They are now allowing pricing to charge older people five times what younger people are charged (was 3 times). My guess is that plans for people over 45 will become completely unaffordable. Got a small business and insure yourself on the open market? Or want to retire early? Forget it. There are also discussions of raising the eligibility age for Medicare, so that will keep people in the job market longer for insurance purposes, too.
“Correction: Winners are young people IF AND ONLY IF they are healthy.”
And lucky! Accidents or other medical emergencies can strike any of us at any time, no matter how safe we think we are or how healthy we think we are.
@oldfort How many options do you have if you don’t limit yourself to silver, though?
And will there be doctors who take,these plans? My kid had trouble,even finding a primary care doctor who would take his one choice plan. He can’t find any specialists who will take it. There is NO (read that NO) out of network coverage…and there are a small network of docs who will take it.
Even if or when cross state coverage begins…will doctors take plans from other states?? Probably not.
And I don’t see anything to bring relief to those who need expensive RX refills every month.
@doschicos - there are 4 if I am not picky, meaning select ALL for every category.
IMO the missing piece of the puzzle is transparency of what medical procedures will cost. There are prices posted in every other transaction we use from the gas station to the mall - the prices are known and the consumer can made educated decisions. Only in health care do we have to use the service and wait to see how much it will cost. I went to a clinic yesterday that has a new model of billing customers and has transparent prices posted. I was fortunate to have the doctor who founded the clinic, developed the software and worked his system from the ground up as my physician. We got to talking and I asked how much of medical costs did he think went towards the “overhead” of insurance - billing, coding, etc. etc. He said “The CEO of “X” Insurance company makes $250,000 a DAY. I estimate insurance accounts for 50-70% of the cost of medicine but the lobby’s are too strong now”. It’s insane that they have to pay 80% of their revenue towards health care - there is no incentive there to control the cost of health care! They can raise rates and make even more money.
I see nothing wrong with 4 choices under the current system. With employers you seldom have more than that number of choices and at least do to ACA ALL insurance, through the exchange or one’s employer, must provide a certain level of coverage. No guarantee of that under the new plan, to my knowledge.
Well I just put in 10022 and these are the insurance carriers for a silver plan for an individual:
Fidelis Care
Health Care
Emblem Health
Metro Plus
The same 7 carriers also offer Catastrophic coverage in that zipcode.
And it’s the same whether for an ind or a family.
Then I put in 10019 and the exact same insurance carriers came up.
You must live in a dead zone or something.
Yes, I must live in a dead zone. Not all of us could live in swanky upstate.
What happened to Trump’s promise about buying insurance across state lines? This healthcare proposal does sound like Obama-lite version.
“It’s an unbelievably complex subject. Nobody knew health care could be so complicated.”
@emilybee Yes the insurances you are listing here are not accepted by some of the best New York city Hospitals. ObamaCare has failed.
Let’s stay away from politics. 
@doschicos LOL
Here is a list by counties of all plans offered in NYS for 2017
That is true, not everyone can be treated at the best NYC hospitals and it will be true under AHA, too. Medical providers are not going to suddenly accept the same insurance plans just because the name of the legislation has changed.
There will likely be fewer insurance companies in the future and the coverage will be scimpier because there is no mandate under ACA. It’ll just cost more. That will be the main difference.
^And it was true before ACA. Not everyone had plans that gave a la carte choices.
“I see nothing wrong with 4 choices under the current system. With employers you seldom have more than that number of choices and at least do to ACA ALL insurance, through the exchange or one’s employer, must provide a certain level of coverage. No guarantee of that under the new plan, to my knowledge.”
Many employers only offer one insurance plan.
@oldfort, well you said midtown so I picked two zips which cover midtown (from East River to Hudson River.)
“Yes, I must live in a dead zone. Not all of us could live in swanky upstate.”
I hope you aren’t referring to me as I live in Albany County and no one wouid ever refer to it as swanky.
Does the ACA or the new plan contain any incentives for training of more physicians? I ask because I think that while health insurance is generally a good thing, its value is limited if there are not sufficient health-care providers. My best friend and my ex-husband both need mental health care. My friend can’t get an appointment with a psychiatrist until May; my ex-husband’s health-care system has NO psychiatrists on staff, despite being a large system with many clinics in many small to medium-sized cities.
This just in: joint tax committee scores the tax repeal provisions (not the credits, which are refundable btw) at $600m over 10 years.
I had to wait 4 months to see a pulmonologist in my state, even though I live in a large city and my allergist begged for me to get an appointment as soon as possible. Mental health and other specialists as well as internists are urgently needed. My internist says his wife can’t find an internist! My internist is over 60 years old and we are all concerned about the very low number of physicians who are practicing family or internal medicine. So many of the current physician workforce in HI and nationally are aging and wanting to retire–who will be left to provide care?