Affordable Care Act Scene 2 - Insurance Premiums

Parent Cafe
11301

<p>Ehealth reports the average premium for a policy bought on ehealth has declined from around $370 in October of 2103 to around $275 in calendar 2014. The average age of the buyer has declined correspondingly, from 44 to 36. This is not the exchange. These buyers are not subsidized. Unlike the exchange, the most popular metal level on ehealth is Bronze.</p>

<p>The average family size for ehealth buyers is 3. </p>

<p>They also report, “39% of the individual and family applications submitted in the fourth quarter of 2013 at eHealth were from individuals between the ages of 18-34.” That percentage is clearly a lot bigger for calendar 2014, since the average age is about 36. This is good news-- remember that for an insurance company, on-exchange and off-exchange plans are in the same risk pool.</p>

<p>Here’s the cool interactive graph:
<a href=“https://www.ehealthinsurance.com/affordable-care-act/price-index”>https://www.ehealthinsurance.com/affordable-care-act/price-index&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>Here’s the press release:
<a href=“What’s the True Cost of Health Insurance under Obamacare? eHealth Launches First National Health Insurance Price Index | eHealth”>http://news.ehealthinsurance.com/news/whats-the-true-cost-of-health-insurance-under-obamacare-ehealth-launches-first-national-health-insurance-price-index&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

11302

<p>The WaPo piece also phrases things a different way:

Pretty perplexing – why such tepid interest from the segment that was portrayed as, well… frothing at the mouth… for the ACA?</p>

<p>Maybe they just never gave a rat’s butt about coloring between the lines, and still don’t?</p>

11303

<p>This one is for you, GP:</p>

<p>The Kaiser Foundation did a poll about whether Americans prefer more expensive insurance with a broad provider network, or significantly cheaper insurance with a narrower provider network. Overall, broad networks were preferred.</p>

<p>But among the people who are paying for insurance themselves-- the people who are currently uninsured, or who currently have individual insurance-- most preferred the narrower, cheaper networks over the wider, more expensive networks.</p>

<p><a href=“Kaiser Health Tracking Poll: February 2014 | KFF”>http://kff.org/health-reform/poll-finding/kaiser-health-tracking-poll-february-2014/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

11304

<p>CF, thanks for the links. </p>

<p>Bluebayou, you win “cool emoticon of the day award”. </p>

11305

<p>The first part of this ‘speculation’ appears to have been proved true…

… which leads me to suspect the last may well be on it’s way.</p>

<p>(When it shows up in a source that shades it politely, I’ll post it, Texas.)</p>

11306

<p>I learn new things in this thread all the time. A 3 year extension was predicted and it turned out to be two years. So the 3 year prediction is true? </p>

11307

<p>You’re giving it the skank eye, dstark. Let’s crunch the numbers:</p>

<p>100% true about the extension, 66.66% true about the period. Not sure I’d weight the period as heavily as the fact but if we do, that would be an 88.33% truthiness factor.</p>

<p>If they prorate the risk corridor extension period by the same, will what it says about this years premium pricing be untrue?</p>

11308

<p>First of all… The statement is false. If our kids or maybe now our grandkids answer a question like that by circling true, the teacher is going to put a draw a big red line thru that answer. The answer is false. (This never happened to me . I know this by observation). ;)</p>

<p>I will play though. And you are already playing so that is great. 6 million people are now projected to newly enroll for health insurance. You probably want the number to be 7 million. I will give you 7 million. I am going to skip the math. If 4.66 million newly insured enroll, then the statement, 7 million newly insured enroll is true. </p>

<p>Ok…sounds good. I agree. :)</p>

<p>Wow! I am agreeing with almost everybody today. Which means I am agreeing with everybody today. We have a new world order. :)</p>

11309

<p>NYT, March 5: Wednesday’s action goes much further, essentially stalling for two more years.</p>

<p>Today: <a href=“Opinion | Keeping Your Insurance Policy - The New York Times”>http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/07/opinion/keeping-your-insurance-policy.html&lt;/a&gt; </p>

11310

<p>You got me, dstark. The predication wasn’t 100% accurate so it’s not true at all - no way, no how. </p>

<p>I suppose this means, for instance, that if the reporter had made a guess as to when this furtive little attempt at cost shifting was going to occur - and been off by a week or so - that would have proved her just as wrong.</p>

<p>Personally, I’d say not but…</p>

11311

<p>Oh my God, there are 454 posts on this thread since I last read them. Apparently. Is it worth going through them, or are you guys just bickering about minutia for the last 454 posts?</p>

<p>Hi cat.</p>

11312

<p>Say something nice, it’s been a relatively pleasant day. DS agreed with Flossy and Flossy said I was right about something. BB posted a great link.
The rest is the same batting cage. </p>

11313

<p>I deleted what I wrote because of the new spiriit of this board. </p>

<p>Have a happy night everybody.</p>

11314

<p>It’s catching, dstark - you have a good one yourself.</p>

<p>Been wondering where you flew off to busdriver. Since there haven’t been any notable air incidents, I guessed it was just somewhere without broadband, but safe. Hey, yourself.</p>

11315

<p>So why are we not counting this year in the extension or it is 3 more years outside of this year to be correct?</p>

11316

<p>^^both. But the bickering is pithy. hahahaha</p>

11317

<p>Do we know how many people are currently enrolled in the plans that are newly eligible to be renewed?</p>

11318

<p>I have to strike my comments until I actually read this thing. :slight_smile:
<a href=“http://m.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/research_reports/RR500/RR529/RAND_RR529.pdf”>http://m.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/research_reports/RR500/RR529/RAND_RR529.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>Ok… I have to find aomething larger than an iphone to read this.</p>

<p>Ok… Rand does think 500,000 people with individual policies will keep their plans. 500,000!</p>

<p><a href=“Plans Allowing People to Keep Health Insurance Will Not Threaten New Insurance Marketplaces | RAND”>http://www.rand.org/news/press/2014/01/21.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

11319

<p>“Say something nice, it’s been a relatively pleasant day. DS agreed with Flossy and Flossy said I was right about something. BB posted a great link.
The rest is the same batting cage.”</p>

<p>That’s good that it’s not all out warfare, all of the time. I suspect many people agree with others and don’t bother to mention it, it’s the disagreements that most prefer to discuss.</p>

<p>What??? You were right about something? Just kidding, of course. Sounds like I</p>

11320

<p>No crashes, cat. I’m pretty cautious, probably the last person you’d read about. Just worked 11 days in a row, will have a good paycheck, but very tired. This thread looked too daunting to attempt when all I wanted to do was sleep.</p>