They were already at 94% coverage before their law and they now pay among the worst insurance premiums in the country.
The devil is in the details. My brother and his wife are self-employed, they pay around $10K total for their plan and it costs them out of pocket a lot more than mine. You have to take a closer look at your real world example and see what procedures it covers, the co-pay, the deductibles, the life-time coverage, the flexibility of the plan, so on and so forth, there are hundred of details ... You then need to take a closer look at the plans under Obama Care. They may cost more, they may cost less but that is a dependency on the rising health care cost of the past 20+ years, it does not depend on the enactment of Obama Care alone. If anything, when you have more people under coverage, the cost can only go down, not up.
Correct. Removing life time max & pre-existing condition waivers were actuarially applied in last couple years. Just a thought to add for the topic, I think when people read information about insurance costs they're only getting half the picture. For small businesses (under say 1000 employees) & individuals the only option is going with a big carrier like BCBS, Humana, UHC ect--->pretty much a monopoly of sorts after all the M&A over last 20 yrs. What a lot of people don't realize is that the wealthiest and most well funded corporations have or are setting up their own captive self funded health insurance 'company' through off shored subsidiaries. These companies are technically providing health care to their clients but they are not participating in the broader pool. These are beneficial as it allows a company hired claims manager to control expenditures & their money makes money, just like other insurance companies do with their reserves. There are also many tax advantages on how this generated wealth is taxed through their insurance subsidiary. So while published reports may indicate a survey that finds that health care costs are only going up say 6% it is important for people to understand that some of the biggest corporations are leveraging their health care dollars to force below market increases or they'll set up their own captive & offshore their dollars & then generate income on that money while sitting outside of US jurisdiction. Sooo... If corporation X with its 26000 employees & leverage takes a 5% rate increase to stay with BCBS but the market demands a 10% increase, that means 26000 individuals & people employed through small businesses will see a 15% increase to off set the corporation x's negotiated rates. The surveys that are being posted are not survey the moms & pops because this legislation & subsequent offshoring to captives is forcing routine 15 to 25% rate increases the last 3 years running. Just letting you guys know that the big corps play by different negotiation rules than the avg small business & individual does in this whole deal & health rates for many are outpacing what is reported. Spoiler link about this if anyone cares to know more: http://www.aon.com/about-aon/intell...pital-consulting/Benefits_Captives_041608.pdf
As far as I know, there is no evidence of an increase in price due to Obamacare. And over time, having younger, cheap-to-insure people in system is expected to reduce the cost of insurance (not to mention all the experimental things in the pipeline like changing the way payments are done, etc).
It's possible (or probable) that the particular BCBS plan doesn't qualify, but prices also vary by region and circumstances, so there very well could be cheaper plans that do qualify.
This also isn't necessarily true. http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2012/11/20/three-ways-obamacare-changed-today/ Higher deductibles are a-okay — in certain plans. One way the health-care law tries to reduce consumers cost is by limiting plan deductibles. In the small group market, this meant that insurers could not set a deductible any higher than $2,000 for an individual. That limit created a math problem for the exchanges, where insurers could ofter different levels of benefits. Insurers were supposed to be able to offer “bronze” health-insurance plans: Packages that covered about 60 percent of an individual’s medical costs, lowering the upfront costs of premiums for the consumer (silver plans, by comparison, will cover 70 percent, with gold and platinum offering even more generous benefits). Insurers griped out this provision: They said it might be impossible, with that relatively small deductible to build an insurance plan that has the consumer paying 40 percent of the bill. Tuesday, the Obama administration essentially agreed. “The concern is, with the maximum deductible for the small group, it might be difficult or impossible for some groups to issue a bronze level plan,” says Gary Cohen, acting director of the Center for Consumer Information and Insurance Oversight. Insurers will now be allowed to go above the $2,000 threshold if they cannot “reasonably” build a benefit package at any metal level without doing so. This is in regard to the small group market - I'm not sure how the individual market (which is what the original example uses) is affected.
Yes - so everyone who didn't have health care coverage in MA basically chose to get it when available instead of paying what were fairly minor penalties, despite it being extremely expensive. The OP was asking who would pick expensive health care over a small penalty. The MA answer is pretty much everyone. The cost side is concerning, but MA's mistake was not doing nearly as much on the cost as even Obamacare, which doesn't do a huge amount. They have been refining the program in recent years to try to improve that, but I'm not sure the results.
Thanks. That validates my suspicions. The article says final regulation. The Federal Register notice says proposed rulemaking and notice of public hearing... with public comments accepted through May. Furthermore, where they took the $20k quote is on pages 70-71 where there is a discussion of the penalties, the Shared Responsibility Payment. Because the formula under which this is determined requires a figure for the Monthly Average of the Bronze Plan Premium, they had to make up numbers for the examples, just as they did for household income. Credit to CNSNews for printing the example in full, but they did an intentionally crappy job of explaining what is really going on. Here it is again... That the $20k number is only used in examples should be a big flag for people wanting to make this the average cost. Besides, these things aren't even in place yet so there is no way of knowing the average cost. They also neglected to post other examples where similar numbers are used, like this one from page 56: What are the odds that Obamacare for a family of 5 (including one adult child) will cost the exact same amount as a family of four's employer based plan? It's pretty clear the numbers are just numbers used to illustrate the formulas and nothing else.
Recent article from Forbes related to the topic I posted as it mentions ACA impacts: http://www.forbes.com/sites/bmoharr...re-opting-for-captive-insurance-arrangements/
Use your common sense and logic. Of course it will drive premiums up. Right now in the small group market I know Humana has a built in 4% increase for all groups due to Obamacare fees and taxes. That isn't even accounting for the other things that will drive up costs.
Why? Causes of premiums going up: elimination of pre-existing conditions and lifetime maximums. The former would be the primary driver but hasn't gone into effect yet; the latter is expected to have only a small impact on premiums. And, it's an increase in what you're getting as well. Causes of premiums going down: elimination of having to effectively cover the ununinsured; expanding the base by adding more profitable young/healthy users; changes in payment delivery systems and other experiments (these are all in the pipeline but are being shown to work). Where is the evidence that this is a net increase in premiums?
He asked you for common sense and logic, you gave him those and facts. That's probably too much for him too take. .... but ... but ... That isn't even accounting for the other things that will drive up costs.
How will elimination of covering the unisured help premiums? I understand how it would help reduce overall healthcare costs, but not premiums. The insurance companies weren't paying for those people? How do taxes on medical devices, drugs, and health insurance companies help reduce our health insurance premiums?
Yes they were. Uninsured emergency -> hospital eats the costs -> hospital rolls added uninsured costs into standard costs for all other basic services for insured people -> standard costs for everyone else mostly covered by insurance -> insurance raises premiums to cover higher standard costs which were inflated by uninsured people. Thus premium increases are indirectly caused by uninsured coverage. Reduce uninsured costs to hospital and there is a trickle down effect where premiums should go down.
Hmm... Do all hospitals eat the costs of non-paying patients? Edit: FWIW, uninsured people are less likely to visit a hospital, because they can't afford it. I'm sure there have been studies for the impact.
Basically, what larsv8 said. The costs are bundled to the point where the insured subsidize the uninsured. I don't think I ever claimed that they did? That's part of the ledger of raising costs. The question is whether there is any evidence that the increases outweigh the decreases. Most of the real-world Obamacare costs and benefits are not in effect yet, so it's hard to say at this point. This is true - but the result is that they wait until something really bad happens (like a heart attack) and thus require more emergency care, which is the most expensive sort of care. I think it's been pretty widely studied and shown that the average uninsured person costs more to the system as a whole than insured people because of the lack of preventive care and the lack of just generally solving problems earlier.
on the topic Whoops. Obama grants waivers to college, trade groups & major corporations yet these organizations that are big enough to implement their own insurance captives don't have to comply with the mandates. Yet, small business & individuals have no option. Notice how CNN tries to act like this is just a student issue. Ha. It's a potential issue with every company that is big enough to have it's own plan. I'm with Texx on this one, what a turd.
Well lookie here..... From that liberal rag Forbes New Data Suggests Obamacare Is Actually Bending The Healthcare Cost Curve A new Congressional Budget Office report out last week has the healthcare world scratching its head over the possibility that Obamacare might—in part—be responsible for what is being described as a significant slowdown in the growth of healthcare costs in America. According to the report, hundreds of billions of dollars in federal spending for Medicare and Medicaid are being removed from government projections as federal healthcare spending is now expected to be full 15 percent less than what had been initially budgeted for 2012. The surprisingly low spending projections come as the growth in healthcare spending has hit a new low for the fourth consecutive year.
We did our taxes on Saturday at HRB. At the conclusion, they did a presentation on the future impact of the ACA. Our healthcare provider "claimed" $18,800 on our family healthcoverage (2A2C)-- which represents about 2/3rds of the total cost-- with our contribution added Then we were apprised that the estimated cost of health coverage for us next year was calculated to be about $700 and the Penalty/Tax for not carrying coverage in 2014 would be about $700 and then up to $1400 in 2015. Further, they told us that they were "required" to report uninsured to BCBSNC as the administrative arm of the NC Exchange. Has anyone had any presentation such as this?
^^^This. L. Brent Bozell III controls this CSN site and is about as arch-conservative as you get. Get somebody a little more impartial to report this as fact. At least a CNN type outlet. Otherwise, I can't help but think that it was all cherry-picked factoids to get people lined up against Obamacare. My next-door cubicle-dude at work quoted me that number a couple weeks back and I'm like, Uh, that number seems a LITTLE high. "But it's info from the IRS." "I want to see where they get these numbers. Ain't no middle class family gonna be paying $20,000 a year or whatever for health care insurance, unless they have Blue Cross Blue Shield Mega Ultra Super Duper Might Even Pay Your Claim Platinum Coverage."
