account frequently to see your payments are posted and keep your cancelled checks. I was paying via my bank’s bill pay feature. Avoid this, it is a a third party bill pay service and you will have difficulty showing a cancelled check as proof of payment. It took me three days and hours on the phone to get this insanity sorted out this last month.
BCBS are incompetent. The front line people are just cogs in a very badly mismanaged wheel. Government and regulations do not protect you. State based regulation is a divide and conquer strategy by BCBS.
I HATE BCBS and pray I never get really sick. I only have two more years, 24 months to go with the sobs then I move on to socialized medicine for real, Medicare. That will finish me off. Of course there will also be the subsidy to deal with.
PS,
My premium actually went down a hundred bucks this year but I’m pretty sure the insurance doesn’t actually cover anything.
The deductible went up, the out of pocket maximum went up of course.
If you have to buy this crap on your own the least expensive bronze plan is the thing to do in most cases. It is only catastrophic insurance anyway.
The only thing you actually get before the deductible is met and the out of pocket maximum is reached is negotiated prices instead of the inflated posted rates usually charged. So far as I have seen getting a decent discount for paying cash is a myth. The medical empire keeps the paying rates high to keep the medicare / medicade pay rate high since it is a percentage of the “going rate”.