I just got my notice that my rate before subsidy is increasing 35%. After subsidy, the out of pocket increase was 356%! This is frustrating. My pre Obama grandfathered plan for 2015 was roughly 650/month. The same silver plan under Obamacare which added coverage for pregnancy (which I don’t need) and eliminated the pre-existing conditions problem cost 1,361 at that time. Today it is 1,843 per month. This is affordable healthcare? How many can afford 22,000 a year premiere for a family of 3. I have read many threads about affording college for four years. How about heath care for decades. At this rate of increase, college tuition will look like a bargain in the future. And government wonders why more people don’t have insurance.
I realize the root cause of these increases. Too few healthy people buying plans. Little competition (in my state there are only two companies on the exchange). No cost containment/control built into the law. Out of control drug prices. Too many bells and whistles. Too little choice about what benefits you want to pay for. I am just at a lost of how to mange a budget and plan when I have limited control over what is my largest household expense.
I would serious consider self insuring but then I have to pay rack rate instead of the much lower plan prices for medical care and prescriptions. Anybody who has seen an EOB for a hospital stay can understand how scary that idea is. One hospital bill can bankrupt you. You just cannot win under our system.
It is becoming unaffordable, plus with the high deductibles and high out of pocket max there are many people with these insurance policies who would be severely stressed if not forced into bankruptcy if they needed expensive healthcare, which defeats the purpose of having health insurance in the first place.
We are going to do some serious shopping before signing up for 2016, and will likely do what we have already done twice - opt for higher deductible/ lower co-insurance to keep premium down.
@noname87 You never mentioned what your out of pocket cost will be. That is really “your” cost. The overwhelming majority of people on the ACA plans receive subsidies without it most would have no healthcare plan at all. I do not receive any subsidies. My family and I were victims of the pre-existing condition loophole before the ACA. The cost of the exchange plans would have to double before it matches what I paid back in 2013. So, I am in the sick column and I am very happy to have coverage despite the increase cost.
These solutions probably won’t work, but have you looked at off- exchange plans, as well as the plans from the other insurer on your exchange? Worth a try.
I don’t get why your previous plan, for three people, was $650 a month. That sounds amazingly cheap. How was the insurer able to insure three adults, or an adult and two teenagers, or whatever your family was, for that small premium?
My out of pocket cost increased $6000 for the same plan and number of adults assuming the subsidy is the same.
I do plan on shopping around. It is just that in NC there are few companies on the exchange. I will look at plans with lower coverage.
We were also victims of pre existing conditions. VERY grateful that this law addresses pre-existing issues. Prior to Obamacare it was impossible to get coverage for my daughter since she has asthma. Luckily our state had an extremely affordable high risk pool which ended with Obamacare. So the 650 was for 2 adults. I should have added 125 for my child for a better comparison. These plan did not cover pregnancy which explains part of the lower cost. The other numbers were for a family of three.
My main worry is will the cost go up $6000 every year.
The problem is the out of pocket costs are outrageous. Plans with a 10k deductible for many are not real health insurance. The govt has allowed the monopolization of generic drugs in recent years which is another cause of rising drug prices. Articles coming out today in the news show the finances of obamacare are not working in the individual market. If you can barely afford the premiums and the plan if the plan has a high deductible from a financial perspective if you are relatively healthy why pay thousands a year to have no coverage until you hit 10k or so.
We are in the individual market and our premium for the cheapest premium plan went from around $780 to $1200.
Our problem is compounded by self employment income that fluctuates wildly. We could go many months without a large enough chunk of funds to pay these ridiculous premiums. We are almost never sick (lucky so far). I wonder how many people will just risk having no insurance with these giant premium increases?
My bronze plan went from 540/mo to 850/mo (for one person). Approximately 57% higher. Shopping around I’ve only found another Bronze (higher deductibles, much much higher out of network costs), for 660/mo. (about 22% higher than my current plan, and more restrictive benefits). If healthy with limited Dr. visits, it will cost about $9000 per year. If not healthy it can cost about $14,000 per year. Again, this is for one person. Much better than a hospital bill, but hardly “affordable”.
I feel for you noname87…it’s upsetting enough to be faced with a huge policy price increase, with a decrease in coverage then be chastised by people on a forum that suggest that this is your fault and YOU did something wrong. We too were faced with a significant price increase , even while dropping our grad school aged daughter.
Nothing like being punished by government regulations , either by choosing to not be insured or trying like heck to hang on to your plan as a small business owner , only to have the cost skyrocket…must be nice to live in an ivory tower …we wouldn’t know
Average cost probably includes subsidized plans.It is also much lower when younger. I’m closer to 60. While my salary definitely qualifies for a subsidy, I cannot get a subsized plan because our combined salary is just over the limit. Not allowed on spouse plan, so must get one for myself. I also heard on the news that the “average” cost increase this year is 7.5%, which is no where near what I’m finding.
Each state and each metro area has different rates and they are significantly different depending on where you reside. Price goes up with age as well. Averages are just that. It means nothing. Take 20 random people in a store and take their average age, maybe its 45 but that does not mean everyone present was close in age to 45.
59% of adult Americans were taking prescription drugs in 2012. No surprise that medical insurance is so expensive when the underlying medical care that the insurance is paying for is so heavily used.
The drug cost is definitely helping drive the cost. Look at recent examples of drug companies buying rights to old drugs and rising the prices excessively. Although, it is interesting that drug prices are so much lower in other countries including Europe and Canada for the same drugs made by the same company. It is just in our country that we have a true free market system for health care. While insurance companies do try to negotiate lower prices, they have no real incentive to keep cost down since they can just pass the cost to the consumer. The choice is pay the piper or pray you never get seriously sick. The latter might work for the younger set but for the older set it well usually backfires.
In my case, I am guessing that the insurance company mispriced the cost of the policy last year assuming more healthy adults would sign up. Didn’t happen so now they need a large rate increase to cover the real cost.
JustOneDad, when I first signed up for Obamacare last year, the cost of a silver plan for two adults started at $1200 per month. From what I remember there was only two companies offering plans in my area. The other might have been cheaper but had a much smaller network. I will research more to see if the market changed this year.
My Blue Shield plan for a family of 4 through Covered California went DOWN (pre subsidy) by $600 a year. I think we will make less this year so the subsidy will probably increase. Our deductible went up but we have never actually been forced to use the deductible for any procedure. It has always been waved. We have the Silver PPO plan. I love love love Obamacare. Was always stuck with a pre-existing condition.
Now, this doesn’t make sense to me, in environments where there are several different insurance companies operating. Suppose I’m the CEO of Acme Insurance. Do I say to my negotiators, “Don’t bother to try to get lower drug prices, we’ll just pay high prices and hike premiums”? Or do I say, “Get those drug prices as low as you can, folks, we want to offer lower premiums so we can undercut the other insurers and get lots of customers”?
In a competitive insurance market, insurers should want to get the lowest possible prices from drug manufacturers and health care providers.