Premium Red Zones

Premium Red Zones

Cheer up. It could be worse. Did you know your rates for Obamacare are up to 50% higher?
That's right. If you live in Northern California, as opposed to Southern California, rates are higher across the board... as much as 50% higher (LA -vs- San Francisco).

 

Premiums vary from state to state AND from county to county.

Doctors and hospitals, too

And that's not the only thing: access to doctors and hospitals varies from county to county as well. Consider the case of the woman who lives in San Diego, but travels to Stanford University for life-saving treatment for her cancer. Those are two different zones!!! Plans from Palo Alto area don't include San Diego hospitals or physicians (so she can't get local emergency care near her home). Plans for San Diego area don't include Stanford (so she can't continue life-saving treatment protocols there). She has to pick one.

She's probably glad she can't keep her old sub-standard policy. It may have let her keep the doctors and specialists she wanted, but the thing that made it sub-standard in the government's view: it didn't include pediatric dental coverage.