Thank you. So with you about this ridiculous finger pointing. AHA was a Republican Heritage Foundation idea that was first implemented by REPUBLICAN Mitt Romney in Massachusetts. The Obama administration got the SAME GUY that worked on AHA for the Republicans to come work on it for the O admin.

YOu and I both worked in systems, and it's a truism that no matter how much testing you do beforehand, how much research, how many resources, there are ALWAYS bugs and unexpected jolts. I'm not making excuses for what looks like it should have been resource tested, but stress tests in pre-production don't always equal a real-time environment. In fact, I look at this at how popular AHA is, that it got that many people right away who wanted to look for a better deal.

I LIKE AHA. I like the idea that people can shop around for a more affordable rate, that they can't be turned down for a pre-existing condition, and that the pool works by having a lot of people in it (that's the same principle as driving insurance,why isn't Ted Cruz rallying to have that done away with too?)

I agree with you that I think the implementation and rollout should have been better. On the other hand, websites do go down-NSA.gov was down the other day.

On the other hand, we like AHA. My hub liked being able to put his daughters on the plan and, after having a serious health issue earlier this year, that in the future should he need it he can't be turned down for insurance. Since AHA is based on the average of the pool of people that are in it, as more people sign up, the numbers ought to change and it doesn't change anything for anyone that already has their own employee insurance or some other plan they like. Heck, I even think it's completely hilarious that Rick Perry is encouraging Texans to sign up for AHA.

Thought this was interesting

The Manhattan Institute has released an online map showing insurance premiums before and after Obamacare based on age and sex. The law's impact varies widely state to state. In Oregon, for example, rates for 40-year-old men have increased 24%. In Ohio, they have dropped 22%.

The White House says that once tax credits are factored in, about 6 in 10 individuals will be able to find insurance for less than $100 a month.

"In some states, insurance markets were already regulated to not allow insurers to discriminate against the sick. In those states, premiums will fall, like in New York, where premiums will fall by as much as 50%," said MIT economist Jonathan Gruber, who helped design the law. "In other states insurers were freely allowed to discriminate against the sick. In those states, by ending the discrimination, we're going to raise premiums in states like Wisconsin, or some of the Southern states."

Overall, Gruber said, rates are going up for the young and healthy, and down for older people and people who are sick.

and Be Glad your Policy was dropped.

I've been self-employed for 13 years. Most of that time, I've had an HSA with a high-deductible policy; the deductible has ranged from $3,000 to $5,500. A traditional individual policy would be cost-prohibitive because--although I have low blood pressure, heart rate, and cholesterol, work out regularly, take no prescriptions, and have no chronic conditions--I'm deemed to have preexisting conditions, basically because I've dared seek medical attention in the past. I was once rejected by an insurer based on a single episode of sciatica five years earlier. I don't think people who have had employer-provided coverage have any idea what the individual health insurance market has been like.

As with any plan, there are some good things and some not-so-good things with the AFA plans.