Health Plans Up Significantly in 2014

[Mulligan]

If you don't join the exchange, you could have to pay way more than 9.5% of your income in premiums. If that is the case for someone, why pay (say) 15-20% of your income in premiums by keeping your old plan when you can pay 9.5% (or less) through the exchange?

There are certainly a few situations where someone would want to pay (possibly a lot) more and keep their current coverage. But if a couple earns $40K and they can either pay $12,000 a year to "keep their plan" or $3,000 a year through the exchange (after subsidy)... what am I missing?

Now that Megacorp has kicked me to the curb, I'm doing the math and seeing that our situation will be fairly close to the hypothetical above. In any event, it looks like we'll be getting an 8-month short term policy to bridge the gap between Megacorp and Obamacare (at 1/3 the cost of COBRA and almost as much coverage), as preexisting condition exclusions and avoiding gaps in "creditable coverage" for the purposes of HIPAA aren't really factors any more as long as you can make it to January 2014 before they become relevant.

You may very well be correct, as I am seeing it through the prism of what I pay and earn. I pay $76 a month as a 48 yr. old with a $5500 deductible. I have no health issues and with my HSA deduction, I actually net out a small profit just by buying health insurance. I was assuming just for my individual plan, and the fact it's underwritten makes it significantly cheaper. But maybe there are a bunch of people in my plan that would benefit. But it is sure hard to beat paying $76, and it has only went up a couple bucks the past 3 years. So, yes this unfolding is making me very nervous.

 

[ziggy29]

You may very well be correct, as I am seeing it through the prism of what I pay and earn. I pay $76 a month as a 48 yr. old with a $5500 deductible. I have no health issues and with my HSA deduction, I actually net out a small profit just by buying health insurance. I was assuming just for my individual plan, and the fact it's underwritten makes it significantly cheaper. But maybe there are a bunch of people in my plan that would benefit. But it is sure hard to beat paying $76, and it has only went up a couple bucks the past 3 years. So, yes this unfolding is making me very nervous.

True. I guess it depends on your situation. If it's heavily underwritten, you are getting the "preferred" rates and you are paying the full cost (i.e. not employer-subsidized), it likely is better than using an exchange. I'm not sure that's the "typical" case out there for people who have to buy their own, but I can see it being unsettling for some who are in your situation.

 

[scrabbler1]

It appears more and more, those on grandfathered individual plans will lose them quickly, which unfortunately includes me. It appears people with BCBS will lose them quickly.

So what happens to the plans that don't meet the new minimum standards? They will likely disappear. A handful of existing plans will be grandfathered in, but the qualifying criteria for that is hard to meet: Members have to have been enrolled in the plan before the ACA passed in 2010, and the plan has to have maintained fairly steady co-pay, deductible and coverage rates until now.
The insurers in the Blue Cross Blue Shield Association are major players in the individual market. They are readying new product lineups for 2014, according to Kim Holland, the trade group's executive director of state affairs. She expects most existing Blue Cross individual plans to be discontinued.
"They are going by the wayside," she said. "Plans will have to conform to the higher level of benefits."

Most Individual Health Insurance Isn't Good Enough for Obamacare - Yahoo! Finance

I read in another article that insurance companies may stall the mandatory conversion process up to a year, by reenrolling them in plan this year, and then converting after the yearly renewal process occurs during the following year instead of January 1. A rare example of how increasing short term profits of company benefits the consumers finances, short term also.

I am in a BCBS plan which does not meet the new minimum standards, so I expect it to be discontinued next year. (They also recently switched from quarterly billing to monthly billing, probably in anticipation of this plan going bye-bye.) I never expected to remain in this plan, one I did not enroll in until early 2011, in 2014, so it is not a big deal. I expect to enroll in one of those exchanges later this year to begin in 2014.