<p>Lol…</p>
<p>Both of you…</p>
<p>Just be happy your premiums arent 5,000 a month. 
</p>
<p>Closed block plan.</p>
<p>Old insurance trick.</p>
<p>1.You have a plan that is unprofitable. Call it A. Could be medical insurance or disability or long term care insurance.
2.You don’t allow new enrollees in Plan A. They are instead diverted to plans B, C, or D, if they medically qualify.
Fewer people in Plan A since those many of those who could qualify decamped for a different plan.
3. Plan A’s expenses go up relative to Plan A’s revenue. Insurance Co. goes to state regulators with data showing why a premium increase for Plan A is justified. Regulators review the data, see the plan losses, and approve the increase. Some of the people who need coverage and who can’t get it elsewhere leave because they just can’t pay the premiums.
4. More people decamp from Plan A. Plan A’s expenses again go up relative to Plan A’s revenue. Insurer goes back to regulator justifying a fee increase. Regulators approve.
5. Rinse and repeat. </p>
<p>Now the only people left in Plan A are really sick and really expensive. Nobody has been denied coverage…and yet the insurance company has figured out how to segment out the sickest folks and get them to either pay through the nose or cancel. As long as other plans require medical underwriting, nobody is going to pick up the super-expensive patients voluntarily.</p>
<p>I’m trying to understand the math of the Blackwood case. How much does a dose of the drug cost? She was getting it twice a month, and they were paying five grand a month for insurance. If it’s really true that the new insurance is only fifteen hundred a month, how much more are they actually paying for her care, even if they are paying for the drug out of pocket? The story just doesn’t tell us enough.</p>
<p>Check this out–<a href=“Dose”>http://www.carcinoidinfo.info/sando.htm</a>
This is from 2003–look at the variance in how much was being charged for this drug!</p>
<p>“Health law’s new rules will increase costs for most small businesses”</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/on-small-business/obama-administration-health-laws-new-rules-will-increase-costs-for-most-small-businesses/2014/02/24/0623d01e-9d9c-11e3-9ba6-800d1192d08b_story.html”>http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/on-small-business/obama-administration-health-laws-new-rules-will-increase-costs-for-most-small-businesses/2014/02/24/0623d01e-9d9c-11e3-9ba6-800d1192d08b_story.html</a></p>
<p>I read elsewhere the law will be particularly deleterious to the home healthcare industry.</p>
<p>Arabrab, that is right. Exactly what happened to me. Happened to Las Ma. Happened to the woman in the article.</p>
<p>Hunt, I think the husband said the drug cost several thousand a month. The woman is going to be a loser for an insurance company under ACA. The insurance company has to make up the losses with healthier customers. The more healthy people that sign up, the lower the potential premiums.</p>
<p>Washington state is making progress. Over 101,000 paid on an exchange. More people with private health insurance have now signed up and paid than had health insurance last year. Washington state was running one third signing up on exchange— two thirds off exchange. That ratio may be smaller now as new signups are more likely to be uninsured.</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.wahbexchange.org/news-resources/press-room/press-releases/feb-11-enrollment-data”>http://www.wahbexchange.org/news-resources/press-room/press-releases/feb-11-enrollment-data</a></p>
<p><a href=“http://mylocalhealthguide.com/2014/02/25/private-plan-enrollment-through-the-state-exchange-tops-100000/”>http://mylocalhealthguide.com/2014/02/25/private-plan-enrollment-through-the-state-exchange-tops-100000/</a></p>
<p>New York looks very good…</p>
<p><a href=“No Longer Available”>http://m.wptz.com/news/ny-health-exchange-reports-501000-enrolled/24666922</a></p>
<p>"The state’s new health exchange reports more than 800,000 New Yorkers have completed applications for insurance while more than 501,000 of them have now enrolled for specific coverage.</p>
<p>The health department says enrollment for individual and family coverage since October includes 276,681 New Yorkers in the 16 commercial and nonprofit insurers in the exchange and 224,524 in government-funded Medicaid."</p>
<p>That is an increase of 45,000 who signed up for individual insurance and medicaid in one week.</p>
<p>4 million sign ups now…</p>
<p><a href=“Obamacare Enrollment Reaches 4 Million | HuffPost Latest News”>HuffPost - Breaking News, U.S. and World News | HuffPost;
<p>"WASHINGTON – Approximately 4 million individuals have now signed up for health care plans under the newly created Obamacare insurance exchanges, a senior administration official told The Huffington Post on Tuesday.</p>
<p>The numbers mean that roughly 700,000 people have signed up for health care plans since the end of January. And with five weeks before the enrollment period deadline at the end of March, they put the administration on pace to come close to the Congressional Budget Office’s initial projection that 7 million individuals would sign up for insurance coverage during the period.</p>
<p>“With individuals and families enrolling in coverage every day, we continue to see strong demand nationwide from consumers who want access to quality, affordable coverage,” reads a statement from the administration, passed in advance to The Huffington Post. “Consumers are shopping and enrolling in plans on HealthCare.gov every day; system error rates are low and response times are consistently less than half a second. Our call center has handled more than 12 million calls so far and is open 24/7 to assist consumers in English, Spanish and more than 150 languages.”</p>
<p>Interesting article, GP, thanks for linking. This is odd:</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>(my bold) So, whereas in the individual market, insurance companies can charge more to older subscribers, in the small business market they can’t? That’s strange. It’s strong encouragement for employers of younger workers, like for example a skateboard store, to not offer employer-based insurance and instead let the employees loose on the exchange.</p>
<p>But employers of an older workforce, lets say a modeling agency for people with gray hair, would have strong reasons to offer their employees insurance, since they can get their employees insurance more cheaply than the employees could buy by themselves, even ignoring tax consequences.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Actually, no it’s efficient for the carrier. </p>
<p>Our ~200 ee company offers health insurance but the ‘group’ rate is collective with a big pile of other small businesses. (Actually, it’s the mid-market pool for those with 100+ ee’s).) As has been explained to me by different brokers over the years, <100 ee’s are in the small pool, those above 100 are in the next pool, etc. Of course, with larger numbers, comes less risk for the carrier, so the rate is generally cheaper for the same product (say, PPO), between the small pool and the medium pool. </p>
<p>btw: as soon as we get close to 300, we’ll seriously consider self-insuring, to get out of all pools. </p>
<p><a href=“http://capsules.kaiserhealthnews.org/index.php/2014/02/tenet-expects-15-of-uninsured-to-get-obamacare-coverage/”>http://capsules.kaiserhealthnews.org/index.php/2014/02/tenet-expects-15-of-uninsured-to-get-obamacare-coverage/</a></p>
<p>I would highlight the whole thng but not really supposed to so…</p>
<p>"Tenet officials said the insurance plans being sold on the exchange will pay the company rates similar to that of traditional private insurers. It said the reimbursement will range from the same to 10 percent less.</p>
<p>Tenet is taking an aggressive approach to driving enrollment in Medicaid and the exchanges. This month, Tenet sent out about 250,000 letters to uninsured patients to advise them about signing up for Medicaid or private coverage on the exchanges. It also began calling 10,000 uninsured patients who have been frequent users of their emergency rooms to tell them about new insurance options.</p>
<p>Over time, coverage of newly insured patients under the health law will reduce bad debt expenses at its hospitals and gradually drive higher admissions, Fetter said on the earnings call."</p>
<p>I understand it’s efficient for the carrier, but won’t a company with a young workforce do better by buying individual insurance for every employee?</p>
<p>Going to be some collateral issues with that, CF. </p>
<p>If the company says (as some have done) – here, we’ll give you $700/month towards the cost of health insurance, go buy it on the exchange – young employees will likely find policies within that cost that are pretty good. But employees who are older (say 50+) are likely to have a really painful experience with that. I don’t know whether the age discrimination act provisions come into play at some point. It would be a pretty powerful way for employers to effectively encourage older employees to leave. </p>
<p>I don’t think age discrimination laws would come into effect. Employers can legally choose not to provide insurance, provided they pay the tax penalty if it applies. Employers can choose to give employees a bonus or a raise. So if Acme announces that it will no longer provide insurance, and at the same time it gives everyone a $700/month raise, I don’t see how that could be actionable.</p>
<p>After all, companies have stopped providing health insurance to their employees before now, and it has never been deemed age discrimination, so why would it suddenly be age discrimination now?</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>This is precisely what happened to both dstark and my husband a few years back. Luckily, someone sued Anthem and won a class-action judgment. The pay-out was that we got to select any plan Anthem sold, without underwriting. In other words, what all Americans are now entitled to.</p>
<p>Employers incentivized and acting rationally (and no, not in the Journal):</p>
<p>
</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/21/us/public-sector-cuts-part-time-shifts-to-duck-insurance-law.html?_r=0”>http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/21/us/public-sector-cuts-part-time-shifts-to-duck-insurance-law.html?_r=0</a></p>
<p>Bluebayou, you raise taxes to pay for benefits. ;)</p>
<p>Here’s where I have trouble with that: what kind of jerks hire people for 35 hours a week and don’t provide benefits? It looks to me like those unscrupulous employers are already playing games with their employees’ hours to deny them benefits. I suppose they will continue to play games with their employees’ hours to avoid paying benefits, while crying poverty.</p>
<p>^ I agree with dstark and CF. </p>
<p>“Here’s where I have trouble with that: what kind of jerks hire people for 35 hours a week and don’t provide benefits? It looks to me like those unscrupulous employers are already playing games with their employees’ hours to deny them benefits. I suppose they will continue to play games with their employees’ hours to avoid paying benefits, while crying poverty.”</p>
<p>Not every business makes enough of a profit to pay 10-15K for employee family health care benefits, per employee. As lovely as it is to think that every business out there just has millions of dollars of profit that they can just provided expensive benefits to everyone, it obviously is not the truth.</p>
<p>These are public schools, not businesses.</p>
<p>We are not going to give teachers… Teachers who teach OUR kids, teachers that Work over 30 hours a week, health benefits? We are the employers. Shame on us.</p>