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Yet another reason to divorce, as if there weren’t enough already. Pretty soon there won’t be a household left that isn’t a Murphy Brown spin-off. </p>
<p>dstark can have his millions, ephemeral as a lot of them are likely to turnout - all the ‘putting off the pain’ until after whatever election’s coming up is just upward pressure on next year’s premiums.</p>
<p>I don’t look at divorce as much as job change/loss which is what requires insurance change for large numbers out there.</p>
<p>Over the past 10 years, I have gone back and forth adding and removing my family members because spouse kept going between being consultant vs permanent employee.</p>
<p>Would agree but from emily’s latimes link last page:
Not hard to rationalize it, but the law of unintended consequences makes it an enormous hole for insurers/taxpayers to pour money down.</p>
<p>edited to add: I’m not disagreeing with where the sheer numbers are, but ‘divorce as a life event’, coupled with ‘no pre-existing conditions’, is not a sound business model. Not for a business that depends on collecting from many to cover the medical expenses of a few.</p>
<p>What are you suggesting, catahoula? That people will get divorced or quit their jobs just in order to get private health insurance? I’m a supporter of the law, but even I don’t think Obamacare is so appealing that it would make people ditch their jobs or spouses so they can buy subsidized insurance. </p>
<p>catahoula - Many of us here think lot better than what any newspaper writer has written so far as commentary. We also suspect they are stealing our ideas from this thread.</p>
<p>Not suggesting anything, Fang.</p>
<p>I’m flatly stating that I believe divorce looks to be a sweet option for someone who didn’t sign up and gets sick in an expensive way.</p>
<p>Am I missing something?</p>
<p>Actually, yes. If someone is diagnosed with a very expensive disease it makes financial sense to get divorced or move to another state. Then before the expensive treatment starts, you can get the insurance. If you’re cured, you can always celebrate by remarrying or moving back home. </p>
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<p>It is actually better to be single for many in the nation for the simplest of reasons - Most come out ahead in subsidies based on income. A single person is subsidy eligible upto 45k while a couple gets only incremental advantage at 62k.</p>
<p>So a family of 4 split into 2 families can be eligible upto 124k vs 94k.</p>
<p>Trouble is, if you get the expensive disease or condition, you need treatment now, but your insurance doesn’t start until next month. Some people will get divorced to get health insurance, I suppose. No rules can be perfect.</p>
<p>No, they’ll get divorced to get the treatment sans cost - not insurance.</p>
<p>The drain isn’t entirely in those who get sick anyway; it’ll also be in those who see it as an option and comprehend they don’t have to pay the head tax. </p>
<p>So catahoula, are you doing this? Are you forswearing insurance and planning to get divorced if you get sick? I hope those who have this plan don’t have a heart attack, or a bike crash. You can incur a huge cost before your insurance kicks in.</p>
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<p>Yes. </p>
<p>It takes a while to get divorced. </p>
<p>Generally longer than the waiting period for open enrollment. </p>
<p>Maybe in future years it will be doable… just slightly. </p>
<p>It’s not really a matter of one spouse saying “I divorce you” three times. There’s a whole court process to go through. </p>
<p>Plus it costs money: filing fees, lawyers, etc. </p>
<p>Hmm. True. But moving can be done over a few days. </p>
<p>Mm… Texas might be unique and different minds may calculate the distance to enrollment in different ways.
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<p>That the divorce in question would be uncontested isn’t contested, is it?</p>
<p>Marriage is a qualifying life event. That’s quick.</p>
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I’m one of those the architects of the act knew they could soak, CF. So, no… I’m not. </p>
<p>On the other hand, I don’t text while I drive but since it’s still a nationwide problem, I doubt my election says that much about what others may do.</p>
<p>A move would have to be to a new state or insurance region to qualify for insurance enrollment – and moving can be costly too. It might make sense for people who already live in border areas – or for people who want to move to an area specifically to get medical treatment – such as chemotherapy at a specific cancer treatment center. </p>
<p>But I have a feeling that from an actuarial standpoint, the number of instances would be trivial. The person who is able to use some sort of ruse to sign up for insurance in July to get treatment in August is getting a benefit that can be “valued” in terms of what that person’s premiums would have been for the first 6 months. But for the insurance company, it’s money coming into and out of a single pot – that is, the insurance company has still been collecting premiums from everyone else for the rest of the year, and the insurance company will also have to pay out plenty of expensive claims for people who signed up early like they were supposed to. So you really have to look at whether the small cohort of people who would be motivated to make major life changes in order to qualify for insurance, with specific future medical needs in mind is statistically high enough to make much of a dent in the overall actuarial calculations. My guess is that the numbers are pretty small – probably smaller than the numbers of people who will be buying insurance because of legitimate life changes.</p>
<p>I would note that a serious medical issue can itself lead to loss of a job, in a relatively short time frame.</p>
<p>I would advise the obamacare cheerleaders not to read this link because your favorite columnist, Ann Coulter, has had her insurance cancelled. If you read this, it will probably make your brain explode because her experience and feelings about what happened to her also happen to mirror my thoughts regarding my own experience with obamacare. Here are a few quotes.</p>
<p>"So my only two health insurance options – and yours, too, as soon as the waivers expire, America! – are: (1) a plan that no doctors take; or (2) a plan that no hospitals take. You either pay for all your doctor visits and tests yourself, or you pay for your cancer treatment yourself. And you pay through the nose in either case.</p>
<p>That’s not insurance! It’s a huge transfer of wealth from people who work for a living to those who don’t, accomplished by forcing the workers to buy insurance that’s not insurance. Obamacare has made actual health insurance "illegal.</p>
<p>It’s not “insurance” when what I want to insure against isn’t covered, but paying for other people’s health care needs – defined broadly – is mandatory.</p>
<p>It’s as if you wanted to buy a car, so you paid for a Toyota – but then all you got was a 10-speed bike, with the rest of your purchase price going to buy cars, bikes and helmets for other people.</p>
<p>The government simply cannot force all insurance companies to give subsidized health care to a third of the country, to ignore the pre-existing health conditions of its customers, to pay for every little thing tangentially related to health – like smoking cessation programs, marital counseling and pediatric dental care – and also expect them to cover your cancer treatment."</p>
<p><a href=“Screw You, Mickey Kaus | RealClearPolitics”>http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2014/03/27/screw_you_mickey_kaus_122078.html</a></p>
<p>ROFL…which part of the words Ann + Coulter isn’t political, GP?
The condition of the networks are the product of her beloved free enterprise at work 
Oh, the irony that the only thing that will solve her complaint is either further regulation mandating the scope of network, or dare I say it, an alternate delivery method :)</p>
<p>Article on differences in how ACA is doing depending on where one lives. </p>
<p><a href=“Deadline Near, Health Signups Show Disparity - The New York Times”>Deadline Near, Health Signups Show Disparity - The New York Times;