Oooops...

[infinite monkey]

I'm really confused as to the options I pick from. I think I'll stop now and look into it later.

[BigV]

There are state run exchanges that let you shop for a health insurance plan, distinctly different from the federal online exchange. I was not sure where you're shopping. For example, here in Washington, the online marketplace is:

https://www.wahealthplanfinder.org/

[BigV]

so, I followed your link IM, just to see it, see where it took me. I was just browsing, and after a couple clicks, it sent me to the same place I'd just posted about, https://www.wahealthplanfinder.org/.

[infinite monkey]

I started out at healthcare.gov. It asked me what state I'm in. OHIO tells you you are going to use healthcare.gov. I suppose in WA they tell you they will be transferring you to your state site.

So it obviously varies state to state. I was in some part of HEALTHCARE.GOV the entire time.

[BigV]

thanks for the clarification. I'm keenly interested to hear about your experience with the whole process. Good luck and please keep us posted.

[glatt]

Just as another data point:

I just got our first email regarding open enrollment for health insurance with my employer. My current insurance plan is going to increase about 7% in the next year. That's a little higher than it has increased in previous years, but not dramatically higher.

I bet my pay will increase by about 1% next year. Another year, another opportunity to figure out how to tighten the belt some more.

An interesting new plan option is a very high deductible, low cost plan paired with a pretax medical savings account that will rollover unspent contributions from one year to the next. I wonder if we should gamble on our health?

The family deductible will be $3000/year under the new plan. I wonder how much cheaper the premiums will be? It would have to be at least $250/month cheaper for me to even consider that gamble.

[xoxoxoBruce]

Originally Posted by glatt

I just got our first email regarding open enrollment for health insurance with my employer. My current insurance plan is going to increase about 7% in the next year. That's a little higher than it has increased in previous years, but not dramatically higher.

Does that include the refunds you've gotten?

[glatt]

Originally Posted by xoxoxoBruce

Does that include the refunds you've gotten?

It should. The refunds were a lot smaller this year. They warned us about that.

[orthodoc]

I tried out the healthcare.gov web site for a relative in PA. It transferred me to PA and I was able to find the available plans. Everything worked fine.

[Big Sarge]

keep us posted on how this works. so far in Mississippi, only 35 people have been able to register. i'll have to pick up insurance for the kids next year when I lose tricare

[Griff]

I caught the back end of a local (NYS) NPR report that a lot of people signing up are finding out they're eligible for free coverage under Medicaid.

[Lamplighter]

Call Adak..... It's baaaaack !



Remember Lindsey Graham's political manoeuvre of blocking ALL of Obama's nominees ....

NY Times
BILL CARTER and MICHAEL S. SCHMIDT
11/8/13

CBS to Correct Erroneous Report on Benghazi

As it prepared to broadcast a rare on-air correction Sunday
for a now-discredited “60 Minutes” report, CBS News acknowledged on Friday
that it had suffered a damaging blow to its credibility.
Its top executive called the segment “as big a mistake as there has been”
in the 45-year-old history of the celebrated news program.

The executive, Jeff Fager, conceded that CBS appeared to have been duped
by the primary source for the report, a security official who told a
national television audience a harrowing tale of the attack last year
at the American diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya.

On Thursday night it was disclosed that the official, Dylan Davies, had provided
a completely different account in interviews with the F.B.I.,
in which he said he never made it to the mission that night.

After that revelation, CBS decided to take multiple actions Friday.
It removed the report from the CBS News website,
and the correspondent for the segment, Lara Logan, appeared on the CBS
morning news show to apologize personally for the mistakes in the report.
And the company’s publishing division, Simon & Schuster, said it was suspending
publication of a book by Mr. Davies, in which he tells the same narrative
he recounted on “60 Minutes.”<snip>

Informed Thursday night by The Times that the F.B.I. version diverged
from what Mr. Davies said on “60 Minutes,”
CBS News quickly checked its own F.B.I. sources, Mr. Fager said, and learned
that what Mr. Davies had told the F.B.I. “differed from what he told us.”<snip>

The compelling account from Mr. Davies had provided congressional Republicans
with new ammunition to criticize the Obama administration.<snip>

The day after the CBS report, several Republican senators held a news conference,
demanding that the administration allow congressional investigators to interview
survivors of the Benghazi attack.

In particular, Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina said that he would block
all administration nominations until it met the Republicans’ demands.

[Lamplighter]

As a kid in California, I was taken by the name.... Point Mugu...
thinking it's where everyone wore coke bottle glasses.

LA Times
11/17/13

Drone hits Navy ship, 2 sailors hurt; officials seek cause

Officials are trying to determine why a drone being used as part of
a Navy training exercise malfunctioned off the Ventura County coast Saturday.
Two sailors suffered minor burns in the incident, the Navy said in a statement.<snip>

The sailors aboard the USS Chancellorsville were using the drone
to test the ship's radar-tracking system, something done on a regular basis.
The drone, a 13-foot-long aircraft with a wingspan of nearly 6 feet,
was being controlled from Point Mugu.

Around 1:25 p.m., the drone slammed into the port side of the ship,
a guided missile cruiser with a crew of about 300.

[tw]

It could have been worse. The original battle of Chancellorsville used obsolete technology and resulted in 30,400 casualties. This time only two were hurt. And it may have cost about the same amount of money.

[Lamplighter]

Originally Posted by Lamplighter

Call Adak..... It's baaaaack !

NY Times
BILL CARTER and MICHAEL S. SCHMIDT
11/8/13

CBS to Correct Erroneous Report on Benghazi

As a followup to this event...

NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
David Hinckley
11/26/13

Lara Logan, producer ordered to take leave in aftermath of '60 Minutes' Benghazi reporting scandal

An embarrassed CBS News Tuesday sent reporter Lara Logan on a leave of absence
in the wake of her discredited "60 Minutes" report on the Benghazi attack.

CBS News Chairman Jeff Fager called the report "a regrettable mistake."
He said Logan and her producer, Max McLellan, had been asked to take
the leaves of absence and had agreed to do so. There was no indication how long they will last.

In a CBS memo obtained by the Huffington Post, Fager also said,
"As executive producer (of '60 Minutes'), I am responsible for what gets on the air.
I pride myself in catching almost everything, but this deception got through and it shouldn't have."

As CBS News Chairman of 60 Minutes, Jeff Fager says he is responsible.
IMO: ... so Fager should also take a leave of absence.