Heeeeeeere's Obamacare!

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).

[qimg]http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5519/11516222785_23e24ce0e0.jpg[/qimg]

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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Not everyone will pay less, that was never implicit in ACA. "Affordable" does not mean "cheaper than current plans." The primary issue is insuring the uninsured (or at least more of the uninsured), not providing cheaper insurance for all people. If you wanted single-payer you should have been twisting your representative's arms for it all along.
 
Fast Eddie B said:
To be fair, the plans offered are an improvement over what we have now.

Albeit at about triple the cost.

Our collective annual deductible is $20,000, and the plans here will not have a cap, which I assume ours does,

Still, even the lowest premium listed equals my monthly social security check.

And my wife and I are pretty healthy - we rarely spend anywhere close to $1,000/yr each, barring the occasional colonoscopy.

If our numbers are representative of what others are seeing, I predict major problems ahead.

Oh, and as Obama promised that this would be covered and that would be covered and no one could be denied and no caps and on and on, I always mentally added the words, "At what cost?"

I guess we're all finding out!

And the "up to" $2,500 a year the typical family would save? I always found that laughable - but I'll bet a lot of voters were influenced by it.
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If you are unable to qualify for subsidies, then the that amount should be affordable given your other sources of income. They may be inconvenient expenses, but are more in line with expected health care insurance for your income bracket.
 
Drysdale said:
I don't understand the giddiness with this.

You keep posting it like it's an affirmation of the greatness of Obamacare.

But the law is that people must sign up or face fines, penalties right?

I mean yea people are signing up, they HAVE TO its the law.

(Well, unless you get waivers like the unions, select corporations, congress etc.)
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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.
 
Drysdale said:
I don't understand the giddiness with this.

You keep posting it like it's an affirmation of the greatness of Obamacare.

But the law is that people must sign up or face fines, penalties right?

I mean yea people are signing up, they HAVE TO its the law.

(Well, unless you get waivers like the unions, select corporations, congress etc.)
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When are you going to stop spreading the lie that Congress is exempt?
 
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Fast Eddie B said:
$363 for us both. My wife is a few year younger.

But it's by choice a high deductible plan, $10,000 each. A deductible we have never come even a tenth of the way of meeting to date.

It's what was known as "Major Medical" where you accept the normal little stuff but want to have some insurance against catastrophe. What is now called "Catastrophic", but discriminatorily is not available to those over 30, I think.

Still, we get some benefits without getting anywhere near our deductible.

Now, it's up to the government to decide what is good enough for us, in spite of our desires.

A certain amount of freedom of choice has vanished. It remains to be seen if a higher social good arises from all this.
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Have you looked into self-insurance?
 
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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And some people are now priced out of the market because of Obamacare. For them, the good old days were pre-Obamacare

Kestrel said:
When are you going to stop spreading the lie that Congress is exempt?
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It's not so clear cut. The matter is in dispute actually.
http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2013/10/09/fact-check-did-president-obama-exempt-members-of-congress-from-obamacare/
 
Trakar said:
Members of congress already have taxpayer funded insurance, why would they be subject to ACA?
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Because of a Republican insisted on special condition they thought would torpedo the bill or at least give them ammo to argue that 'see even the Dems don't want Obamacare for themselves'. The bluff was called and they have to enroll through the exchanges, although with an allowance to do so if I remember correctly and it hasn't changed again.
 
Trakar said:
If you are unable to qualify for subsidies, then the that amount should be affordable given your other sources of income. They may be inconvenient expenses, but are more in line with expected health care insurance for your income bracket.
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Thank you for determining what "should be affordable", or merely "inconvenient"
for me.

$800/month additional expense would have a major impact on my discretionary spending.

But there's something fundamental going on here, with the government telling me what coverage I can and can't buy, and you telling me whether it's affordable.

Frankly, I would have preferred single payer.
 
Trakar said:
Have you looked into self-insurance?
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Please explain.

I understand the concept, but...

1) There'd be a fine, right?

2) Let's say instead of paying premiums, I just banked $15,000/yr.

That might just cover a short hospital stay a few years from now.

But suppose we're talking triple bypass or brain tumor or some such thing? It's hard to self insure against a $650,000 bill.

My current policy allows me to put funds aside for all the little, routine stuff, while still covering the big stuff - which is what I wanted. But because I'm over 30, someone determined I not be allowed to purchase "Catastrophic" coverage, which IS available to younger people. Many if which I am far healthier than.
 
Fast Eddie B said:
Please explain.

I understand the concept, but...

1) There'd be a fine, right?

2) Let's say instead of paying premiums, I just banked $15,000/yr.

That might just cover a short hospital stay a few years from now.

But suppose we're talking triple bypass or brain tumor or some such thing? It's hard to self insure against a $650,000 bill.

My current policy allows me to put funds aside for all the little, routine stuff, while still covering the big stuff - which is what I wanted. But because I'm over 30, someone determined I not be allowed to purchase "Catastrophic" coverage, which IS available to younger people. Many if which I am far healthier than.
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I'm not certain of all aspects of this under the ACA. I know that as a business (under ACA) it is possible to self-insure your employees, and works much as an independent medical insurance entity covering the costs of your employees (and families). You should not be fined for creating or participating in such a set-up, but I'm sure there are a lot of hoops to jump through and a substantive up front cost in the form of bonds or trusts. It may be possible to for you to put $20k in a special acct. to be used to pay for you and your spouse's annual care, and purchase a reinsurance (stop-loss insurance) policy to cover any emergency or chronic-care expense once the medical services exceed $20k in a single year. As long as you are relatively healthy, and you are purchasing the reinsurance on an annual basis, it might actually work to your benefit, at least until Medicare kicks in.

You basically become your own insurer. Not a cheap alternative, but does give you a lot more control.

http://www.hcaa.org/pdfs/Legislative/PPACA_ADMINISTRATORS_710.pdf
 
Neally said:
And some people are now priced out of the market because of Obamacare. For them, the good old days were pre-Obamacare
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Who's being priced out of the market now? Premiums on some policies are going up, but unless you make over 400% of the poverty level, there's subsidies to help pay for insurance.

Families making $90,000+ a year can afford higher premiums. They won't like paying it, but it's ridiculous to claim they're being "priced out of the market".
 
Fast Eddie B said:
Thank you for determining what "should be affordable", or merely "inconvenient"
for me.

$800/month additional expense would have a major impact on my discretionary spending.

But there's something fundamental going on here, with the government telling me what coverage I can and can't buy, and you telling me whether it's affordable.

Frankly, I would have preferred single payer.
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I agree, but, I'm not deciding anything, I was simply going by generally accepted definitions for the terms used.

If it stays within the discretionary spending range, it is in the "affordable" category, if it cuts into housing, utilities, food or (increasingly) transportation, while eliminating discretionary spending, then it becomes "unaffordable." At the least, those are the conditions for most Americans who fall into the un/under-insured category. The definition of "discretionary" is the money over which you have a choice on how to spend it.
 
Morrigan said:
I don't know. A friend of mine's mother had her monthly premium lowered from $500 to about $50.

My anecdote > your anecdote? :rolleyes:


But the Republicans would scream communist bloody murder.
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They did that anyway; who cares what screaming idiots scream about?
 
Fast Eddie B said:
$363 for us both. My wife is a few year younger.

But it's by choice a high deductible plan, $10,000 each. A deductible we have never come even a tenth of the way of meeting to date.

It's what was known as "Major Medical" where you accept the normal little stuff but want to have some insurance against catastrophe. What is now called "Catastrophic", but discriminatorily is not available to those over 30, I think.

Still, we get some benefits without getting anywhere near our deductible.

Now, it's up to the government to decide what is good enough for us, in spite of our desires.

A certain amount of freedom of choice has vanished. It remains to be seen if a higher social good arises from all this.
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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.
 
Fudbucker said:
Who's being priced out of the market now? Premiums on some policies are going up, but unless you make over 400% of the poverty level, there's subsidies to help pay for insurance.

Families making $90,000+ a year can afford higher premiums. They won't like paying it, but it's ridiculous to claim they're being "priced out of the market".
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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.
 
Fudbucker said:
Who's being priced out of the market now? Premiums on some policies are going up, but unless you make over 400% of the poverty level, there's subsidies to help pay for insurance.

Families making $90,000+ a year can afford higher premiums. They won't like paying it, but it's ridiculous to claim they're being "priced out of the market".
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Someone hasn't been paying attention to the news lately. The ones caught in the middle are indeed being priced out of the market. Too much income for subsidies, to little income to cover the large premium increases.
 
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