Please folks…keep,the politics out of this!
So…we have one person in our family purchasing off the exchange in AZ…a 34 year old.
Cost of policy every month…pretty close to last year. Subsidy reduced from $160 to $95 with NO change in income. So premium this year is $365 a month…up from $270.
Policy has a higher deductible…but to get down to the same as last year…would have been more than $400 a month.
Is this what is happening everywhere?
What’s going on? This is in Phoenix where the vendors are limited…to…one.
@“Cardinal Fang” ?
Well our company small group plan we have had for 10 years has been discontinued by Aetna. We have few choices. They are pushing us into a level funded (self insured type) plan. It will be great as long as we don’t have major claims.
There are no ACA SHOP plans available in our area. Insurance is a farging mess.
@bluebayou thanks. My favorite part of that article was where it said that most folks could find a plan for $100 a month. Nope…that’s just not a happening.
But glad to see that there are three providers in Maricopa County this year when there was one last year. Too bad the others are more expensive. My kid did the research and when he applied he was auto selected to continue his current plan. Considering none of the others were less costly or had better benefits, that’s what he is doing.
So Cal here - single, female, 60, no change in income, keeping same plan as 2018, subsidy rose slightly, premium lower slightly. Numerous plans to choose from.
I may never understand why it differs from state to state.
Each state regulates it’s insurers and the environment they work in. Some insurers choose not to work in those environments.
And my ACA policy is going up 17%. No lower premiums for us. We’re still waiting to hear if we can qualify for a catastrophic plan based on affordability, but if we don’t hear before the deadline we’ll have to get something.
Early 50s single female in SoCal. Not eligible for subsidies. My current Bronze PPO premium is going up 20% with slightly higher co-pays and deductible. I have started to look for another plan, but I am somewhat reluctant to switch from PPO.
@JustaMom
Not just variations from state to state, but county to county within the same state.
Self-employed family here so we have to go through the exchange…no PPO’s only HMO’s, and not very good ones to choose from. We were paying 1700/mo for a family of four. We signed our son up for the UChicago plan (it’s fantastic, covers him year-round - better plan than we could get).
We changed mid-year to a healthcare sharing plan. We went with Aliera Healthcare - cost is around 800/mo (we chose the premium plan, so the most expensive of the plans) and we were able to keep our doctors as it is a PPO. There are some limitations - no cancer treatment for one year and pre-existing conditions are exempt for two years. Even with this, the cost is so much lower - our out-of-pocket expenses have dropped significantly!
According to the Affordable Care Act, people who are members of healthcare sharing plans are exempt from the requirements to carry government-approved health insurance.
It is a great alternative if costs of traditional plans - or lack of acceptable plans are a problem!
I will likely go with the least expensive plan in 2019. I was on a plan with more coverage this year so I could continue seeing my therapist. She took an extended leave for family reasons, and I never got around to seeing someone new.
Plan prices look similar or slightly higher to last year, but I’m not positive. I didn’t save the 2018 print out.
I’m still disgusted with the cost, the potential of additional out of pocket expenses, and the narrow networks.
It looks like H is going to need shoulder surgery, and he is going to flip when he finds out his surgeon is not participating in a single BCBS plan in our area on the individual market.
I looked at some short term policies for 12 months, and the holes in coverage are significant. Prescriptions, brand name, no coverage.
I wish there was high deductible catastrophic coverage available. Save me some money on the premiums so I can pay the normal stuff out of pocket. But a max of $7900 out of pocket at these premium prices?
That’s a lot for mere mortals to come up with, should there be a significant illness or accident, which I assume might involve some loss of income!
Ranting over. I get mad about this every. year.
@caymusjordan there isn’t any longer a penalty for NOT having health insurance. That is gonzo. There is no longer a requirement to carry a health insurance plan.
We found out today that we qualify for an affordability exemption, but I’m out of town so I can’t see what catastrophic plans are available until I get home DH is home, but he never deals with health insurance. At least they got back to us about the exemption before the deadline to apply for coverage. I’ll be very annoyed though if the catastrophic plans aren’t considerably cheaper.
@shellfell
Please update us when you get the info on the prices. I’m curious.
I applied last year for the affordability exemption and was denied. I think the application was compromised because H bought health insurance, D bought health insurance, and there was only me asking for an exemption. I couldn’t get a straight answer about it, even from a supervisor at HealthCare.gov
On average, premiums are down slightly this year. But that is an average, and there are wild variations. (My premium went up something like 10%.) Insurance companies were successful in the market this year, things are settling down, and more insurance companies are entering the market.
Now, as to why someone’s subsidy went down this year, even though their income remains the same. This is complicated, but I’ll try to explain. Bear with me.
A person’s subsidy is based on their income and the premium for the second-lowest Silver plan they could buy; it’s the difference between what they could “afford” (based on a their income, according to a certain formula) and what the Silver plan costs. So if the premium for the second-lowest Silver goes down, then their subsidy goes also goes down.
Why would the premium for that second-cheapest Silver plan go down? Well, maybe the insurance company thinks they charged too much for it this year, and they can sell it cheaper next year. More likely, another insurance company decided to swoop into the market, and they priced their plan cheaper to entice more people to buy it, and now their plan is the cheapest or second-cheapest plan, and the old second-cheapest doesn’t matter any more. In general, it’s a good thing when a new insurance company enters a market, but it can make people’s subsidies lower.
Here’s what Aliera has to say about their plans: “Sharing is available for all eligible claims; however, this program does not guarantee or promise that your medical bills will be paid or assigned to others for payment. Whether anyone chooses to pay your medical bills will be totally voluntary.”
So, you pay $800 a month, and then if you get sick, you might get your bills paid. You won’t if you get cancer the first year. You won’t if you get really sick and your bills are more than $500,000. You won’t if you go to the emergency room and it turns out your condition wasn’t life-threatening even though you had no way to know it wasn’t life-threatening. You won’t if you are hospitalized for a condition you had before you signed up, if you haven’t had this non-insurance for less than two years. You might not anyway, because paying your premium doesn’t actually entitle you to anything. But sometimes people’s health bills get paid.
Oh, and you get to pay $125 to apply for this wonderful non-insurance.
Peace of mind.
I’ll update on catastrophic plans premiums after I get home at the end of the week.
I don’t feel comfortable with alternative association plans for the reasons CF enumerated.
@“Cardinal Fang” thanks for the explanation.
In my kid’s case, there are now two additional vendors offering policies in his area. He checked each policy offered carefully. None were less costly. Even his current plan has a higher deductible and higher copays. Premium is the same. Subsidy is half. Income is…the same.
You know…it is what it is. We are happy he has coverage.
Probably your son bought the cheapest last year, and there is a new, cheaper second-cheapest this year from one of the new vendors. That would explain it.
Anthem dropped out of the market in Maine in 2017 and 2018, so we had to go with Harvard Pilgrim. For 2019, our HP premium would have gone up from $1823 to $1940/month for three of us.
Thank goodness, Anthem is coming back to the state!! So we will be paying “only” $1675/month. Whoo hoo! This is THE cheapest option - I’ve done a lot of investigating. DH will go on Medicare in March, at least - our premium will drop to $850/month after that!