WA Ping Not only is the state number one; my county is number one in the state. We will be on the market and looking for an exit before spring!
Posted on 01/14/2014 3:44:35 PM PST by steve86
Edited on 01/14/2014 3:48:41 PM PST by Admin Moderator. [history]
SEATTLE (AP) - Washington state signed up more people for health insurance than all but a handful of states during the first few months of enrollment under the health care overhaul.
According to a new federal report released Monday, only California, Michigan, North Carolina, New York and Texas have signed up more people up for health insurance since Oct. 1. All of those states have larger populations than Washington.
(Excerpt) Read more at komonews.com ...
We don’t have a single one in the Tri-Cities.
Possible there is or was one in Moses Lake.
Why didn't you buy another private policy?
But that's just it. I can have a fully state paid policy like Medicaid, or the alternative is a partially (or mostly) subsidized private policy... What, really, is the difference from a dependency point of view? The subsidy amount is probably about the same either way. And to think that I just last month had a policy of my own, with no subsidy, that was half the price of a similar blue cross policy now.
I am angry about this. I didn't even take unemployment when I was let go from my last job, even though I was eligible. I just couldn't do it. I can't take money from a program I don't believe should exist. Now I'm stuck being forced onto a welfare program against my will. I suppose one play would be to just drop insurance entirely and wait until I need healthcare. Since insurance companies are required now to accept pre-existing conditions I could just buy a policy then. But that too is taking unfair advantage of the coercive power of government. There's no way out that I've seen.
The only way out of an ambush is through it. I think the time has come to just bring the system down.
WA Ping Not only is the state number one; my county is number one in the state. We will be on the market and looking for an exit before spring!
If you are so philosophically opposed to subsidized health care, why don’t you take your profits and buy a full-price non-exchange policy instead of just whining about it?
Being the Tri-Cities is one of the last bastions of conservatism in WA state it would shock me if a pot store opened up there. I’ll bet there’s one in Crackima (Yakima).
Right now all four cities (including West Richland) have moratoriums on pot sales but these will probably be challenged in court before year end.
I may have explained some of the answer in a reply just above. My policy went from about $270/mo --which is already outrageous-- to a new post-Obamacare policy of over $550/mo. For worse coverage... Their "bronze" plan. I don't spend that much on food and bar-tabs combined. I live pretty frugally. I'm healthy. I currently, and for the last several years have had --zero-- healthcare expenditures, unless you count Gold Bold Medicated Powder and some Tinactin. If I paid for a private policy now, it would be subsidized anyway... And then probably for a similar amount to the cost of the welfare policy. It's a catch-22. So I'm screwed either way.
Because that would be stupid.
I pass the same number of medi-marijuana stores in the morning on my way to work as I do topless latte stands (i.e. three).
You have to understand that they are counting the medicaid enrollees as Obamacare enrollees.
The average wage in much of WA is just over 550,000/yr, and the cap on Medicaid is $63,000. So, that should tell you what a mess we have in WA State.
On top of that, every person who was on Medicaid when Obamacare started, had to sign up again, as an Obamacare enrollee. So, they really played with the numbers and someone is going to have to pay for all those new Medicaid patients once the federal funds run out.
So, does that mean that the state isn’t paying for any Medicaid patients, that the feds are paying for all of WA Medicaid? There isn’t much clarity to all this.
The “old” Medicaid, where costs are split roughly 50-50 between the states and the Feds.
And, “ObamaCare” Medicaid, which significantly expands the number of people eligible, and, where costs are split 10%-90% between states and the Feds.
The “old” Medicaid is not going away.
The states will stay have to pay 50-50 on ALL their "old" Medicaid policies.
However, there are millions of people, perhaps even tens of millions, who were always eligible for the “old” Medicaid, but they never applied.
If that group of people now applies, the states will have to pay 50% of those costs, too.
That is the reason many states refused to set up their own exchanges.
They could be on the hook for billions of dollars of unfunded “old” Medicaid costs.
Are those who were eligible for the old medicaid but never signed up for anything going to be put on that program even if they think they are signing up for the new Mack Daddy freebie? It sounds like a shell game, or bait and switch. I'm not following how this works.
(But then, neither are most of the people writing the laws, it seems)
The old Medicaid eligible who never applied are not applying now, either. Of course that doesn’t mean that the someone at the state didn’t apply for them.
If the old Medicaid is still the same, why do the feds have to pay any of it and what is the difference between the old Medicaid and the new Medicaid, they are both free. WA now has a welfare society and Inslee is about to raise the minimum wage again, to go along with it. Why did all the old Medicaid people have to sign up again on-line?
The last that I read this was a big disaster because a good number of the real Medicaid recipients don’t have computers and don’t read the news.
I was not aware that people already in Medicaid had to sign up again, so I don't know what to say about that.
Eligibility requirements for the “old” Medicaid were much more strict than requirements for the new ObamaCare Medicaid.
Both those sets of requirements will stay in place when it comes to dividing up the cost between states and Feds.
People who would be eligible for the “old” Medicaid will cost states about 50-50, even if they sign up for the first time today.
People who would have qualified for the “old” Medicaid will still be signed up for Medicaid.
And, it will still be free.
But - the state will be charged the “old” cost, which is about 50% of the bill.
The people who qualify for the “new” Medicaid will also get it for free.
But - those people will cost the state just 0%-10% of the bill.
Many states are afraid that millions of people who will cost them 50% will sign up, which will destroy state budgets.
Do you know how the distinction is made between the people who were previously qualified but not signed up and those signing up now?
Evidently, there isn’t any “old” Medicaid. There was a big problem that was announced in December because those “old” Medicaid enrollees did not know that they had to reapply online with the exchanges. They announced that there was a big problem because the Medicaid enrollees were used to filing a paper application annually at that time and were still waiting for the paper application to come in the mail.
Think about it, why should people who were qualified for Medicaid under the old system, but had never applied, be eligible for full federal subsidy, but the old Medicaid enrollees, only half federal subsidy. Medicaid is not insurance and the service is not the same. No one ever yearns for Medicaid coverage, they work to get off of it.
Did you know that marijuana can be used in e-cigs? They also have specialized divides that vaporize the marijuana so that no can tell that you are using. They even have one that looks like an asthma inhaler and others that are decorated. These devices are pretty pricey, but so are the regular e-cigs. They are very big with the Hollywood set and other celebrities.
I did not know that.
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