|
|
01-03-2014, 02:02 PM
|
#21
|
Give me a museum and I'll fill it. (Picasso) Give me a forum ...
Join Date: Dec 2004
Location: the City of Subdued Excitement
Posts: 5,588
|
Quote:
The law counts on the healthy to pay for the sick and the young to pay for the old.
|
That is the way it is supposed to work and I am happy with that, even though I am one of the healthy who pays for the rest.
__________________
I have outlived most of the people I don't like and I am working on the rest.
|
|
|
|
Join the #1 Early Retirement and Financial Independence Forum Today - It's Totally Free!
Are you planning to be financially independent as early as possible so you can live life on your own terms? Discuss successful investing strategies, asset allocation models, tax strategies and other related topics in our online forum community. Our members range from young folks just starting their journey to financial independence, military retirees and even multimillionaires. No matter where you fit in you'll find that Early-Retirement.org is a great community to join. Best of all it's totally FREE!
You are currently viewing our boards as a guest so you have limited access to our community. Please take the time to register and you will gain a lot of great new features including; the ability to participate in discussions, network with our members, see fewer ads, upload photographs, create a retirement blog, send private messages and so much, much more!
|
01-03-2014, 02:07 PM
|
#22
|
Give me a museum and I'll fill it. (Picasso) Give me a forum ...
Join Date: Jun 2008
Posts: 13,130
|
Quote:
Originally Posted by Ed_The_Gypsy
That is the way it is supposed to work and I am happy with that, even though I am one of the healthy who pays for the rest.
|
+1
__________________
Have you ever seen a headstone with these words
"If only I had spent more time at work" ... from "Busy Man" sung by Billy Ray Cyrus
|
|
|
01-03-2014, 02:26 PM
|
#23
|
Give me a museum and I'll fill it. (Picasso) Give me a forum ...
Join Date: Mar 2007
Posts: 14,328
|
Quote:
Originally Posted by Ed_The_Gypsy
..........even though I am one of the healthy who pays for the rest.
|
......at the moment.....
|
|
|
01-03-2014, 04:32 PM
|
#24
|
Thinks s/he gets paid by the post
Join Date: Apr 2012
Posts: 2,911
|
Quote:
Originally Posted by Ed_The_Gypsy
That is the way it is supposed to work and I am happy with that, even though I am one of the healthy who pays for the rest.
|
+2
__________________
"Do not spoil what you have by desiring what you have not; remember that what you now have was once among the things you only hoped for." - Epicurus
|
|
|
01-03-2014, 04:37 PM
|
#25
|
Give me a museum and I'll fill it. (Picasso) Give me a forum ...
Join Date: Jan 2006
Location: Rio Grande Valley
Posts: 38,007
|
Exactly - just because you are healthy now, doesn't mean you'll be healthy tomorrow. You never know.
__________________
Retired since summer 1999.
|
|
|
01-03-2014, 04:39 PM
|
#26
|
Give me a museum and I'll fill it. (Picasso) Give me a forum ...
Join Date: Jan 2006
Location: Rio Grande Valley
Posts: 38,007
|
Quote:
Originally Posted by 2B
You wouldn't have been uninsurable as much as being exiled to the high risk pool. I think the insurance companies wanted as many people as possible in the high risk pool to help cover the costs of the cancer patients. I agree with the point about most people over 55 having something on the list. I don't know anyone over 50 that qualified for insurance other than the Texas high risk pool.
In plans available to me in Texas, I'm not seeing dramatic savings versus the now defunct Texas high risk plan. I'm pretty sure insurance companies priced their product with the expectation that individual policies would be closer to the old high risk pools.
|
I am seeing a dramatic savings, even though I now have a lower deductible and lower max OOP.
__________________
Retired since summer 1999.
|
|
|
01-03-2014, 05:11 PM
|
#27
|
Thinks s/he gets paid by the post
Join Date: Sep 2010
Location: midwestern city
Posts: 4,061
|
Congratulations. Another great example of the benefits of the ACA.
__________________
Very conservative with investments. Not ER'd yet, 48 years old. Please do not take anything I write or imply as legal, financial or medical advice directed to you. Contact your own financial advisor, healthcare provider, or attorney for financial, medical and legal advice.
|
|
|
01-03-2014, 06:02 PM
|
#28
|
Give me a museum and I'll fill it. (Picasso) Give me a forum ...
Join Date: May 2004
Location: SW Ohio
Posts: 14,404
|
golftrek,
This is good news for your household. We have to keep working until there's more good news than bad. Today, as a result of the ACA, 3 million fewer Americans have health insurance than was the case last week. This is simply the number of individual plans enrolled in through federal and state exchanges minus those individual plans that were cancelled as a result of the ACA. So, there's still work to be done in helping all Americans to get coverage, and at present we are (by the numbers) moving the wrong way.
Raw numbers of insureds don't tell the whole story--we need to be concerned about the quality of the coverage (in some cases, the new ACA plans have "better" coverage, though sometimes the actual people covered and paying the bill preferred the old policy). More fundamentally, we have to be concerned about the cost of medical care and the availability/quality of that care. It remains to be seen if people who have coverage will be satisfied with the care the system will make available.
|
|
|
01-03-2014, 06:10 PM
|
#29
|
Give me a museum and I'll fill it. (Picasso) Give me a forum ...
Join Date: Apr 2013
Posts: 11,078
|
Agree, my COBRA would have expired in August. No insurance company would touch me without unacceptable riders.
In this state the only path for the high deductible pool was, 'haven't been insured for 6 months'.
Glad things are changing, hopefully most benefit.
MRG
|
|
|
01-05-2014, 10:58 AM
|
#30
|
Recycles dryer sheets
Join Date: Mar 2008
Posts: 413
|
Quote:
Originally Posted by AllDone
That's why there is a fine/tax to make free-riders kick in at least some small portion to cover their potential costs.
|
I think the fine/tax should be raised to be more than the cost of actually having insurance, so the individual who thinks insurance is not for them, could weigh the penalty against actually having insurance. ACA works based on everybody participating, and you participate whether buying insurance or not.
I read the OP story, and makes me glad to see the ACA actually working to help people that have lived the horror of not being insurable! I've been spoiled having excellent coverage through work, and get frustrated when i hear other spoiled co-workers complain their co-pay will be increased $5.00 because of the ACA.
|
|
|
01-05-2014, 12:04 PM
|
#31
|
Give me a museum and I'll fill it. (Picasso) Give me a forum ...
Join Date: Feb 2006
Location: Washington, DC
Posts: 11,317
|
Quote:
Originally Posted by samclem
golftrek,
This is good news for your household. We have to keep working until there's more good news than bad. Today, as a result of the ACA, 3 million fewer Americans have health insurance than was the case last week. This is simply the number of individual plans enrolled in through federal and state exchanges minus those individual plans that were cancelled as a result of the ACA. .
|
Plans were cancelled every year on whims. Plans will continue to be cancelled every years going forward. In the past there was no guarantee that you would qualify for a replacement. Now there is.
__________________
Idleness is fatal only to the mediocre -- Albert Camus
|
|
|
01-05-2014, 12:49 PM
|
#32
|
Full time employment: Posting here.
Join Date: Jul 2013
Location: San Diego
Posts: 712
|
Quote:
Originally Posted by samclem
golftrek,
This is good news for your household. We have to keep working until there's more good news than bad. Today, as a result of the ACA, 3 million fewer Americans have health insurance than was the case last week.
|
We don't actually know what the number of cancelled and unreplaced plans is yet nor do we have totals on new enrollments. Until the open enrollment period has ended, we really can't know the results. One side claims five million people have lost insurance and the other says the number is closer to 10K. Both sides are giving estimates only. DH and I never received any info about our COBRA insurance for the new year. We had already decided to select a much cheaper exchange plan. Does that count as a cancellation or not?
In MA there was a lot of last minute enrollment at each open enrollment period and it took three years to get everybody enrolled. People are still confused about the ACA and, to be honest, there has been a certain amount of deliberate confusion perpetrated. Even when you read threads on this forum, there is confusion expressed by people who are usually somewhat more informed about financial matters than the general public.
I think that fair-minded people have to wait until we have actual data to pronounce the ACA either a success or failure.
|
|
|
01-05-2014, 01:00 PM
|
#33
|
Thinks s/he gets paid by the post
Join Date: Jul 2012
Location: Mississippi
Posts: 1,894
|
It is somewhat comparing apple to oranges. The majority of the "cancelled" policies did not result in not being insured, which is a completely different issue. Most were either automatically enrolled in a plan that met the requirements or given the option to. They also now have the option to move another insurer or look on the exchange. So basically all these cancellation are still insured, then new insured on exchanges should result in more people being insured.
Fact check looked into the claim of workers losing insurance and found similar issues.
They were not going to be uninsured, their plans changed, which is common practice all the time.
Workers ‘Losing’ Employer Plans?
|
|
|
01-05-2014, 01:30 PM
|
#34
|
Thinks s/he gets paid by the post
Join Date: Aug 2006
Posts: 2,433
|
Quote:
Originally Posted by donheff
Plans were cancelled every year on whims. Plans will continue to be cancelled every years going forward. In the past there was no guarantee that you would qualify for a replacement. Now there is.
|
Actually, this is misleading and the bolded part is incorrect. Insurance companies had to get approval by state regulators to cancel a plan for the entire group of policy holders.
The existing HIPPA law provided for guaranteed acceptance into a comparable plan with no waiting periods or exclusion for pre-existing conditions, so long as you didn't go without insurance for more than 60 days. Unfortunately, the premium was much higher than that of an underwritten plan, but as you wrote about the ACA in post #9, you could get insurance if you could "foot the bill".
__________________
I'd rather be governed by the first one hundred names in the telephone book than the Harvard faculty - William F. Buckley
|
|
|
01-05-2014, 04:25 PM
|
#35
|
Recycles dryer sheets
Join Date: Nov 2013
Location: Chapel Hill
Posts: 96
|
OP here, yes my husband could get insurance under HIPPA, but the insurance was terrible. Not only were the premiums very high (he paid as much as $1000 per month for a very bad policy), the networks were very limited, one time he had NO drug coverage and every policy he had had a lifetime cap, usually $1,000,000. Those awful lifetime limits are gone under the ACA.
Jo Ann
|
|
|
01-05-2014, 05:37 PM
|
#36
|
Give me a museum and I'll fill it. (Picasso) Give me a forum ...
Join Date: Jan 2006
Location: Rio Grande Valley
Posts: 38,007
|
Quote:
Originally Posted by FIRE'd@51
Actually, this is misleading and the bolded part is incorrect. Insurance companies had to get approval by state regulators to cancel a plan for the entire group of policy holders.
The existing HIPPA law provided for guaranteed acceptance into a comparable plan with no waiting periods or exclusion for pre-existing conditions, so long as you didn't go without insurance for more than 60 days. Unfortunately, the premium was much higher than that of an underwritten plan, but as you wrote about the ACA in post #9, you could get insurance if you could "foot the bill".
|
I don't think this is correct. Maybe in some states, but in other states insurers could outright deny you, forcing you into a state risk pool if available.
__________________
Retired since summer 1999.
|
|
|
01-10-2014, 08:58 PM
|
#37
|
Dryer sheet aficionado
Join Date: Nov 2013
Location: Houston
Posts: 38
|
Less than 2 years away from retiring at 55. Health Insurance has been the biggest uncertainty in my early retirement planning. I am hoping to obtain a policy similar to yours. My employer provides excellent health insurance and although my health is excellent, I am willing to pay more for something comparable once I leave the company. Happy for you. Hopefully I can find something similar in Texas.
|
|
|
01-11-2014, 01:19 AM
|
#38
|
Recycles dryer sheets
Join Date: Jul 2013
Posts: 271
|
This is OP is the same person who bragged about retiring at 50 (husband and wife) and flipping houses and not touching their nest eggs. You got to kidding me.
|
|
|
01-11-2014, 01:29 AM
|
#39
|
Give me a museum and I'll fill it. (Picasso) Give me a forum ...
Join Date: Feb 2013
Posts: 9,358
|
Quote:
Originally Posted by alaska55
This is OP is the same person who bragged about retiring at 50 (husband and wife) and flipping houses and not touching their nest eggs. You got to kidding me.
|
Is it better for people to be tied to jobs they otherwise don't need and could free up for someone who really needs the pay check, just to keep affordable health insurance?
Our post COBRA conversion policy was $2,300 a month for poor coverage and high out of pocket maximums.
|
|
|
01-11-2014, 01:47 AM
|
#40
|
Recycles dryer sheets
Join Date: Jul 2013
Posts: 271
|
I guess you don't get my point! Having a MAGI of just over the cliff and trying to pay in to a IRA plus taxes your take home pay is less than 35K. The OP is living off other people how about carrying your own weight. I hear people bitching about the 1% and the Insurance companies all the time on this site and they acting the same way.
|
|
|
|
|
Currently Active Users Viewing This Thread: 1 (0 members and 1 guests)
|
|
Thread Tools |
|
Display Modes |
Linear Mode
|
Posting Rules
|
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts
HTML code is Off
|
|
|
|
» Recent Threads
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
» Quick Links
|
|
|