

Show HN: Review healthcare.gov plan prices in 1 click rather than 16 - mwasser
http://www.thehealthsherpa.com

======
mgkimsal
[http://www.thehealthsherpa.com/insurance_plans?zip_code=2759...](http://www.thehealthsherpa.com/insurance_plans?zip_code=27596)

27596 is in multiple counties - you've got it listed only in Wake, but it's
also Franklin county and IIRC Granville county too.

Is suspect 27596 is not the only ZIP in the country with this issue, and it
can affect the results of this - Coventry was supposedly (as of a few days
ago, anyway) not offering ACA plans in Franklin county, but was in Wake.

~~~
mwasser
Thanks for pointing this out!

We currently include the plans from all counties in a particular zipcode
rather than limiting to a specific county, but we should probably ask a user
to specify their county if there's ambiguity. I'll get on adding this.

As for the data itself, it's current as of two weeks ago which is already
slightly stale. This said, the data will only be as updated as the
Healthcare.gov data from [https://data.healthcare.gov/dataset/QHP-Individual-
Medical-L...](https://data.healthcare.gov/dataset/QHP-Individual-Medical-
Landscape/ba45-xusy)

~~~
mgkimsal
NC may be somewhat specific, but per reports a few weeks ago, only BCBS was
offering ACA-compliant plans in all 100+ counties - Coventry was the only
other option, and they were covering 36 counties. They may have changed that
recently, but I'm not 100% sure on that.

EDIT: and thanks for your project - nice use of the data to help people get
fast/easy access!

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josh33
I hope you got paid $150mm to create that.

~~~
fletchowns
Why do I always see people using lowercase "mm" to abbreviate million? That
doesn't make any sense to me.

~~~
ieatdots
Roman number M = 1 thousand

1 thousand 1 thousands = 1 million

~~~
kachnuv_ocasek
But, then that would be 150 * 2000 = 300,000.

~~~
wizzard
Yes. If we're talking Roman numerals, MM would be 2000, just like XX is 20 --
not 100. This notation makes no sense to me either.

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ars
Without information on the deductible this isn't as useful as it looks. Please
add it!

The price of plans varies dramatically by the deductible, and for most healthy
people the deductible matters WAY more than the nominal plan level. (Since for
ordinary services the different plan levels pay an extra $10-$50, but for a
catastrophe the only number that matters is the deductible.)

~~~
mwasser
I completely agree!

We'd love to be able to find this data per-plan, but its not currently easily
discoverable for the states without exchanges.

We're hoping to find deductible data in time for these plans as well as more
data that would help people differentiate plans such as number of providers
in-network nearby.

~~~
ars
How hard would it be to do it manually? Maybe with Amazon Turk?

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livestyle
Wow I am really in a tough spot. For me to cover my family and my spouse will
be $630 a month for bronze i.e 60% coverage.

for zip code 03570

I recently came across
[http://samaritanministries.org/intro/](http://samaritanministries.org/intro/)
and it's much more appealing.

~~~
dangrossman
If that's a tough spot, you probably won't be paying the full cost of any of
the plans you saw. For a family of four, subsidies don't phase out until
something like $90k/year income. The real healthcare.gov site is up right now.
The registration process only takes 10-15 minutes to get some real prices.

~~~
livestyle
I just checked.. the deductibles are high plus partial coverage and the
subsidies are not as much as I had hoped.. still paying around $480.

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jaynos
Nice Job! I'd suggest adding a page with information on what each plan level
(Gold, Silver, Bronze) covers at minimum.

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sehrope
Very nice! I was thinking of creating something similar as I'm sure I'm not
the only one who just quickly wants to see how much option X would cost. Where
did you guys get the data from? I was considering screen scraping the main
site but I gave up after I couldn't get it to load at all.

Would be nice if something like this was on the official site but my guess as
to why it's not (besides the general mismanagement of the site creation...) is
that by default it shows higher prices for plans than people would be eligible
for (ex: no income based subsidies). That would make them "look bad" and
they'd like to show lower overall costs.

Bug report too: When I entered a zip code the first two pages of the results
show up blank. Clicking page 3 and onward show the data though. If there's
only one page of data nothing shows up at all (no paging links either).

~~~
mwasser
Data comes from [https://data.healthcare.gov/dataset/QHP-Individual-
Medical-L...](https://data.healthcare.gov/dataset/QHP-Individual-Medical-
Landscape/ba45-xusy)

Thanks for the bug report- In theory I just pushed a fix for it. Could you
confirm it's working for you now? If it's still there, could you let me know
what zipcode you are using?

~~~
sehrope
First page issue is fixed now.

I was about to report one more about funky displaying of plan names but looks
like the source data itself is like that (in the set you linked too). Search
for bronze plans in 07302 and you'll see: AmeriHealth NJ Tier 1 Advantage_Ã

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codegeek
Here is their official Developer API

To send a request: [https://data.healthcare.gov/resource/qhp-iml-
dev.json?state=...](https://data.healthcare.gov/resource/qhp-iml-
dev.json?state=NJ&county=Warren)

------
codegeek
Good stuff. Would you open source this ? The prices are a great starting
point. A nice addition will be to easily see details like deductibles, co-
pays, out of pocket limits, exclusions etc, the price just by itself won't be
a perfect measure.

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brianjcohen
I wrote the same thing, with a much crappier user interface, last week. Mine
includes Idaho and New Mexico as well:
[http://healthcare.brianjcohen.com](http://healthcare.brianjcohen.com)

My notes on that page explain why this is really not a great dataset. These
aren't really price quotes, they're averages they've generated for various age
ranges. And since deductibles, coinsurance rates, and copays aren't included,
there's really no way to compare them on a level playing field (although this
is a problem that healthcare.gov has as well).

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codegeek
Looks like the actual healthcare.gov website is not that bad anymore when it
comes to just checking on prices in your area. Just use the following URL and
replace the state and county with your choice. My example uses NJ/Warren
county.

[https://www.healthcare.gov/find-premium-
estimates/#results/&...](https://www.healthcare.gov/find-premium-
estimates/#results/&aud=indv&type=med&state=NJ&county=Warren&cov=family)

~~~
mwasser
This is what we saw as well. The main idea was that it still takes a number of
clicks to get there at all. We wanted to provide an interface that
significantly lowered the time to seeing the data and then provided the other
details.

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kirillzubovsky
Great timing! It's unfortunate that 2/3 states that I tried have "their own
healthcare exchange." Kind of defeats the point of having centralized
healthcare and also a complete pain the ass for the consumer.

On a bright side, I bet a ton of people got their pockets full by working on
all of these exchanges.

~~~
mwasser
Yeah -- the story behind it is intriguing. Also, the states that have their
own exchanges use central services provided by the federal gov for subsidy
eligibility.

I do think we will see states release data back to the federal gov for ease of
use in time. NM and ID already has done this and other states seem to send
their raw data to individuals when asked -- suggesting the data can be
centralized (e.g. when we reached out to CA for data, they quickly provided
their data to us).

~~~
joshstrange
This is very interesting to me, I live in KY and we have our own exchange. Do
to not having all my data (my fault not theirs) on hand the process of
submitting an application has spanned a few days and their interface is really
bad. I'd like to play with raw data and throw something together to allow for
quick and easy searching. Who did you contact in CA for the data? I'd like to
find the KY equivalent and reach out. Thanks and great job on the site!

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rlevy
the actual healthcare.gov (if you can get in) actually does a decent job of
letting you compare plans in detail... there are far more factors to consider
than just monthly deductible. various copays, out of network coverage, whether
dental and vision are included, etc. this site does none of that

~~~
iends
Do you have to sign to see this? When I just browse the site all I can see is
the name of the plan, the insurance provider, and the estimated cost.

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dyoo1979
Not robust yet. Try:
[http://www.thehealthsherpa.com/insurance_plans?zip_code=9404...](http://www.thehealthsherpa.com/insurance_plans?zip_code=94043+)
and see an error.

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dyslexicmonkey
Washington DC zip codes don't work (e.g., 20001, 20002, 20011, etc.).

~~~
brianjcohen
Washington DC is running its own exchange. Apps like this that use
data.healthcare.gov as their backing will only work for states that are on the
Federal exchange.

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heywire
FYI, tried to enter zipcode 85502 and received a "We're sorry, something went
wrong" message. Worked fine for other zipcodes I was interested in. Thanks for
creating this!

~~~
xorgar831
I got the same for 94906. Made me think it was a joke site actually. ;-)

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b409ba0801cd21
When I entered my zip code, the site stated that my state, Arkansas, is
running its own exchange. In fact, Arkansas defaulted to the federal exchange.

~~~
mwasser
Thanks for pointing this out, we've fixed the bug and you should be able to
find Arkansas plans now.

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silverlight
Any plans to list the link to the summary of benefits as well? That would be
super nice.

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oddshocks
Was really excited about this, but no functionality for New York. :/

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andreipop
I was waiting for someone to do this...

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SeanLuke
22314 doesn't work at all.

