<p>Since we never know when we can be the victim of an accident or come down with a serious illness anyone telling kids to avoid insurance in an attempt to derail this law is really doing a disservice. They should play Russian Roulette with their own lives and not
drag others along.</p>
<p>Sorry you got struck with Cancer but you will need to hold off on treatment until the open enrollment period comes along. Real good advice.</p>
<p>You can still write off premiums which exceed 10% of our income (up from 7.5%) if you itemize deductions, but as you say you are self-employed, you will be better off just taking a credit for the whole amount of the premiums as self-employed insurance deduction. Obviously you can’t do both.</p>
<p>For 2014, people can enroll through March 31. But after that, the enrollment periods will be October 15 to December 7. </p>
<p>And notice that the enrollment is not retroactive. To get insurance effective the first of a month, you must have signed up by the 15th of the previous month. To have insurance effective Jan. 1 2014, you must sign up by Dec. 15 2013. If you sign up on March 31, 2014, your insurance starts in May.</p>
<p>I know a lot of people are saying, I won’t sign up, and then if I get sick, I’ll sign up then. Please correct anyone you hear who says this. If you don’t sign up for 2014, you won’t get insurance in 2014. If you then have a terrible health crisis in 2014, you will be out of luck.</p>
<p>As my kids have gotten older, they have gotten involved in arranging for their recurring medications. Let me tell you, they are stunned at the price of prescriptions. They have also seen my medical bills. Medical coverage is mandatory in their minds.</p>
I believe the law requires that every company on the exchange also offer identical plans off-exchange, for the same prices as the on-exchange twin policy. Off exchange they can also offer additional plans which comply with ACA requirements, so some exchange providers are offering some different alternatives off-exchange. But if you can identify which are the exchange-equivalent plans, then the quote will be almost the same. (At least here in California, Blue Shield was including cents in quotes – such as $515.32 – whereas on the exchange the numbers are rounded to the nearest dollar – they are getting those numbers because of the various taxes that impact the premium cost)</p>
<p>Blue Shield of California is only offering identical “mirror” plans off-exchange. Anthem will have non-mirror plans but they haven’t revealed them yet. In my region, that’s it.</p>
<p>Most young women will definitely want insurance. Women are very much aware of medical and potential medical needs, and tend to get experience interfacing on their own with the health care system at fairly young age. The requirement that contraception be provided as part of the preventive benefits will draw them in.</p>
<p>I don’t know any young men who think they are invincible either. My son was living independently at age 20 and was very happy to have employer coverage – when he left that employer at age 22, he shopped the individual market and came for me for advice. As far as I know he has never been without insurance, although he was quite dismayed at the poor quality of the plans he could get in his state prior to the implementation of ACA essential benefits requirements. He could see that he was paying money for plans with unreasonably low caps. </p>
<p>It seems to me that most physically active young people are very much aware that they can get injured. The only thing that would deter them from getting insurance is misinformation – if they believe that they can just wait to get sick or injured and then sign up, then they may defer enrolling. But I think word will get around. </p>
<p>By the time kids are the age that aren’t eligible to have their parents buy their insurance, many of them are thinking about marriage and starting their own families. They also will be very eager to get insurance. At age 27, my son was married and a father. </p>
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Most younger people are going to be subsidy eligible. There aren’t that many young people who are earning $50K+, yet do not have employer-provided insurance. (It’s $50K+ because of the various deductions - some young college grads will find that they get an extra benefit from their $2500 student loan interest deduction. </p>
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Most older people who have been buying on the individual market have been paying far more than the premiums that are showing up on the exchanges. Figures from Kaiser Family Foundation suggest that a 60-year-old couple would have been paying between $12,700 and $19,000 per year in 2009 for individual market plans, depending on geographical area - with the median being around $16,000 per year. So that average older couple isn’t going to be eschewing the $13,000 plan that has gotten you so upset – they are going to be rejoicing.</p>
<p>I’ve spent whole career working with low (or no) income folks, most of whom are in their 20s. You’ll have to trust me when I tell you that, in general, they can’t wait to buy insurance. </p>
<p>It’s not just old rich folks who care about their health and want to live responsibly.</p>
<p>Then I’m right. I’ve got the March 2013 rate sheet for the $3500 HSA plan in hand. Subscriber + spouse, age 60-64, $1095. (And that was last year). So a couple on that plan in my region would have been paying $13,000 already for 2013. And I have confirmed that the rates for that plan are going up substantially next year. (I realize that my region has about 25% higher rates than yours, but that doesn’t change the fact a typical annual premium increase of 12-15% probably means that the 2014 rates for that grandfathered plan would be higher than the exchange rate for the Bronze HSA)</p>
<p>I think a lot of working-class young parents, who might not have been able to afford insurance, and maybe whose income was a little to high to get SCIP for the kids, will be overjoyed to be able to insure the family. Parenthood tends to focus the mind on what could potentially go wrong. But that’s just a guess.</p>
<p>Calmom, you got a couple of things wrong. My wife was the subscriber and she is not 60 years old. Regardless, who cares what that plan costs, I now pay $679 a month for the $5,200 plan. On Jan 1, I will be paying over $1,100 for an inferior plan with a crappy network. You may like this, but I don’t.</p>
But you’ve been griping and moaning about the fact that you gave up plan with a $3500 deductible 2 years ago, saying that you wish you had stuck with that plan so you can be “grandfathered” – and I’m telling you that the grandfathered plan is probably going to cost MORE than the exchange plan in 2014 – and so the only thing you would have gotten if you stuck with the old plan is 2 more years of higher premiums. </p>
<p>Also, speaking of the difference between “more” and “less”, if you have been on an HSA with a $5200 deductible and you are going to the Bronze HSA plan, then your new deductible is $4500. So you are being moved to a plan with a lower, not higher, deductible.</p>
<p>Why are there “off-exchange” plans at all? Why would someone who is not getting a subsidy choose an off-exchange plan vs. an on-exchange plan, especially if they’re (as seems to be true in many cases) identical?</p>
<p>Arabrab, you would do the off-exchange plan so you don’t have to fill out the voluminous paperwork for the exchange plan. </p>
<p>Calmom, I see your point, but what I really want is the grandfathered $5,200 plan. Why should I have lost my grandfather status because I wanted a less expensive plan two years ago. That Obamacare rule seems pretty dumb to me. Also, I would take the $3,500 grandfathered plan for around the same cost or more in a heartbeat over the lousy bronze plan.</p>
<p>“The chemo I’m on is daily oral stuff, which I will take for the rest of my life, so the $100+k/year for it is ongoing. Was diagnosed at age 41 – so if I ever switch plans, our insurer will be darned happy. I still wrestle with the cost of keeping me alive vs. how much health care that $$ could provide for others.”</p>
<p>Countingdown, this post has upset me for the last two days, and I just have to say something about it. How can you possibly wrestle with thinking about something like that? It’s not like if you were just to go without, that money would go to keep many other people flush with health care. That money would just go to profit or overhead for the insurance companies. That is the last thing you should concern yourself about. And jeez, if you’re not worth keeping alive for a relatively small amount, at your age, who is?
Please don’t even think of your health in such terms.</p>
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