Obamacare could boost entrreneurs

you can buy your own insurance now, and at cheaper rates than when Obamacare kicks in

http://www.forbes.com/sites/theapot...doubles-individual-health-insurance-premiums/

 

How convenient for Forbes to go find outdated data instead of taking information directly from the source:

http://theweek.com/article/index/244759/californias-health-care-exchange-proof-obamacare-works

But hey, if you want to keep believing that the presence of a government-run exchange will double insurance premiums, go right ahead.

 

It is the insurance industry that is predicting an increase in premiums. Their actuaries put pencil to paper a while ago. The largest increases are expected to be for individual plans as opposed to those who buy in groups.

 

That's true for some people, but not everyone. Many people work jobs simply because of health insurance that's only available in the group market.

 

Apparently, some of it depends on the state and how much effort they are making to effectively implement the reforms vs not. This may be why we see such differences in Texas vs California.

 

Don't forget the awesome 15% self employment tax entrepreneurs get to pay for starting their own business! And also don't forget that if you have a business where you get insurance then you have to offer insurance to your employees.

Do you have an opinion on this da1?

 

Regular employed people already pay this tax. Half out of their wages, and half by the employer. Efficient economic theory would suggest that the employer just pays people less in determining their total value to the company, so from a practical standpoint, a regular employee pays the whole 15%.

Not true. The point is that a self-employed person can now get individual insurance - whereas before, there were potential barriers (pre-existing conditions, etc). Even if you get the health insurance personally, you can get a tax deduction for it.

 

Or it would be nice if the entrepreneur/risk taker didn't have to pay a ****load in tax. As a stock trader I don't pay any of that. I only have to pay income tax. When I started this UPS Store stuff with my friend he has to pay the self employment tax because he is actually in the stores running them. I get to pay a new 4.9% passive investor tax.

What do you mean not true? I mean I guess if you have no employees and you are the only worker for your business then you wouldn't have to offer insurance to anyone else. We recently had to drop insurance because it became oppressively expensive.

 

People always had the option of buying insurance--even high risk individuals through the high risk pool. It was far more affordable before the Obamacare mandates kicked in too.

The only thing in Texas though you couldn't get covered that was only offered through a group plan was pregnancy/delivery coverage.

Normally though, there are associations that a person could go through to find that coverage. Knowing where to look was the only problem.

This article is garbage.

 

Sure, if you don't want SS or Medicare to exist, that's an option. But anyone who makes regular income pays this tax - entrepreneurs or employees. I agree it's silly that capital gains income is treated differently.

I mean it's not true. If you own a business, you don't have to buy the insurance through the business. You just buy it in the individual market - you still get the tax deduction. As such, you don't have to provide it to any of your employees.

 

That's not true. The high-risk pool in Texas can have minimum premiums in the $1000/month range for the cheapest option. There will now be insurance far cheaper than that available to those people, even ignoring the potential of subsidies to reduce the cost further.

 

Ok, yes, the high risk pool will be more affordable for those kicked into at the detriment of the healthy and young.

I was referring to the cost of insurance available through the individual market being much cheaper before. The way the OP makes it sound it's as if entrreneurs never had a choice before so they were stuck in their corporate jobs-- & that's totally bogus.

 

For the most part, insurance isn't necessarily a determining factor. But there are and were plenty of people for whom it was/is a significant deterrent to leaving a job, either to pursue their own path or to take a different job that doesn't offer health insurance. I don't think that statement is particularly even controversial - I assumed it was pretty well accepted.

 

It is a pretty blanket generalization. I left a job that had health insurance to go to one that didn't. I bought my own policy with a very affordable premium and good coverage. However, because there are caps on how much the insurers can raise the premiums for older policyholders, those of us under 50 stand to have our premiums escalate to help defray the cost of their care. That may be how it has always worked in group plans, but not so for individual coverage.

 

This is not true. I personal know folks who stayed in their job solely for health insurance reason. Their existing medical conditions (and you would laugh or maybe cry when you realize the conditions) simply mean they either cannot get their own health insurance or cannot afford it.

Before obamacare, the law was such that insurer can charge you an arm or leg or not even provide you coverage in the open private market for almost any reason. Under group insurance provided through employer, this was not allowed.

Who knows how obamacare will turn out (I hope it's a success for the sake of all of us!), but this is one thing it will definitely help some. Folks will be free to move on and not be concern that they cannot find coverage.

 

Certainly you don't think the health insurers are going to cover all of these conditions without a substantial increase in revenues. That money has t come from somewhere. If they cannot directly charge those who have the conditions, they will charge all of their policyholders t make up the difference. In short, we will all pay higher premiums.

 

Obama should boost infrastructure. You know I mean da1. Yeah you know

 

No. That's your assumptions. We don't know yet.

They were able to cover these folks under group policy today. Group rate allow it right? Obamacare pool individuals into groups - essentially forming groups similar or bigger than what employer provide today. So one could argue, it would even reduce rate relative to today. But that would also be an assumption. We don't know yet.

Or would you argue that we should have change the law so that insurer doesn't even need to cover these folks under group policy? That, I agree, will lower the cost to insurer and reduce premium (in theory) for all healthy folks. Unfortunately, anyone not healthy or have been unhealthy in the past, is on their own. Is this what you advocate?

To me, it make sense that we corrected this discrimination against individuals with certain health conditions, especially when some of them can be as simply as something like a heart murmur diagnosis from decade ago. Why do we, an awesome nation, allow this? Plus, can't you see that this immobilize people and likely have a negative impact to our economy?

 

It's basic math. When I say basic math, I am talking about addition and subtraction. On my individual health insurance policy, I have a premium adjustment period once every 12 months. I was advised strongly to time my policy to delay my premium increase for as long as possible. Individual policies are going to be hit hardest once the law is fully implemented.

That isn't an assumption. That was advice from somebody who works in the industry and knows the projections regarding my health insurance premium.

Do you really think they are going to take on all this added expense and just take a hit on their profit margin? They would set themselves up for shareholder derivative suits if they did that.