Affordable Care Act Scene 2 - Insurance Premiums

Parent Cafe
1461

<p>“I thought the reason they didn’t want to was because they already had their own similar form of coverage.”</p>

<p>No. They didn’t want to for political/philosophical reasons (based on their own explanations). They said they were concerned about the cost, of which they will bear 10% after three years. They also opposed it because it is an expansion of a government program, and they are against those across the board. They do not like the fact that it is an additional public expenditure, no matter which pool of taxpayers is contributing to it.</p>

<p>There are more cynical explanations, but those are the main ones the leaders in the refusing states have given.</p>

1462

<p>Yeah, but if you have a healthy, broke 23 year old in Ca., it doesn’t make sense to keep them on the parent’s plan if the parents are not receiving subsidies.</p>

1463

<p>Cynical is in the eyes of the beholder.</p>

1464

<p>If the parents are insured and if the 23-year-old can find a job that pays well enough to buy insurance.</p>

1465

<p>delete…</p>

1466

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<p>This is a non-responsive answer. With 13% unemployment, if one 23-year-old takes a job, that just puts another one out of work. </p>

<p>In musical chairs, you can’t seat 100 butts in 87 chairs; 13 people are going to be left without a chair. If you want everyone to have a chair, it’s no answer to say to a person without a chair, go get a chair, because that still leaves 13 people without chairs.</p>

1467

<p>Or maybe the 23-year-old refuses to take a job because it is not exactly what he/she wants.</p>

1468

<p>But maybe not. Can someone working a minimum-wage job afford health insurance?</p>

<p>My daughter won’t be eligible for my coverage because I am already on Medicare.</p>

1469

<p>Minimum wage $7.25, times 40 hours/week, times 52 weeks a year = $15,080 before taxes, around $12,500 after taxes</p>

1470

<p>Assuming that the job is for 40 hours a week.</p>

1471

<p>Or assuming, more realistically, two minimum wage jobs, each for 20 hours a week. It’s hard to find a 40-hour-per-week minimum wage job, and has been since well before the ACA was passed.</p>

1472

<p>I am referring to all jobs.</p>

1473

<p>Sure, “some say” there will be fewer jobs.</p>

<p>But, frankly, studies by economists do not support this hypothesis. The research simply doesn’t. Now, it’s certainly possible this could happen – but it isn’t expected.</p>

<p>The biggest threat now to the labor market is the government shutdown. If there is a credit default, most economists estimate a decline in the GDP of about 4 percentage points, throwing the US into recession.</p>

1474

<p>Moreover, a 23 year old earning the minimum wage will receive substantial subsidies. He or she would be able to choose a catastrophic plan or bronze, silver or gold plans.</p>

1475

<p>But if the 23-year-old can’t find 40 hours a week of work, only, say, 25 hours a week, they are then eligible for no subsidies at all. And speaking as a parent of a 23-year-old who just spent two months looking for a minimum wage job, they’re not that easy to get, and when you get them, they are not for 40 hours, usually.</p>

1476

<p>The ACA, by forcing MORE people and more healthy people into PRIVATE insurance, should reduce the cost of insurance for everyone, including business owners, thereby reducing the cost of employing someone.</p>

<p>As an employer who has gone from 2 employees in 2003 (for whom we provided health insurance, even then) to 80-ish employees now, the cost of health insurance has NEVER been a consideration in whether or not we hire someone. The ONLY consideration we have is whether or not that person will provide more a return to the business that is greater than the cost of their salary plus benefits.</p>

<p>For those who are wondering if “young people” (20-somethings) will sign up, I’ll just point out that most of our employees are willing to pay extra to get additional insurance from Aflack. (They have a lovely accident policy that has paid out over $50K for one of our employees (to date) after he was injured in a cycling accident.)</p>

1477

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<p>Ah, but that’s exactly the calculation that has made some small employers, understandably, not willing to hire talented potential employees with health problems… because the health problems would make the employer’s cost of health insurance prohibitively higher for all employees. So even though the potential employee’s excellent work would improve the bottom line, their expensive health needs would wipe out their contributions.</p>

1478

<p>Bay, in addition to the info that DStark has posted about the combined out of pocket maximum limits ($12,700 max regardless of family size) – there is also a limit on overall deductible. You posited a Bronze plan – in California that’s a $5000 deductible, $10,000 for husband & wife, and $10,000 for a family group of 3 or more. </p>

<p>Also, if the offspring is low-income, then in some situations the treatment of that person as being within “household” (for insurance buying purposes) will qualify a family for subsidies they may not otherwise get. Let’s say that the kid has graduated from college but took an internship. (We’ll pretend that the kid wants a job in the film industry). Parents income is $75K. Keeping the grown kid on the group policy also keeps the family subsidy eligible – maximum cost of a premium for all 3 after the subsidy is roughly $595. Without junior on the policy the cost for mom & dad alone is more than that. This can reach pretty high for larger families – look at the chart at [Federal</a> Poverty Guidelines](<a href=“http://www.familiesusa.org/resources/tools-for-advocates/guides/federal-poverty-guidelines.html]Federal”>http://www.familiesusa.org/resources/tools-for-advocates/guides/federal-poverty-guidelines.html) - it’s very easy to have a 6 figure income and still get subsidies for a household size of 5 or more.</p>

<p>The economics of whether or not to buy insurance for up-to-26 year old is going to change based on individual cases. The main benefit of the law is and always has been for the people with employer-provided coverage, which is the vast majority. That’s why that aspect of the law was the first to go into effect – to prevent the dropoff that was occurring before when kids aged out of their parent’s policies before getting jobs with health insurance benefits. </p>

<p>It also depends on health histories – the ability to pool the deductibles and out-of-policy max is only useful if there is at least one family member running up the costs.</p>

1479

<p>Goldenpooch, I worked in the benefits field for a long time, year ago, and it’s nothing new that companies cut back hours and jobs due to the cost of having more workers. I have a friend who has long been mullling cutting out employer paid health insurance from his company because the cost is just getting too high. Before ACA was here, last year, the rates went up higher than expected and for the plans that included local hospital and doctors, the cost was more than he wanted to pay. It woud be easy to say that ACA was the reason for him to go individual with his health care, but it’s not The timing just has been such and this happens all of the time. </p>

<p>There has been a disturbing trend of businesses turning full time jobs into more part time postions to avoid paying for benefits, and to maximize their flexiblity as well. It galls me how many of these jobs are scheduled differently week to week so that it’s just about impossible for anyone working them to have two jobs. The schedules are just given and bear no relationship to prior weeks’ schedules and little effort is made to accommodate request. I’ve seen this time and again. How much ACA has an impact on this is unknown.</p>

<p>However, with regard to insurance premiums for all of such folks so underemployed and making so little money, ACA , is for the most part good news. The fact of the matter is that there are more options out there, and it seems to be certain that more Americans will be insured. Anything like this, especially as big as this, will have all kinds of bugs and glitches and it will take time to work them out. Social Security did not start out the way it is now either, and it has become a given in most all AMericans’ lives. The fact of the matter is that nothing else has been moved to a reality until now. THis is the only thing that was able to materialize, so for all of its problems, that 's what’s on the talbe right now. How we can improve it is something to work on in the future as we see where the most serious short falls are.</p>

<p>For myself personally, and our family as a whole, it’s up in the air as to whether or not we “make out” when the final talley is made. But the success of the program is not going to be measured by whether one family one individual is better off or not. That we lose out because we have to pay more is not equal to a gain of another family who could not afford insurance and has the need, and now can, so even measuring “success” or who is “better off”’ is not an easy thing. Most of us don’t like change, and I’m dreading the headaches that are to come with the changes that all of this is bringing and will be bringing. I have a pretty good handle on what we have and have had, and it does scare me to have to deal with the unknown. </p>

<p>So for now, it’s a done deal, and we need to figure out how it works, the best choices for each of us, the least cost for the best benefits under it, and work to make changes where it does not make sense or can be made better. I think in time, it will be regarded just like social security.</p>

1480

<p>cpt, are you presenting me the argument that some of us have to sacrifice for the betterment of the whole? My only problem with this argument is that I am not seeing many who are pushing it actually sacrificing.</p>