<p>I have had two very expensive health events in my life…so much so that it would take a bunch more years at full premium payment to pay out what insurance paid for me. I am so grateful I had the coverage I had…and continue to have.</p>
<p>Let’s compare to homeowners…my sister had flooding in her house due to heavy rains. First claim…no problem. Second time a year later…they paid, and promptly canceled her policy.</p>
<p>I hope that NEVER happens with my health insurance.</p>
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<p>And…they have the ability to manage very closely how, when and IF they take ‘income’. Frankly with all the finger pointing at - pick your scapegoat class - not paying their ‘fair’ share, I hope ‘they’ play the game to the utmost.</p>
<p>dstark, when Anthem has an interactive provider list for my region on its website I will let you know how good the network is. I know for sure that BS has no one I want.</p>
<p>The UC’s are definitely a good start but I am still not 100% sure they are included in the network. Until I can interactively look at the providers x miles from my zip code, I wouldn’t assume anything. And don’t tell me it is true because an agent told you so. The agents don’t have a clue.</p>
<p>BTW, why are you keeping your current plan if you’re given this alternative?</p>
<p>Having assets is quite different than having income, calmom. Sure, I’d be worried about paying for health insurance if my income is low, though assets are good. We have some income producing real estate, but that could easily equal zero. We don’t have to withdraw 401Ks till 70 1/2, so until we get pension benefits, income could be zero. People don’t want to draw down their assets till they have to.</p>
<p>I know I’m not adding much here, certainly not to the arguing going on. But, whether one likes ACA or not seems to be very individual. Obvious, I know. But I wonder how representative some complaints here are. Especially if the survey dissatisfaction could eliminate those who really haven’t figured it out yet or are having access issues.</p>
<p>I buy insurance not because its cost matches what I expect to need in a given year. We buy it “in case” something happens that exceeds by ability to pay out of pocket. Along the way, it does pay for certain medial expenses. At 45, I had one of those 60k operations. At 14k/year (our current individual $,) yeah, maybe I wouldn’t get sick over 5 years and I could have stashed the money away. But we don’t plan when we become ill or how it repeats; we can’t always assume based on today and yesterday. Most of us couldn’t pay 300k for one operation. At the time we needed to go individual, one of my kids was diagnosed with something that could have turned ugly and required major surgery. (Turned out to be a lower category issue, so far.) It drove home why insurance is important to me. Same reason I buy home and car insurance. In all the years as a homeowner, we’ve had one $300 claim. Not good enough for me to opt out. Anyone who wants to, fine- as long as you do pay your costs, not leave them to the doctors or hospital to absorb.</p>
<p>(Also, just following up: 2012 was the first year insurance cost showed on our W2. No idea why and it does not matter. My mistake in misunderstanding the former question.)</p>
<p>They are showing it on the W2 in preparation for the income tax you will be paying on this benefit. </p>
<p>Calmom, do you understand the difference between capital gains and income?</p>
<p>Look. It is what it is. It is also not really about affordable health care.</p>
<p>You could have millions of dollars of assets in a defined benefit retirement plan.</p>
<p>I am fairly certain the insurance industry doesn’t care about fairness, either.</p>
<p>My issue with ACA (as most of you know) are the narrow networks. I always supported a solution for pre-existing conditions as it’s something my daughter will be facing one day. Although, with the individual market being the only ACA game in town right now, the insurance companies are simply not working to create decent networks. They’re generally, at least in my area, going with the bottom of the barrel providers due to low cost. Perhaps it will get better. That being said, I am not willing to risk my daughter’s health while waiting for it to get better and would prefer to keep my old plan until it either gets better or the insurance companies have better networks for ACA individual plans.</p>
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You’d lose your eligibility for subsidies on the individual market at age 65.</p>
<p>Doesn’t your employer pay 100% of your health care costs? Or is there some money coming out of your paycheck that goes toward insurance? </p>
<p>You earn good money. Why is it ok for the government to subsidize your health insurance 100% by not taxing you on the $9000 your employer pays for your insurance, but I should be subject to assets-based means testing rather than getting help with the $8000 in insurance premiums I will have to pay out pocket on an annual income of ~$45,000? </p>
<p>Maybe the government should count up your assets to decide whether or not to tax your job benefits?</p>
<p>Calmom, every so often we agree. It is definitely wrong for some people to pay their premiums tax free and others do not. So correct this problem without wreaking havoc on the entire system.</p>
<p>I would not be surprised if that is next. </p>
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<p>Many of us who see inherent flaws for some may never take subsidies, even if eligible. However, the fact is that this legislation affects everyone.</p>
<p>Calmom, in all fairness (why am I using this word?) you can deduct your premiums from your self-employment income, no different than the benefit busdriver is receiving.</p>
<p>Calmom they will be taxing benefits soon. </p>
<p>Not raising capital gains taxes, but taxing benefits. Lol. Coming to an April 15th near you. </p>
<p>Depending on who is in office, some parties will be inexplicably exempt. </p>
<p>Some however will be asked to pay what will be labeled their “fair share”. :p</p>
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I’d just point out that the reason you need home and car insurance, whether you know it or not, is to cover for liability in case someone gets hurt and sues you. You really don’t need the part of the car insurance that pays to replace your car or fix the broken glass - that’s nice to have, but you can plan for that – and your home value is a fixed amount as well. Probably high enough that its worthwhile to pay for the insurance, though I live on an earthquake fault and have opted out of earthquake insurance precisely because the cost-benefit analysis isn’t worth it for me in that situation. (Earthquake coverage has very high deductibles. ). </p>
<p>If you could categorize the value of your own life or the life of a family member in the same way – maybe you wouldn’t need insurance. But you can’t – so you need coverage that is going to pay for if your kid needs 5 different $300K surgeries for a brain tumor, even if you are lucky and it ends up that the only thing that ever happens to your kid is a broken wrist. </p>
<p>The point of the insurance is the intangible benefit you have bought: the promise that the insurance will pay for the brain surgery or the chemotherapy if it is ever needed – not how many $$ get paid back in relation to whatever you have paid in.</p>
<p>People opt out of earthquake insurance because they think the govt will bail them out.</p>
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I don’t get to deduct it twice – but the government foregoes the ability to tax it twice – as neither employer nor employee is taxed. </p>
<p>I’m just pointing out that both Busdriver and her employer get a substantial subsidy for health care coverage through a full tax write off, without any weighing of either the corporate or employee assets - but she seems to be arguing for asset-based means testing before a person who has to pay out of pocket for insurance can get a partial tax credit based on the relationship of their income to the amount they have had to pay. Many people who are buying on the individual market are not self-employed, and don’t get favorable treatment, but are wage earners who work for business that don’t provide health insurance.</p>
<p>You can never know what’s going to happen to you with respect to health. Hey, my kid had maybe 4-5 colds total in her life before getting her tumor. She was never ever sick. I’m generally risk adverse so I was happy I paid for the best insurance I could buy even though my family has always been quite healthy.</p>
<p>Honestly, my preference would be to see everyone on the individual market. That would create competition and forces that would necessarily bring the costs down. I am guessing that’s not going to happen anytime soon. </p>
<p>Right now, the individual market is taking a beating because we’re not a large enough bloc to get the insurance companies to cater to us. The way many of them have decided to save costs since they must, by law, include expanded benefits is to create narrow networks that, for some, is de facto restriction of access to medical care.</p>
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<p>This is going to be self-correcting, though. Hospitals and doctors have to have patients. And if the vast majority of people are covered by insurance, Medicare or Medicaid, then hospitals and doctors who don’t take insured people, people on Medicaid and people on Medicare are going to go out of business. Sure, there will be a few concierge doctors and self-pay hospitals, but not many can support themselves on full-pay patients.</p>
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I don’t have any such expectation. It’s just that I can’t afford the cost of the insurance and I can’t afford the cost of the deductible, so I’ll accept the risk.</p>