Heeeeeeere's Obamacare!

Kestrel said:
Couples in their early sixties with an income just above the subsidy level will find the premiums high. Especially if they live in a state like Wyoming that rejected Obamacare for political reasons. The insurers have bet that few healthy people will buy insurance in that state. They also understand that Wyoming health care providers with continue to have high levels of cost shifting due to the state rejecting Medicaid expansion.

The right wing pretends that it's the maternity care requirement that drives up the price for older Americans. But in reality, the costs for this age group are driven by the price of colonoscopies not contraception.
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Just to see, I plugged in the numbers for two 60 year old's with a household income of $50,000 in Laramie County Wyoming.

Silver level coverage for $350 a month. That's less than what I pay for my employer-based plan!

https://www.healthcare.gov/find-pre...loyerCoverage=no&householdSize=2&income=50000

ETA: At $75,000 income, the plans get pricey, but let me ask you this: what are the chances that one of those two 60 year olds has a preexisting condition? I don't know the numbers off-hand, but practically every senior I know has had some medical procedure done.
 
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Charlie Wilkes said:
If you're in your 60s, I have to wonder how good the insurance can possibly be, for that price. It may seem good enough because you've never had to put in a claim.
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A $10,000 deductible tells most of the story. he basically has catastrophic emergency coverage, not what most would consider health insurance, though with rates being what they are currently, even a broken bone (especially if it requires fixation) with an ambulance ride could easily top his deductible in many places around the country.
 
Told you so.

It was zero surprise to me that Obama issued what is by some counts the 14th (now 15th) change to Obamacare by fiat with zero consultation of anyone like, uh, congress or the insurance companies who set rates based on his assurances of keeping the mandates those rates are based upon.

The most important things happening right now have nothing whatsoever to do with universal health care or democrats vs republicans but instead the destruction of the rule of law and a president who makes all his decisions based upon how he thinks it is going to affect the short run news and public opinion cycle.

The current set of frantic midnight-hour policy shifts (re-writing of the law, actually) bring even larger problems to the fore later, like when insurance companies come to the government for the billions it cost them or the people who faithfully followed the legal requirements of signing up and were screwed in favor of people who have been granted an exemption not contemplated by the law demand equal treatment. Some of this is easily predictable while more is going to be had by the law of unintended consequences.

The only thing I can know for sure is that I cannot trust what the government is saying, that whatever repeated emphatic promises are being made will be broken on a late Friday news dump, and that more/greater chaos with extraconstitutional executive orders will be made that are based upon impression management rather than reality.

This breakdown of the republic has been long coming with a host of spectacular criminals from both the Democratic and Republican parties in charge. I am comforted only by the fact that both parties murdering millions of people abroad under false pretenses makes it a certainty that they will have only the highest noble intentions when their power is threatened at home.
 
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And you get all this from a market based healthcare plan which mildly raises medicaid eligibility and institutes community rating?
 
An optimistic view:

Obamacare, Hated Today, Will Soon Get Boost

More immediately, at some point early in 2014, two things will happen to boost people's views about Obamacare. First, some people covered by exchange plans will find that the coverage is better than they expected. Second, an even larger group of people will realize that the worst disarray caused by Obamacare doesn't apply to their own coverage.
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I remain agnostic myself.
 
sir drinks-a-lot said:
What does "market based" mean to you?
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Privately owned insurance companies competing to offer coverage plans to individuals who are free to choose between those options to find the coverage they desire, sounds like a "market based" system to me,...what does "market based" mean to you?
 
sir drinks-a-lot said:
What does "market based" mean to you?
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Trakar said:
Privately owned insurance companies competing to offer coverage plans to individuals who are free to choose between those options to find the coverage they desire, sounds like a "market based" system to me,...what does "market based" mean to you?
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I'd say a plan created by the Heritage Foundation ought to qualify.

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2010/04/author_author.html#p2

My personal definition would be a plan in which my coverage comes from a private insurance company which pays for care I receive at a private hospital, all paid for by premiums I pay out of my personal checking account.

A non market based plan would be the NHS.
 
Unabogie said:
I'd say a plan created by the Heritage Foundation ought to qualify.

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2010/04/author_author.html#p2

My personal definition would be a plan in which my coverage comes from a private insurance company which pays for care I receive at a private hospital, all paid for by premiums I pay out of my personal checking account.

A non market based plan would be the NHS.
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How do you see public subsidies for some participants as eliminating a "market-based" system?
 
Unabogie said:
I don't. I see the ACA as a market based approach.
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I suspected so, but the requirement that these premiums are "all paid for by premiums I pay out of my personal checking account," gave me a bit of pause.
 
Fast Eddie B said:
Wow.

Just, wow.

My wife and I currently pay $363/month for a high deductible Aetna plan - $10,000 annual deductible each.

It's what we want and can afford.

Waiting until the last minute, we just registered on HealthCare.gov.

Aetna has told us our plan qualifies, and is good until next August. Still, wanted to see if the government might offer cheaper plans or better plans for the same money.

A few glitches, but after about 30 minutes we got quotes for us (both non-smokers).

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Kinda shocking - and they call this the Affordable Care Act!

Anyway, next August I qualify for Medicare, which will change the equation, but still.
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I signed up on the marketplace with Aetna 2 days ago,(Aetna Classic 5000). I'm not sure why my experience was so different, I'm just a little younger (57). Premium $565, deductible $250, out of pocket maximum $1500.
 
Marcus said:
I signed up on the marketplace with Aetna 2 days ago,(Aetna Classic 5000). I'm not sure why my experience was so different, I'm just a little younger (57). Premium $565, deductible $250, out of pocket maximum $1500.
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His claim is that he was paying $383 a month for two people. At 64 years old, that coverage must be almost non-existent.

But looking at the numbers in Austin, a bronze plan could be had for around $700 a month. That's got to be leaps and bounds better coverage than a $383 plan for two 64 year olds.

The devil's in the details, right?
 
Update from Obamacaresignups.net as of today... 1.83 million enrolled in the private plans, and that's just partial data up to 12/24.

Looking long term, that's about 26% of the CBO's projected enrollment by 3/31/14.
 
Fudbucker said:
I totally understand where Mattus is coming from.



Each person that enrolls makes it that much harder to repeal it and return to the bad old days. I don't know if Mattus has a preexisting condition, but I know people who do, and they were priced out of the market. They're very nervous about the future of the ACA, for obvious reasons.
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Yup, this ^

Not only that, but the more people who enroll the more the law will work as it was intended to. In other words, the more enrolled, the higher the odds the law will be successful.
 
Unabogie said:
His claim is that he was paying $383 a month for two people.
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Careful on the perceived implication.

It's not a "claim". It is, in fact, what my credit card is debited each month: $363 (not $383 - I think someone mistyped, I don't think it was me if you look at my first post with the graphic) to Aetna.

Prior to August it was $311. Not an insignificant percentage increase. To what extent Obamacare may or may not have influenced the increase, I do not know.

I'm not claiming its great coverage. But its been working out for us in that we've personally determined that $10,000 deductibles, while inconvenient, would be affordable. We just don't get sick or need routine coverage very often, so major medical (catastrophic) is what we would choose if allowed to do so.

In general, that's what I was taught insurance was for - to insure you against expenses you could not easily cover without it.

But, again, our choices have been narrowed by the act.

And the lower rates in Texas? I that's part of the "premium lottery" in that where you live has a huge impact in what you pay. If this is allowed to continue, I wonder if it will actually result in some movement of populations.
 
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Fast Eddie B said:
Careful on the perceived implication.

It's not a "claim". It is, in fact, what my credit card is debited each month: $363 (not $383 - I think someone mistyped, I don't think it was me if you look at my first post with the graphic) to Aetna.

Prior to August it was $311. Not an insignificant percentage increase. To what extent Obamacare may or may not have influenced the increase, I do not know.

I'm not claiming its great coverage. But its been working out for us in that we've personally determined that $10,000 deductibles, while inconvenient, would be affordable. We just don't get sick or need routine coverage very often, so major medical (catastrophic) is what we would choose if allowed to do so.

In general, that's what I was taught insurance was for - to insure you against expenses you could not easily cover without it.

But, again, our choices have been narrowed by the act.

And the lower rates in Texas? I that's part of the "premium lottery" in that where you live has a huge impact in what you pay. If this is allowed to continue, I wonder if it will actually result in some movement of populations.
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We can only hope, the more people we can save from Texas by encouraging them to move out of Texas, the easier it will be to raise their standards of living and quality of life.

:)
 
Fast Eddie B said:
And the lower rates in Texas? I that's part of the "premium lottery" in that where you live has a huge impact in what you pay. If this is allowed to continue, I wonder if it will actually result in some movement of populations.
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It might. And it might also restrict movement. Hell, even travel is becoming a crap shoot: provider networks have become so narrow that in many cases you can't even leave your state and find anyone in-network. And good luck if you get sick overseas.
 
Can someone concisely explain the perceived benefit of having this mix of federal mandates and state exchanges?

It would seem obvious that if companies could compete for a national customer base, there would be economies of scale and increased competition, and this state-to-state disparity (which seems unfair) would go away.

What am I missing?
 
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