<p>There were no marketplace plans with the diamond-encrusted providers you like. I’m not denying that. Allowing just anyone to go to Picasso Hospital would make premiums ridiculously expensive for everyone.</p>
<p>I wonder about that old plan of yours. You say that every single marketplace plan was at least 60% more than your old one. Our experience was quite different. Most of the plans were in the range of what we’d been paying, or a little less. A few were more expensive, but not anywhere close to 60% more. Either we had already been funneled into yet another closed block which would have made our old premiums artificially high, or you were getting one hell of a deal. If you were getting one hell of a deal, there’s a reason for that, since Anthem doesn’t make its [massive</a> profits](<a href=“http://ir.wellpoint.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=130104&p=irol-newsArticle&ID=1894561&highlight=]massive”>http://ir.wellpoint.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=130104&p=irol-newsArticle&ID=1894561&highlight=) by losing money on people like you. Wonder what that reason could have been?</p>
<p>Are you not aware that health insurance companies used to work extremely hard to exclude the sick, and that their premiums were unaffordable for the poor?</p>
<p>But there must be more to it than that. As I said, we didn’t find a huge price difference between our previous plan – which also tried to exclude the sick, and would have been unaffordable for the poor – versus the exchange plans.</p>
<p>Blue Shield Savings HSA $5,200 plan for husband and wife - $679 a month
$5,200/$10,400 deductible
$5,200/$10,400 out-of-pocket maximum (includes deductible)</p>
<p>covered almost every hospital and doctor in the state and non-formulary drugs</p>
<p>New plan offered by Blue Shield:</p>
<p>Bronze HSA for husband and wife - $1,110 a month
$5,000/$10,000 deductible
$6350/$12,700 out-of-pocket maximum</p>
<p>Ok. My husband’s Silver is $551/month. So $1110 for two is right in line, I would think. Your real problem is that your old plan was an absolute steal, but you think it reflected what insurance should cost, and you’re used to it. Count yourself lucky that you got away with cheap insurance all those years. We weren’t so fortunate. We were paying almost $800 for my husband and a healthy kid, and that was rock-bottom coverage.</p>
<p>“Count yourself lucky that you got away with cheap insurance all those years.”</p>
<p>Yeah, it was all luck.</p>
<p>I was looking at the silver Obamacare plans for a 58-year-old man (guessing the age) on ehealth insurance.com and they seem to run from $650 to $675 a month for crappy network coverage</p>
<p>In general, with docs, it’s a Bell Curve- lots and lots of good, some crappy ones and some utlra-superiors. Of course we like to think we can figure out who’s best, from our own layman’s perspective. But you can’t really know til you get there. And most of us just need a predictable range of ordinary care, most of the time.</p>
<p>I’m not saying we shouldn’t care which doc. But after the simple routine things, like setting a broken bone or knowing what tests to run, etc, a lot of medicine is still “try, then see.” (Ever follow a cancer patient’s progress reports?) You do want the folks who can figure it out, who stay informed and get advice, when needed. And care. But there’s a limit to how much you can pre-tool. That’s real life. Was like that before and still is.</p>
<p>$679 a month? Wow, that was highway robbery. That was incredibly cheap. </p>
<p>Our coverage cost $1279 a month for the two of us. We had a lower deductible, but on the other hand, that price is comparable to the price for a pair of 35-year-olds, because it was the same price for everyone at Mr. Fang’s company.</p>
<p>"$679 a month? Wow, that was highway robbery. That was incredibly cheap."</p>
<p>When you consider they were only insuring healthy people it makes sense. </p>
<p>My group insurance is $16Ksomething a year or $1300ish a month. Of course, NYS employee insurance is covering both healthy and sick people. Yes, my network is very good and any out of network is 80/20 after deductible is satisfied. I am sure if there is a market for insurance on the exchange which costs $1,300 a month in premiums for a husband and wife someone will come in to fill the void - after all - it is a free market system. </p>
<p>Perhaps those who want a choice such as this should get together and advocate. Maybe they can start an online petition, gather signatures of people willing to pay this type of cost for that kind of coverage and present it to the insurance companies. </p>
<p>There is a list of mandated benefits that did not exist pre-ACA. Of course, that will cost more. People used to be able to pick and choose based on their needs and what they deemed affordable. It’s very nice for the government to say you make over 250-percent of poverty so here’s what you can afford. Thank-you. But, if you have a house payment and 2 kids in college that extra several hundred dollars a month could be a problem wen the cars breaks down. Not everyone who didn’t buy insurance because they couldn’t afford it was poor. Far from it. This thread is extremely repetitive, btw. </p>
<p>I don’t know where some of you get the idea this was a real mix and match, across the board. And, all for some standard rate? What you got to choose from was simply among plans they offered. Want more? many people had to find some independent rider, with it’s own cost and restrictions. For years, we got maybe 4-6 options from the employer- at one end, cheaper, with higher deductibles & etc. At the other end, more expensive, better benefits. And, if plan X was from a carrier some doctors didn’t accept, that was that. Sound familiar? And there were still restrictions. </p>
<p>So we keep coming back to a very individual, “But I liked what I had.” Well, that’s, maybe, what you had. Some luck of the draw. </p>
<p>CF, can you tell me exactly what the deductible is for one person with your husband’s employer plan. Also, is it an HSA? The high deductible HSA plans pre-2014 cost much less than the low deductible plans, In a HSA plan the deductible must be paid before ANY MEDICAL BENEFIT, INCLUDING DRUGS. The only exception was preventative care. So let’s make sure we’re comparing apples to apples. If I had bought a low deductible plan where some of the outpatient care was not subject to the deductible or the drugs had a separate lower deductible, it would have cost me much more.</p>
<p>There is a lot of stuff that gets posted here which is not entirely accurate.</p>
<p>Not sure she needs to tell you everything. To be honest, you already disagreed with her on her own costs- and with me, on mine. Not sure how you figured your own quote. And, how odd you now concede a lot here has not been accurate. Or did you not mean to include your own statements and second hand links? </p>
<p>The problem LF is that last post of yours where you suggest that plans were not all that different pre-Obamacare and now. That (at least for Ca and many other states) is completely inaccurate. The plans on the individual market were much different before Obamacare. The network coverage is like day and night. I’ll stick with my statement about a lot of inaccurate stuff being posted here.</p>
<p>GP, your plan was so cheap that even if you paid your entire deductible every year, you’d still be paying about as much as Mr. Fang’s company was paying just for premiums. Remember, we’re talking about $638 per person per month for a 35-year-old. In other words, about twice as much as what you were paying, because you had healthy-people insurance. Now you don’t, because companies can’t sell healthy-people insurance any more.</p>
<p>What are you disputing, GP? 135pm? Please re-read it. I’m not going to fall for having to explain to you. You’re still flinging out whatever, hoping it will stick. Soon we’ll be back to cheerleaders and your media links. Ugh.</p>