<p>The Obamacare plans have very high deductibles when compared to group insurance or previous individual market plans. </p>
<p><a href=“Obamacare Deductibles, Already High, Climb in 2015”>Obamacare Deductibles, Already High, Climb in 2015;
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<p>The legal limit for out of pocket costs for a single person is about $6350 in 2015. Your insurer might have forgotten to mention this to you, but that’s the legal limit.</p>
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Our out of pocket max for our 2015 plan is $13k in network (for 2 person family) $26k out of network.</p>
<p>Interesting article in today’s Charlotte Observer. Talks about a 62 yr old woman who quit her job to take care of her father. He pays her $12k per year which puts her in the ACA “sweet spot”, ie just enough earnings to qualify for the max healthcare subsidy. I know we have discussed elsewhere the feasibility of paying a family member wages so they could qualify for subsidized healthcare. Although our son would love it (he is over 26 and currently living with us) we are not going to pay him to walk the dog and clean his room!</p>
<p>Anthem screwed up the billing for Dec. I never got a bill. I called them and told them to bill me for Dec. and do not renew my plan. </p>
<p>So … I am done with Anthem as of jan 1. I do like their pricing of procedures if you are insured. The not knowing who is in your network is too big a hurdle.</p>
<p>So I waited about 10 min to talk to A kaiser person and 20 for an anthem person. </p>
<p>I see improvements already with the switch. :)</p>
<p>@NJres – if (hypothetically) you paid your 26-year-old $1000/month in order to qualify for a fully subsidized policy – they you would be paying $1000/month for health insurance. Yes, the money would go into your son’s pocket rather than the insurance company’s pocket… but it would still be costing you $1000/month-- when at age 26, your son can probably get a bronze-level policy for under $150/month… (If you were willing to pay $12K, you should be able to handle the high deductible on a bronze). So the plan would simply not be cost effective.</p>
<p>They 62 year old is different: at her age, she would face far higher premiums if her income was either too low or to high to qualify for ACA subsidies, and it sounds like she is providing a real service --home health care – and the father needs a service that would probably cost him more if he hired anyone else to do it. </p>
<p>Disconcerting news…</p>
<p><a href=“Iowa regulator takes control of struggling insurer - Washington Times”>Iowa regulator takes control of struggling insurer - Washington Times;
<p>I wonder if this is just the first of more tax payer bailout situations yet to come.</p>
<p>Dietz, do you have information that other insurers are in financial straits? The ones in California seem to be thriving, but I don’t follow the state-level news for other areas.</p>
<p>No I don’t have any other data for other States. What I found interesting is that this particular insurance co-operative/exchange was established post ACA and has already failed. </p>
<p>Those insurance co-ops are one of the cost-savings experiments in the ACA. Some experiments will work, some will not. </p>
<p>Hope I’m not crossing a line here but … this was another style being investigated and then scratched because of the cost burdens…</p>
<p><a href=“Single Payer Health System Dies in Vermont”>Single Payer Health System Dies in Vermont;
<p>Your right that some experiments fail. Which brings us back to how experiments are usually done on a small scale, tested, reworked, retried and then scaled to the next level and the whole process is tried again. Then IF things have proved effective a system or product is introduced to a SMALL real market and…yup…tried again. It’s bad policy in both science and politics to implement an experiment on a massive all inclusive scale…which is what we’ve done with the ACA. </p>
<p>But…I’m starting my new years resolution early…no more verbal merry-go-rounds for me.</p>
<p>The health insurance co-ops were a small experiment, in fact. You’ll notice that almost everyone is buying their insurance from a normal already existing insurance company. </p>
<p>There are a lot of small cost-savings experiments in the ACA. Some will work, some will fail. Looks like the re-admissions penalty is working. If all the experiments worked, that would mean they weren’t doing enough experiments.</p>
<p>[Affordable</a> Care Act’s Tax Effects for Filers (NYTimes)](<a href=“Affordable Care Act’s Tax Effects Now Loom for Filers - The New York Times”>Affordable Care Act’s Tax Effects Now Loom for Filers - The New York Times)</p>
<p>The IRS can’t sic collection agencies on people who are subject to the tax penalty for no insurance, if they don’t pay it. But if a person doesn’t pay the penalty, the IRS can roll it over, with interest, for ten years, and as soon as a person would otherwise be eligible for a refund, the IRS will gobble it up to cover the tax penalty.</p>
<p>Jut saying, I wish we could get past the stle of the former ACA thread and focus on passing along info that helps people understand or see their options.</p>
<p>Short summary of how people will fill out their taxes:</p>
<p>If you got insurance through your employer, or if you bought insurance but didn’t get a subsidy, you’ll just check a box on line 61 of your 1040. </p>
<p>If you got a subsidy, you’ll get a statement from the government with information about who was covered and how much your subsidy was, form 1095-A. You’ll use the info on that form to fill out form 8962. </p>
<p>If you didn’t buy insurance and you don’t have insurance from your employer, you have to do more things.</p>
<p><a href=“How Affordable Care Act Rules Affect Your Taxes - The New York Times”>How Affordable Care Act Rules Affect Your Taxes - The New York Times;
<p>“Which brings us back to how experiments are usually done on a small scale, tested, reworked, retried and then scaled to the next level and the whole process is tried again. Then IF things have proved effective a system or product is introduced to a SMALL real market and…yup…tried again. It’s bad policy in both science and politics to implement an experiment on a massive all inclusive scale…which is what we’ve done with the ACA.”</p>
<p>Well, it was tried on a small market and it worked. It was called Romneycare. </p>
Now what? My wife and I have our own ACA healthcare plan. Our 28 yr old son has his own non-ACA grandfathered private plan that runs him $150 per month. Well, he recently moved back in with us. He also just got a job that does not have healthcare but (it is low pay and part-time) will let him make enough to qualify for ACA subsidies. You would think he could just apply on his own. We do not claim him as a dependent. But according to the healthcare website,
What a mess that will be. And then when he moves out later this year? I would really prefer he applies on his own as a separate household but looks like we can’t do that while he lives with us. Plus, it looks like he will have to be on the same plan we are on. ugh!
Check, but I’m pretty sure that your 28-year-old son’s income doesn’t have to be included. He is not your dependent, correct?
http://centerforhealthreporting.org/article/obamacare-deadline-looming-are-you-ready
NJres, fwiw, I did not have to count or include income for D1 who lives at home, has employer insurance, and will not be a dependent for 2014 or 2015. I had discussed this with several exchange reps and they didn’t flinch.
D2 will earn little enough that I believe I can claim her for 14, but her income is uncertain for 15. I now have a sort of dedicated rep and she agreed that, until D2 earns enough that she’s not a dependent (likely,) I can keep her on my plan. Our home is her official address, but she mostly lives an hour away. Afaik, the year will then be prorated, X months on today’s plan, Y on whatever adjustment I later make. BCBS says that if I make a change mid-year, they will not go back and re-adjust claims. The deductible paid to-date will transfer.
My new Obamacare insurer has already sent me my insurance card, taken my first premium, and delivered a welcome packet with a list of free generic drugs, and a reminder that if I fill out a health survey, visit my doc for a checkup, and get the preventative care lab work done that I will then have my deductible reduced and the cost of my subsequent office visits lowered. If I had high blood pressure, they would send me a cuff that would transmit my bp readings to my doctor. Mental health visit copays would be reduced to zero if I completed the three health activities. These strike me as smart incentives.
Other than one of the goofiest set of password challenge questions I’ve ever seen (In what month and year did your oldest child first walk? Where were you when you had your first alcoholic drink?) this has all been easier than my previous employer enrollments. Let’s just hope I never need to use the password recovery.
This is one of the new co-ops. So, I guess we’ll see as the year goes on.
Sounds great! I hate those goofy password reminders – I think the way to deal with those is to think of an answer that has meaning to you but it totally unrelated to the question – for example, you could decide to use your youngest child’s middle name as the answer to all password reminders. I really do hate it when they ask questions that are so obscure that I don’t even know the answer in the first place – I also hate questions about preferences that could change over time, like"what is your favorite ____"