posted November 07, 2013 07:51 PM            

$1,416 divided by 12 months = $118

I just went to their website, and plugged information in for a 30 year old making $30,000 with low doctor visits, and low prescription needs. If this 30 year old lives in the zip code I used to live in (I don't have any particular reason I didn't put the zip code I'm currently in. I guess I'm still used to typing the old zip code.), she could opt for a plan costing $120/month: blue Shield Bronze. The problem with that is that the doctor co-pay is 40% after deductible. That's not attractive when the deductible is $4,500.

So let's go to the next price point: $124. Still Blue Shield Bronze. Now the co-pay for a primary care visit is $60. That's doable. Free preventative care. Lab tests are 30% after deductible. That's not great. Hopefully preventative care labs are free. If she goes with this plan with the stated subsidy, she'll be paying $6/month for coverage.

If we want the labs to only have a co-pay, the monthly cost minimum is $178 for Blue Shield Silver. No deductible. $45 co-pay for primary doctor (non-preventative care). $45 for labs. For this she pays $60/month if she's able to get that subsidy.

Or she can pay $300 in the first year to forego insurance. That's less than half of what she'd pay at the $60/month rate. If that $300 were worked out to a weekly amount, it's $5.77. One fast food meal a week in taxes as penalty for not having insurance. However, if she's still off insurance in 2016 (and making the same amount), her tax penalty will be $750. That's $62.50 a month, so she may as well get insurance.

posted November 25, 2013 11:53 PM            

There have been more than 1,000,000 Californians who have had their individual insurance policies cancelled because of O'BomberCare.

Which means...there are 930,000 fewer Californians with health insurance than when the O'Bomber Abomination was implemented.

Nice job O'Bomber!

posted December 07, 2013 10:05 AM            

What you don't have is HEALTH CARE because 70% of California doctors refuse to join the O'BomberCare parade and treat O'BomberCare patients.

December 7, 2013
Trouble in Obamacare paradise: California doctors boycotting state exchange
Rick Moran

You've probably heard about the Obamacare "success story" in California, as about 2,000 people a day are signing up for Obamacare insurance or the Medicaid expansion (mostly the latter).

What you haven't heard about is the quiet rebellion by the state's doctors - 70% of whom will not participate in the exchanges.

An estimated seven out of every 10 physicians in deep-blue California are rebelling against the state's Obamacare health insurance exchange and won't participate, the head of the state's largest medical association said.

"It doesn't surprise me that there's a high rate of nonparticipation," said Dr. Richard Thorp, president of the California Medical Association.

Thorp has been a primary care doctor for 38 years in a small town 90 miles north of Sacramento. The CMA represents 38,000 of the roughly 104,000 doctors in California.

"We need some recognition that we're doing a service to the community. But we can't do it for free. And we can't do it at a loss. No other business would do that," he said.

California offers one of the lowest government reimbursement rates in the country -- 30 percent lower than federal Medicare payments. And reimbursement rates for some procedures are even lower.

In other states, Medicare pays doctors $76 for return-office visits. But in California, Medi-Cal's reimbursement is $24, according to Dr. Theodore M. Mazer, a San Diego ear, nose and throat doctor.

In other states, doctors receive between $500 to $700 to perform a tonsillectomy. In California, they get $160, Mazer added.

Only in September did insurance companies disclose that their rates would be pegged to California's Medicaid plan, called Medi-Cal. That's driven many doctors to just say no.

They're also pointing out that Covered California's website lists many doctors as participants when they aren't.

"Some physicians have been put in the network and they were included basically without their permission," Lisa Folberg said. She is a CMA's vice president of medical and regulatory Policy.

"They may be listed as actually participating, but not of their own volition," said Donald Waters, executive director of the Alameda-Contra Costa Medical Association.

Waters' group represents 3,100 doctors in the East Bay area that includes Oakland, with an estimated 200,000 uninsured individuals.

"This is a dirty little secret that is not really talked about as they promote Covered California," Waters said. He called the exchange's doctors list a "shell game" because "the vast majority" of his doctors are not participating.

Independent insurance brokers who work with both insurance companies and doctor networks estimate that about 70 percent of California's 104,000 licensed doctors are boycotting the exchange.

It probably won't be quite as bad in other states, given the low reimbursement rates in CA compared to rates elsewhere. But you can imagine a similar crisis where the number of new Medicaid patients will simply overwhelm physicianss in states like Illinois where the number of doctors who will see new patients doesn't begin to cover the hundreds of thousands who have bought into the expanded Medicaid program under Obamacare.