Be Careful When Selecting a New Health Plan

[TucsonJim]

OP NOTE: Please respect my post by not giving a political response here!

I retired last month at the age of 59, and won't have Medicare for a little over five years. I have been able to set up an account on Healthcare.gov and shop the policies that were available to me. Most of the prices are about what I'd expect to pay.

However, if any of you are shopping the exchanges, please exercise caution. Some of the HMO policies exclude emergency care outside of the HMO network. Read the small print before you sign up for one of these policies. If you are traveling out of your network and have an emergency situation, you could be saddled with 100% of the cost. There were alternatives available that covered emergency care out of network, but you will pay a little more for them. Just be sure to read the details before you sign up.

Forewarned is forearmed.

[Gale_Hawkins]

Years ago we stayed with BCBS that cost a bit more just to have coverage about in where in the USA. I am really confused but that is par for the course. I am still confused by why the techs hooked up our cable modem cut the cable three foot short this week and moved my wireless router down in the basement a bit. The phones and internet died 8 hours after they left.

After I showed them the outlet to use and they said they understood they plugged it into an extension cord that lost power when the lights were cut off. They had agreed to leave the Cat 5 cable 15 foot longer than needed to get to the current router location but cut it 3 foot short of where it was setting (shorting me by 18' I guess you could say. Then there is the quarter inch hole they drilled from inside to the outside through the siding that was not even need but that is off subject. Well at least the techs were funded by TARP funds and our kids can pay the interest on that until they die.

My point is the right and and left hand connected to the same brain seems to lack central communication. The sad part those of us that really need others to do a good job can get our needs bypassed. Due to my physical limitations I could get even get the new router configured because of the short cable.

Hopefully the system will evolve to meet our needs but I do see the governments point and need to reduce health care cost. Making it less accessible should help reduce health care cost for us baby boomers not that we are becoming a liability to the system instead of an asset like over the past 35-50 years.

Nation wide health care access is critical for anyone with a mobile life style.

[TucsonJim]

Gale Hawkins wrote:
If true no national health care network it will be negative for some.

Thanks Gale. That really illustrates my point.

Jim

[Gale_Hawkins]

If true no national health care network it will be negative for some.

[rexlion]

I was looking in October, but couldn't get into the MP. So I went to the ehealthinsurance.com site where I'd bought health insurance before, and found the plans & rates. Talked to them by phone and they assured me that if I signed up through them, they would transmit the info to the MP so I would stay eligible for subsidies. Well, in Nov. I did sign up on ehealthinsurance.com for a BCBS plan. But, guess what? They never transmitted anything to the goverment! So I had to cancel everything. There was no other way, I would not have gotten a subsidy. The insurance saleman's lips must have moved... you know what that means! I learned my lesson.

Now actually I've decided to sit out a year and wait for things to get fine tuned.

[Old-Biscuit]

Thanks for the heads up..........details/fine print...few actually read.

[fla-gypsy]

You are the first person I am aware of that actually got that far. I'm impressed

[old_guy]

I know some pharmacies that will not take some of the HMO's