On the other hand, association health plans are on the way with some relaxed rules allowing the “association.” May be worth a look.
I can’t agree more @emilybee. I also think as a byproduct that those who are lucky enough to have employer based health care will also find that our price will go up. Not as much as the self employed but this will effect everyone.
We shopped insurance for the small business I work for, and it was discouraging.
The few people who were interested in group insurance through the business are older and the policy would be age rated, and therefore expensive – even more expensive than what I pay on the individual market (no employer contribution).
Not sure what’s going to happen.
I would be far closer to the capitalist class had I been able to put all my attention into my small business back in 1999 when I founded it. But I wanted to risk my capital, not my health. I had to keep a day job in order to have health care access until the ACA allowed me to buy on the individual market. Comparing 2012 (my last year with a day job) to 2017, the earnings of my practice increased about 2000%. My practice now supports both me and my husband, who manages it. I pay three times the taxes I used to pay and my business spending went way up. It’s an economic conservative’s dream story, and it’s all in danger if I can’t get health insurance.
" I had to keep a day job in order to have health care access until the ACA allowed me to buy on the individual market."
" it’s all in danger if I can’t get health insurance."
This. This is why ACA is good for entrepreneurial efforts and therefore job creation and economic growth.
Yes, without ACA or similar, our S will likely stay at his Fed govt job because he has great health insurance.
If you’re healthy. Not healthy? No association plan for you.
DH was self-employed and now retired so we’ve been on the individual market for a long time. With what’s happening now, I’m grateful that he’ll be eligible for Medicare in a year and that I’ll be eligible in less than 2 years. Our health insurance costs until then will most certainly be higher than we anticipated (and I assumed 15-20% increases/year).
If anyone knows the answer to this, please speak up. I started a thread on this before: I’m almost 60 and I want to retire early (at 63-ish). H will be 65 by then and on Medicare - but what can I do for health insurance for 2 or 3 years? H may be able to get retiree medical through his job, but we are considering relocation and that plan may not cover out-of-state physician networks.
Plus, I have a pre-existing condition that makes association plans extremely unlikely (although I’m probably the healthiest sick person you’d ever meet.) It’s dawning on me that I may have NO options if/when the ACA is torpedoed.
This whole situation worries and infuriates me.
@somemom - your post #14 really resonates with me. This is basically us. My dh retired this year. We are mid-50s. Taking COBRA while we can, but the future is scary. His retirement was well-thought out. We have planned and budgeted for a large amount for health insurance once we can no longer get what we have. Our health insurance will undoubtedly be our largest single expense, and we knew this going in. When does it reach a breaking point, though? Will we reach a point where we are going to have to pay $60,000 a year? More?
@scout59 - I feel your pain. This is us, but we have more years to take into account. Who knows if we will be able to get coverage or not? My dh is also a super healthy person with a pre-existing condition.
“Will we reach a point where we are going to have to pay $60,000 a year? More?”
At that point I’d self-fund or look at options abroad.
The business in which I work comprises about 60 people, and it looks like we cannot get an employer plan for next year.
The U.S. health insurance system is absolutely insane, and the level of wasteful expense for people and companies trying to game it, or even just to figure it out, is disgusting. Flawed as it was, the ACA was an attempt to do something about it, and many of its flaws were the result of compromises that were necessary to get anything at all to happen. It can’t survive an administration and Congressional leadership that wants to make it collapse.
I don’t know anyone near 60 years old or older who doesn’t have some kind of pre-existing condition. We are all praying we make it to Medicare before the ACA system collapses completely. If I were 55 or 50, and not ensconced in a lifetime job at a Fortune 500 company, I would be desperate.
@JHS - ensconcement is nice in theory, but it doesn’t always play out in reality given the challenges of ageism for many employees in that age range at those companies.
Prior to ACA there were also instances of babies being born with issues needing medical attention, and the babies being denied coverage due to “pre-existing condition”. Newborns and seniors certainly make for odd compatriots in the pre-existing condition bucket.
Few jobs at large companies are lifetime ones, as company, industry, and economic cycles can wipe out jobs over a lifetime. Even government jobs may not be secure, due to budget problems in governments at many levels. Tenured faculty jobs are theoretically lifetime, but those are rare these days, and one needs to hope that the school’s finances stay good.
Such “financial aid” would be a big inheritance. But (like with legacy preference in college admissions), one does not really control who one’s parents are.
Becoming a self-made capitalist starting from membership in the labor class (where most adults are) means spending substantially less than you earn, like The Millionaire Next Door, and avoiding bad financial luck (i.e. not getting a big surprise medical bill or other large expense that sets back your savings and investment, or having your job disappear before you reach the capitalist class). Obviously, this is more difficult if you are low income who needs every dollar for immediate basic needs than if you are high income who can comfortably live on middle income spending habits.
This types back in nicely to the “How Much Do You Need to Retire” thread. Just how much does one need to be considered in the capitalist class?
Folks! I know no one’s job is really safe! That’s why it’s nuts to continue to rely on a health insurance system that was premised on the idea of near-universal lifetime employment and/or union membership! I referred to lifetime employment ironically.
It’s also nuts to have a system based on annual contracts, when everything about health care requires long-term processes and relationships.
Enough to self-insure medical costs assuming no Medicare plus whatever assets will provide investment income to comfortably cover your other financial needs for the rest of your life, assuming no Social Security.
Vested interest in pension or employer provided retirement medical coverage counts only if it is backed by a pension fund that is not underfunded (many are severely underfunded and cannot be relied on).
Medicare and Social Security are subject to budget and political cuts, so they should not be relied on.
I also know many self-employed people our age with no pre-existing conditions and they are worried, too. And I see people on the BH forum who have retired early and are managing their finances to just barely qualify for the subsidies, that may blow up in their faces if there are no plans and no subsidies.
People have pursued a course for their lives which will be slow to change, like turning a huge barge versus a small speedboat, it cannot be done quickly.
Each of these political games may have some purpose down the road, for each political party, but the real mess is these years in the middle when people have to play on this ever moving field.
We are all at an age when it would be extremely unwise to go without coverage, nothing wrong with you, that’s true and great until the day it changes- heart attacks, cancer, or less serious things which still result in a $5k ED visit or a $40k surgery. Yikes!