Obamacare

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Still can't get signed up.

The whole thing is a farce.

Remember, if you go to an insurance company and get a plan, you don't get government subsidy. To get that, you MUST go through the government website or 800 number, and I refuse to spend HOURS on a phone just to find out what I can get in my area.

You can make an appointment with a navigator to help you.

So much for "Obamacare-funded sex changes," as all the plans available on my state's exchange specifically exclude all transition-related care.

That stinks for you. There are only a few states that have plans that will cover it, and most require an official GID diagnosis.

There is also a USPS mail-in option.

If you are under a certain income Obamacare will try and put you on Medicaid. If you are under 55 it is a subsidy, pretty much free if poor medical coverage, if you are between 55 and 65 it is a loan. It varies by state and there are a exceptions but generally a lien is put on your estate and when you die or permanently leave your residence in many states the government is going to take back all of what it paid out. Dying many times involves a long costly (as in hundreds of thousands of thousands of dollars) illness. So if you wanted to give your heirs your house, your grandkids some money for college, or give money to your charity forget about it's going to the government. "Medicaid Estate Recovery" has been around since 1993. Before Obamacare you had to have under $2,000 of assets to qualify for medicaid so your "estate" might have been your old TV. Obamacare changed the qualifications for Medicaid so that it is income based. The economic crash has changed things so it is very possible to have large assets to lose and no income. One might have had a steady career bought a house, lost that career have little or no income, little in the bank but still have a house that will now be government property after you die. You can avoid this by just not checking the "I want assistance box". But then while much of the public gets a subsidy you have to pay full premium. And if you have no income how long can you do that for, that is if you can do it at all? Another option is to not take out insurance at all but as soon as you have any serious health issue your lose your estate even faster then by going on Medicaid so that is not a serious option. Maybe you can have Medicaid pay for your private insurance premiums and deductible which would seem to be lot less then having them pay it all. I don't know this is a viable option.

Forcing you to take out a loan is a mafia tactic. This is a worse scandal then the bad website and it is a worse scandal then breaking a promise that you won't lose your insurance(because with subsidies the cost of the new plan will be less then the one dropped in many cases) But since this involves poor people the "tea party" has nothing to say about this government blackmail. Following a Seattle Times article State of Washington has acted by passing a law that "Estate recovery" will not happen for new people enrolling in medicaid but most of the country seems unaware.

I am not going to discuss my personal finances here but I will say that this issue has caused me to come as close to a true meltdown as anything in a long long time. Which of course increases my chance of having a health problem.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/10/1 ... nsequences

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/10/2 ... ou-Thought

Last edited by ASPartOfMe on 25 Dec 2013, 10:19 pm, edited 2 times in total.

The ACA didn't really change the estate recovery that much. It is truly one of the worst travesties against the elderly poor in this country, though, and even the small changes in the ACA to it have huge consequences for too many people. I will be the first to admit the ACA does have many problems with it. But I still believe it does more good to more people than harm.

I don't NEED a navigator. They use the same broken interface. I get the application done and NOTHING happens after that. I already sent a report up the chain, and there was nothing they could do until the system was fixed.

What you and many others are going to have to do is think like a rich person.

What that means is this....

You do realize you DO NOT have to pay most of the taxes you normally pay, right? There are dozens of 100% legal and IRS-approved ways to NOT pay taxes. It requires some paperwork, maybe the creation of a legal entity or two, and you need to be sure you keep on top of the required paperwork, but the "avoidance" of taxation has been a long and legal tradition in America (in fact, much of the world).

It's just that most people have no clue about this.

A former boss of mine is a lawyer. His parents are elderly. Dealing with his father's death and deaths where his clients come in to get help administering the estate, he always had this sound advice for them....

Get every penny of value in your estate into the hands of your heirs in a way that it happens automatically at death and not by the probate of your estate.

This means going to your bank(s) and putting your heirs as the Pay On Death (POD) beneficiary designation. When you die, all they do is present your death certificate and they get the money.

Go to the DMV and put your vehicles in another person's name or make them co-owner.

Any land or houses you own, add someone as a joint-tenant WITH RIGHT OF SURVIVORSHIP or just transfer the property outright and retain a life estate for yourself.

Every penny that transfers as an operation of law is exempt from estate taxation (or any taxation). Normally, wealthy people do this to reduce the tax liability of the estate, but ordinary people can do it so that the benefit goes to their heirs without encumbrance.

If you die owing $100K and you transfer $60K out of your hands so that only $50K is left in your estate, the creditors can't go after that $60K because by law it's not part of your estate. They can only go after the $50K left in your estate.

Likewise, with Medicaid (and possibly Medicare), if you don't want them taking your stuff when you are gone, get it out of your hands...preferably BEFORE you need their services. Want your house to go to your kids, put it in their name long before you wind up living in a nursing home off Medicare/Medicaid. They can't go after the house if the transfer happens far enough back in the past (the typical limit on the "reach back" is seven years).

Frankly, ever since I got screwed over with the student loans and the draconian collection procedures they have at their disposal, I've been trying to keep up on how to use their own corrupted legal system against them. Many of the rules that they will gleefully use to screw me over has a bite that can hurt them if their victim knows how to work the system.

See an estate planning attorney. Not all ideas work for all people (cost vs. benefit), but there's a lot of little things you can do to shelter your assets so that in the end they can't touch what you worked so long and hard for because legally you don't really own the asset...someone/something else owns it.

^This. Look up 770 accounts (100% tax free and not reportable to the IRS). That is where banks, portfolio managers, and stock brokers keep the majority of their money, not in stock markets, mutual funds, IRAs or government securities.

That must be some kind of a government web site your are using.

ruveyn

Admittedly, the Washington state site seems to be working better than the national ACA page.

Sadly, even under the ACA, just because a procedure is medically necessary doesn't mean it will be covered:

http://www.bcbst.com/mpmanual/Gender_Reassignment.htm

Interesting

http://blog.aarp.org/2013/06/11/why-do- ... 4&USEG_ID=

That, and the fact that a lot of people over 65 watch Fox News.

People under 35 have better things to do than to sit and watch Fox News all day. Like, working, and trying to get a bit of sex.

Disaster.

Friend used to pay 10K per year for his wife's cancer.

Now it's 25K per year.

You who like Obamacare are like the "scientists" who once thought the earth was the center of the universe. You have little regard for data and adhere to your ideology out of blind faith. Obamacare will hurt 90% of the population.

I have NO INTELLECTUAL OR MORAL RESPECT for you who support this monstrosity. God forbid you get cancer and discover what bankruptcy feels like.

Was that the best plan that they could find?