Insurance carriers are now getting a sense actuarially as to what their experience has been.
Many plans are being terminated, rates continue to go up, confusion continues to exist in regard to many aspects of plan selection.
The only people that the ACA has benefited in New York are people who are subsidized. Everyone else continues to pay more and more with fewer options available to them.
^^^ Yes, that is the case in CA also. The implementation was planned so that these sticker shocks would hit later…and in waves. No doubt in the hopes that the ACA would be so intwined into the fabric of the previous system that removal would be harder and harder. It been clear to some of us (a number of whom have stopped posting quite a while ago) that there is a large group who was intentionally targeted to be both the carriers of the costs and the losers in the coverage. That group tends to be the small business owner and the financially secure individual. The same group that tends too busy taking care of daily business to be very active politically.
H has a few more years until he’s on Medicare (wonder when the means testing will begin for that program). One kiddle is on a great employer plan and we will continue to carry the other until he’s settle. We are lucky in that we are able to pass all of our additional costs directly onto our customers. Our customers are college students and their families…who ironically are willing and able to pay increasing costs due to…you got it…easy to get government subsidies and loans.
Aw will…it’s just money.
Pennsylvania rate increases. 12 of the 19 companies that offer ACA insurance have rate increases under 10%. All 23 of the small business health plans have increases of less than 10 %.
Imagine for one minute that you lost your job and health insurance. Imagine that your spouse has cancer and insurance companies refuse to insure him or her. Imagine that there is no upper limit on what you will owe to drs, hospitals and drug companies.
Imagine that your 18 year old kid with asthma ages out of your plan and cannot get health insurance even if you could afford it. He gets injured in a car wreck. He now owes millions. What are you going to do?
That is what is was like before ACA.
I just read how may of the co-ops are failing…many were involved in shady dealings and corruption and terrible actual coverage/customer care. but the exchanges will fail soon too.(3-5 years) but, they were never really meant to last. at the rate the insurance companies are merging there will be no competition and the government will step in and say oh we will take over. (that has always been the plan)
Fine with me
yeah, with with me too! I think a much larger bureaucratic and unproductive VA on a national scale would be great.(sarcasm) the entire system , access to care (quality is entire other issue) advancements in tech, medicine and procedures would all but end )
if you want to wait 1-2 years for heart surgery (where you will be asked to show up at a regional center maybe 100-200 miles from your home and be housed in a florence nightingale style hospital ward…best of luck to you)
I want no part in that.
Anyone who doesn’t like what is offered, thinks it too expensive and doesn’t want to pay that much should just pay the penalty and self insure.
I have a chronic condition which fortunately is managed by a drug which costs $10 for a 90 day supply. Figuring out what was wrong with me, OTOH, was approx $15k incurred over a 2 month period. I would still be ahead if I had a non subsidized plan with high deductable. One doesn’t even need to have a life threatening illness or injury to rack up huge medical expenses. IMO, people are just dumb.
emilybee
everyone should have health insurance. but you want insurance that works and actually covers stuff and is taken by a large number of doctors.
I have heard people with shoes that cost hundreds of dollars complain about paying $45.00-50.00 dollars for a RX and I do not understand why shoes for $200+ is ok… but they think medicine they need should just be free. nothing in life is free. I actually better understand economics on a macro scale as I get older. ( I am not smart enough to understand economics like a phd student at say U of Chicago) but everything from wealth creation , research and development, running a business , taking risks hiring employees paying for stuff all costs money and somebody needs to pay. what I worry about is we destroy the ability of people to have access (rapid access) to whatever medical care they need, when they need it.
My ACA insurance company just closed due to insolvency. We have to pick another choice in our state exchange – one that will certainly be more expensive. Even with a subsidy we’re paying more than $600/mo for 3 people. How is this affordable?
My D2 has had an exchange plan for the past 2 years. It has saved us about $9,000 in premiums for what we would have paid to put her on my COBRA. We have had no trouble getting doctors to take it. We picked a BCBS plan because of the large network, and coverage at home and at college.
This year it sounds like some insurers in our state are taking their platinum plans off the state exchange. You will have to go to the insurer to purchase them. I don’t care much either way, am just pleased to have the consumer protections added by the ACA for consumer purchased health insurance.
“everyone should have health insurance. but you want insurance that works and actually covers stuff and is taken by a large number of doctors.”
Which costs a lot of money. I believe my insurance plan premium is approx $17k a year. Fortunately for us my husband’s employer pays approx $14k of the premium.
We should have gone with the system which shall remain nameless, but that was impossible given the climate in the US. So the only option was a system like what Gov. Romney put through in Massachusetts.
“We should have gone with the system which shall remain nameless”
so it would be like the DMV,IRS or post office?
or actually like the VA. you can literally disappear in the VA system. (no thank you)
lot’s of things sound great in theory but in reality it is a really scary thing.
^ People I know seems to be very happy with Medicare.
In regard to post 28. I have group insurance through the State government employee HC plan and I pay $600 a month as my share for 2 people.
Del
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Even with a subsidy we’re paying more than $600/mo for 3 people. How is this affordable?
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So bypass the exchange and pay for it without those pesky subsidies. Of course, even off the exchange, you’re still stuck with the other disadvantages of ACA. You still can’t be declined or charged more because of preexisting conditions. You still can’t be dropped like a hot potato if you get an expensive illness. You still can’t be told that, sorry, you can’t finish out your chemo because you’ve reached your annual cap. Your kid still can’t be booted out at 18. Unfortunately, there’s just no way around that awful stuff. But at least, you don’t have to accept any help paying for it.
@zobroward Do you understand the difference between the VA and Medicare? Because they are not the same thing.
yes I do… I never mentioned them together. not sure why you ask.
I didn’t understand why the VA rant in the context of ACA, which is also not the same thing. What eb referred to is not the VA model of care.
My COBRA is $575/month PER PERSON. $600 for 3 people is cheap.