<p>TatinG, we’re not forgetting. Of the people who now have insurance through their employer, how many have plans that are not already substantially compliant?</p>
<p>dstark, I’ve seen online ehealth ads. They give the subsidy levels for single people of various ages for California, and ask me to buy insurance through them if I’m not eligible for a subsidy. Pretty clever, really.</p>
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<p>How old is your son? Under-30s can buy catastrophic insurance. In another part of the message, you say that your son is covered under your policy, which means he is under 26, which would make him under 30 too unless I am miscalculating.</p>
<p>Under the new rules released couples of days ago, anyone whose insurance got cancelled can buy a catastrophic insurance or not buy one at all but not pay fine either.</p>
<p>Is GP not making use of the new rules? :p</p>
<p>That rule is tricky. People whose insurance got cancelled can go without insurance-- but we already know they don’t want to go without insurance.</p>
<p>The quotes I’ve seen have Bronze being not much more expensive than Catastrophic. And I’m not sure Catastrophic is even available everywhere.</p>
<p>“How old is your son? Under-30s can buy catastrophic insurance. In another part of the message, you say that your son is covered under your policy, which means he is under 26, which would make him under 30 too unless I am miscalculating”</p>
<p>He’s 23. For some reason, I thought catastrophic was not available to people if they had insurance offered through their employer, if they had another option. But it sounds as if as there are no limitations if you are under age 30? If it is almost as expensive as the bronze plan, though, that sounds like the prices have been inflated. I thought catastrophic was generally pretty cheap.</p>
<p>I’m not sure if catastrophic is available to young people with employer-supplied insurance. I had assumed that we were talking about the counterfactual where your son didn’t have affordable insurance through his employer.</p>
<p>I guess it depends upon what one considers affordable. Things are changing by the day. For right now, I don’t even know if he could get insurance through his employer if he wanted it, as he already turned it down.</p>
<p>Nevertheless, looking at yesterdays newspapers, it seems to me what they now call catastrophic insurance is a bit of a scam. They only have a few options available in my state, and they cost more than some of the bronze plans. They still have to cover a ton of things, so the costs went way up. Not exactly catastrophic plans, and very people have signed up for them as they apparently are a crummy deal. So I think what I initially told him is pretty close to the truth. Catastrophic plans really don’t exist any more. Even if the insurance companies pretend they do.</p>
<p>I was using “affordable” there in the technical sense of the ACA. An employee has “affordable” insurance from his employer if it costs less than 9.5% (or something like that) of his income. People who have “affordable” employer insurance are ineligible for subsidies, but people who don’t have “affordable” employer insurance might qualify for subsides.</p>
<p>I’m curious why your son thinks that the plans on the exchange are particularly bad deals. In my state, the plans on the exchange are not very different from the plans off the exchange. They all seem to be equally good or bad deals.</p>
<p>I was reading a WSJ editorial that would be political to link which was saying that the catastrophic was meant strictly for under 30 crowd and priced as such with a 20% discount on the average from the lowest plan and with no subsidies allowed. So they think 2015 prices will go up now that any age person can practically buy it by claiming hardship while the plans did not expect it to be that open.</p>
<p>Looking at the various price tags, I have to say someone in 20s pays a lot less in any ACA based plan than their employer would be paying for them in their group plan. Essentially, my plan averages 5500 with all payments but so does someone’s in my company who is 22 or 70 since we are averaging all ages. Meanwhile, ACA plans have a baseline for 20 and make it 3 times as much for 60 which means the younger crowd are paying a lot less than an employer based plan although due to employers covering 70-80% it might look lot cheaper.</p>
<p>I’ve been having issues with the website for the last two days. Every time I try to submit, it’s coming up with this error: </p>
<p>“You have a notice available explaining that certain systems are unavailable.” </p>
<p>I tried submitting an app for both my mom and my fiance. Same error both times. I’m frustrated. Guess they’ll be getting a phone call today :/</p>
<p>“I was using “affordable” there in the technical sense of the ACA. An employee has “affordable” insurance from his employer if it costs less than 9.5% (or something like that) of his income. People who have “affordable” employer insurance are ineligible for subsidies, but people who don’t have “affordable” employer insurance might qualify for subsides.”</p>
<p>I don’t agree with the ACA definition of “affordable” as a percentage of ones income. It seems pretty random.</p>
<p>“I’m curious why your son thinks that the plans on the exchange are particularly bad deals. In my state, the plans on the exchange are not very different from the plans off the exchange. They all seem to be equally good or bad deals.”</p>
<p>I suppose it’s just what he’s heard of the costs involved. In my state, we have very little competition on the exchange, as it’s only either 4-5 companies that were approved. So the prices are high. I’m too lazy to check, but I’d assume that you could find cheaper policies off exchange, purely because there is far more competition. I don’t think many people have been buying from the exchange who aren’t getting subsidies. They seem to be going right to the insurance companies, and if you’re in a state that offers only a few carriers on the exchange, it seems logical you’d potentially get a better deal off the exchange.</p>
<p>But, texaspg, wouldn’t the cost of the catastrophic be correspondingly higher for the over-30s? If the catastrophic plan is $150/month for a 21-year-old, it’ll be $450 for the 64-year-old. </p>
<p>It turns out the 3-1 age compression is actually fairly close to real costs. People over 60 pay somewhat less than their costs, and everybody else pays a little more than their costs, but the deviation is not extreme.</p>
<p>My kid is having problems with the NY exchange. </p>
<p>Yesterday, the exchange Said he is going to get an email so he can proceed, but there is no email. </p>
<p>That is why I am curious about ehealth.</p>
<p>In the state of NY, the premiums are so low if you are older. </p>
<p>If you are young and a full payer, the premiums are high.</p>
<p>NY does not use age based premiums. </p>
<p>Upstate NY may be a nice place to retire if you can handle the cold.</p>
<p>“wouldn’t the cost of the catastrophic be correspondingly higher for the over-30s?”</p>
<p>I posted it here to see if anyone can negate part or all of WSJ statements (I think it is an editorial) since I don’t particularly know if the gist is correct. So go at it! </p>
<p>Is it correct that there are no subsidies for a catastrophic plan?</p>
<p>What would make sense is that the expected enrollees are far fewer when pricing the product because they were not expecting it to be opened up.</p>
<p>Here are guidelines for hardship exemptions before the new hardship guideline about higher prices making it unaffordable.</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.cms.gov/CCIIO/Resources/Regulations-and-Guidance/Downloads/exemptions-guidance-6-26-2013.pdf[/url]”>http://www.cms.gov/CCIIO/Resources/Regulations-and-Guidance/Downloads/exemptions-guidance-6-26-2013.pdf</a></p>
<p>"NY does not use age based premiums. "</p>
<p>dstark - how is that possible?</p>
<p>I have request for those of you who oppose the ACA. I understand you oppose it, and that’s fine; we have disagreements. But would you please stop saying things that aren’t true, or that you haven’t bothered to check although their truth is easily verified? Good ideas don’t need to be supported by untruths. We all have the same Google here. </p>
<p>For example, busdriver says that her son thinks cheaper plans are available off-exchange than on the exchange in her state. When I ask why he believes this, she says “I’m too lazy to check, but I’d assume that you could find cheaper policies off exchange.” </p>
<p>Well, I’m not too lazy to check. So I did check. I believe the state we’re talking about is Washington. It turns out that plans on the exchange and plans off the exchange are about the same price. Prices for Seattle and Olympia seem to be similar. In Seattle, the second cheapest Silver plan on the exchange for a 35-year-old is $268. Off the exchange, the second cheapest plan is $279.</p>
<p>There are no subsidies for the catastrophic. </p>
<p>New York state law disallows higher premiums for older people. It’s a state law predating the ACA.</p>
<p>I am very impressed by your fortitude, cf. When I had looked into this earlier, I had given up in irritation. I have not been able to find a website that condenses every single available plan in my state, and compares them exactly to every exchange plan. The deductibles and coverages are often different, and many of the sites are only listing the plans that are given by the few exchange selected insurance companies. So if you’ve been able to so quickly find a site that lists every single insurance policy in Washington, both on and off exchange that is available, and compares them with the same deductibles and limitations…please do tell me that site. Otherwise, it seems like it takes great effort to search, hunt and peck, to look for what every company is offering.</p>
<p>It seems logical to me that if you have more options that you would be able to find a policy that is cheaper, but according to your numbers, apparently less options = cheaper.</p>
<p>“But would you please stop saying things that aren’t true, or that you haven’t bothered to check although their truth is easily verified? Good ideas don’t need to be supported by untruths. We all have the same Google here.”</p>
<p>I dont know why speaking untruths is used to support arguments.</p>
<p>People know the truth. :)</p>
<p>"New York state law disallows higher premiums for older people. It’s a state law predating the ACA. "</p>
<p>So how do they get away with charging younger people more to balance it out or is that not the case?</p>
<p>The plans on the exchange and the plans off the exchange are similar in price and deductible. Some are exactly the same. They’re all subject to the same regulations, so there’s no particular reason why you’d be able to find a great deal off-exchange. I’m not saying the exchange is cheaper; I’m saying on-exchange and off-exchange are similar.</p>