Day 13 and fnally able to get online to find out what the new rates will be!  Gone are the constant and ever changing  error messages.  Unfortunate that with two years for the State of Md and Federal gov to prepare it was such a mess at first.

One hope of the exchange was to lower rates by fostering competition among the insurance companies.  However Aetna (profits of 1.66 Billion last year), and Cigna (1.62 Billion) have so far decided  not to participate in the individual and family exchange for fear that their profits will be impacted leaving United, Carefirst, and Kaiser as the only major participants.  No surprise then that the rates look similar to what was being offered previously.

Will enough healthy people join to pay for those with lots of medical expenses and, if not, who will pay the difference?  Will Aetna, and Cigna continue to stay on the sidelines?  Will United with profits last year of 7.2 billion dollars continue to participate if their profits go down?  Stay tuned.