No, I haven't tried the Obamacare exchange thingy; I got a budgetary estimate from the California web site a few months ago, when The Powers That Be were hyping the "not as expensive as feared" pricing. If memory serves, I fed in some basic information (age, sex, maybe ZIP code) and got a number... that was close to $7000/year* for the cheapest allowed option. Certainly I didn't create an account and feed in large amounts of personal data.
But here's the thing: it seems that now the exchanges have gone... well, "live" seems rather a strong word... anyway, now that they're supposed to be open for business, one does not simply get a quote, even a budgetary one. It's necessary to create an account up front. Does this include feeding in all the personal data required to apply for the subsidy?
I wonder how much of the traffic is just people like me, who know damn well that they don't qualify for any subsidies, just trying to get a handle on What It's Gonna Cost. This should be static data, and should not require creation of a user ID.
I'm kinda waiting for Emperor to give me a hint as to next year's premium... and they've gone from "You're all set with your current coverage! It's gonna be fine!" (Emperor's lobbyists had a hand in writing the damn law, after all) to "The great thing about your grandfathered coverage is that you may be allowed to keep it" to "We'll offer you the option of keeping your current coverage or switching to one of our Obamacare-compliant plans," but as yet they've offered exactly zero information about what any of those options will cost. There is the suggestion that the status quo option leaves me subject to both the Cadillac Health Plan Tax and the Uninsured Penalty.
Oh, and "probably by design"? Hey, it's a way of getting just about everybody to hand over all their personal details to a brand-new government department that seems to be employing a lot of political operatives, and to lack even the most rudimentary information security.
* Based on the assumption that all the healthy youngsters who don't have full-time jobs will sign up at inflated prices to subsidize me. Your reality may vary.
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