<p>Any info about BCBSRI raising 18% is off because that isn’t the percentage approved. This is a long thread. The ACA goal is to solve or resolve many problem points. Focusing on just one risks a little reductio ad absurdum. And, as we found through calmom’s earlier extensive research, the early released info was not perfect, contained some errors or omissions. And, was not said to be “final.”</p>
<p>Some who’ve been on this thread throughout can cite all the different arguing points- the expenses of this party or that, whether young folks will do this or that, businesses will close, the word is already out that hours will be reduced, whose premiums will rise how much to cover some diabetic chain smoker with cancer who’s also overweight, how the elderly run up costs, whether or not they should be allowed to, how the real problem is preventative care, how doctors are cheating us today, will tomorrow- if they even let us come to them and it goes on and on. Fear sells.</p>
<p>Oh, and those media guys aren’t all on top of this. </p>
<p>Personally, I like my experience with the health care I had in another country- but their tax rates were higher.</p>
<p>I’m late to the party, but lookingforward hit the nail on the head. How did we get stuck in this crazy-a$$ health care system where we depend on our EMPLOYER to take care of our health needs. That should be a gov’t function, just like national defense, fire and police protection, water and sewer systems, and garbage pick-up. Instead of trying to figure out how to get people health INSURANCE, we should be trying to figure out how to get people health CARE. We need to take the for-profit middlemen – the health insurance companies, their CEO’s, shareholders, and lobbyists – out of the picture. Yeah, with socialized medicine (there! I said it!) taxes would be higher. So what. We are in effect paying a higher “tax” now in the form of health insurance premiums. The system is broken. Start over with a new model. If we were designing a health care system from scratch, there is no way on earth we would start from the premise that EMPLOYERS will be responsible for taking care of our health care needs.</p>
<p>geeps, sorry to be frank, but I’d have to count you in with all of us who don’t know yet how this will roll out. You don’t like it, that’s clear. Without some further info, I don’t have a reason to know for sure that you know for sure.</p>
<p>“Everything that goes wrong anywhere in the entire healthcare system will be blamed on ACA.”</p>
<p>I’m sure that’s true. Many people are already highly biased against it, and ready to blame any change on the ACA, no matter what.</p>
<p>Regardless, people cannot ignore REAL examples of how people are being negatively affected by the ACA. I realize that there are many that are resentful that anyone gets better insurance than anyone else, so they think it’s just tough luck that they will be getting worse benefits/higher costs because of the ACA.</p>
<p>A REAL example is my company, a huge employer that is raising everyone’s deductibles because they have to…otherwise pay a large tax because they dared to offer a great plan. And the huge fees that they must now pay under the ACA because they also dare to be a self funded plan.</p>
<p>This will not be a huge deal for me, as we are not large users of health care benefits in my family, and we have some extra income in our budget. But they say that employees with chronic health conditions or unanticipated medical events would wind up paying much more. This is directly because of the ACA. Huge numbers of people negatively affected. This is just one company, and if this is happening all over, you can bet there will be screaming when others start doing this.</p>
<p>^ can you share more details? In return for higher deductible, you get what? Any additional coverage, etc? Was this a cadillac plan that was uniquely special? It met all the ACA requirements- or it didn’t and now has to come in line? And that costs.</p>
<p>tough luck that they will be getting worse benefits/higher costs because of the ACA. See, we’ve got pages and pages here that talk about better overall coverage, eliminating certain inequities, etc. Whether your new options are “worse” can 't be generalized-</p>
<p>Same for geeps- are you an employer and does this change how you are rated? Is the new plan, in effect, better- whether or not you think YOU need the new definition of basic coverage?</p>
<p>“Just because you, personally, are going to be paying more doesn’t mean that 1000’s of other small businesses will see a savings due to ACA.”</p>
<p>I agree with that. I wonder if there are any small businesses out there that will see savings due to ACA. This thread is too long to go through again, but I’m curious, you small business owners reading this, who have compared what you are paying now to what you will under the ACA (I realize it may be hard to decipher right now), do you see that you are going to be saving money under the ACA? Sorry if you’ve already addressed this.</p>
<p>I just worked with someone who owns a profitable small business. They have been growing like crazy, and hiring rapidly. He said they are keeping their eye on the magic number and making sure not to hire too many people, particularly not full time, to prevent them from having to provide health care or be fined. They just don’t have enough profit margin for that huge expense, and they would prefer to stay in business and not grow, as opposed to go out of business. They have invested much of their money and time in their business, it means too much to them to lose it.</p>
<p>I think I should be able to choose what plan is best for my family…I was happy with the plan I had, shouldn’t I be able to keep it?..Isn’t that what someone repeatedly promised over and over?..</p>
<p>My plan is a HD with preventative care covered…a type of plan that most Americans should actually have…it’s all most need.</p>
<p>When I was employed, for me to participate in my employer’s group plan I had to pay 100% of the premium. The premium was comparable to (slightly less than) the same plan as an individual. The biggest benefit to me, personally, for being in the group plan was that we had plan administrators, who were very helpful in sorting out claims that were improperly billed (by hospitals), and then improperly paid (by the insurance company). The plan administrators saved me a lot of time and aggravation, not to mention several thousand dollars. Now that I’m on my own, I have to do all the “fighting” myself and I’m not as good at it as they were.</p>
<p>So your complaint is that the preferred plan is now leaving. Were your employees also covered by the reduced rates? Can you imagine BCBSRI ever eliminating preferred on their own, for profit motives? And, I suspect many in New England know that, in RI, the “the stability and economic growth of our economy” has little to do with health incurance rates, is a far bigger problem</p>
<p>This is exactly why we should get employers out of the health insurance loop and have a national health care system. It would actually be better for business! Business decisions should not be driven by health insurance factors.</p>
<p>This is exactly why we should get employers out of the health insurance loop and have a national health care system. It would actually be better for business! Business decisions should not be driven by health insurance factors.</p>
In short: employers and unions were allowed to bargain over health insurance benefits despite wartime wage controls, and these benefits have been accorded highly favorable tax treatment ever since.</p>
<p>Anyway, on a radio biz show today, they discussed the surge in business profitability- and tied it to what is the largest cost of running a company: personnel. And, how, after 2008, the paring down of staff has thus reduced costs, allowing some growth in profitability.</p>
<p>Wait- there were reductions in staff before ACA?</p>
<p>Any savvy business should be run with controlled growth in mind. Benefits (and other costs) aren’t limited to health care.</p>
<p>"^ can you share more details? In return for higher deductible, you get what? Any additional coverage, etc? Was this a cadillac plan that was uniquely special? It met all the ACA requirements- or it didn’t and now has to come in line? And that costs."</p>
<p>I am sure it met ACA requirements, it just offered too low deductibles to not incur the fine. In return for higher deductibles of up to a couple thousand dollars and less coverage, the company will offer a small HRA to offset it, that doesn’t come close to covering it. Employees also get to pay more for their share of the plan. I don’t think that there was anything uniquely special about the plan except that you had an option to pay more monthly and get a lower deductible, and greater coverage than many other plans, designating it a “cadillac plan”.</p>
<p>“See, we’ve got pages and pages here that talk about better overall coverage, eliminating certain inequities, etc. Whether your new options are “worse” can 't be generalized”</p>
<p>Eliminating certain inequities. Now that’s the gist of it, isn’t it? The thought that is just isn’t fair for one company to offer better benefits than another. Which makes me wonder, whose business is it if a company wants to offer great benefits to their employees? Just don’t allow them a tax break for it, if you don’t want taxpayers to pay for it. </p>
<p>This is not a generalized example. This is a specific example. Unless you are of the mind that people shouldn’t be disgruntled that they will now have to pay thousands of dollars for worse coverage, as if that helps anyone else to make groups of people that previously had good insurance get a worse deal. Or maybe it just makes others feel better.</p>
<p>l^ I’m listening because of your earlier concerns how much your costs would go up. I can’t pretend to know it all. But, I did see this, for more than 50 employees:</p>
<p>*The IRS imposes the penalty when:<br>
1.An employer does not offer employee health insurance; or
2.An employer requires employees to contribute too much for a company-sponsored health plan and the employees receive government subsidies for coverage.
*
And Employers will pay a $3,000 penalty for each employee who is required to contribute more than 9.5 percent of W-2 income towards company-sponsored health insurance AND instead of enrolling in the group plan, the employee purchases health insurance in the Exchange and receives a subsidy for coverage. Employers will not face a penalty for employees who earn greater than 400 percent of the poverty level ($46,000 for a single head of household in our example) because these employees do not qualify for subsidies.</p>
<p>So, I am wondering if the issue is ACA demands lesser service for more cost- OR, many of your company’s employees were not properly covered and you and others are somehow bearing this burden.</p>
<p>I am really just thinking out loud right now. No one needs to answer that.</p>
<p>“This is exactly why we should get employers out of the health insurance loop and have a national health care system. It would actually be better for business! Business decisions should not be driven by health insurance factors.”</p>
<p>I agree that employers would be far better off if they were out of the loop. I’m sure that many employers would be thrilled if they could say, “Darn, not allowed to offer health insurance benefits any more.” The odds that extra money they were spending would go to employees paychecks? Maybe a pittance, but no doubt it would go towards more corporate profits. But there is something intrinsically wrong to me to declare that employers are not allowed to provide a benefit if they choose.</p>