"If you like your plan, you can keep it"

[dgoldenz]

What do most people do each year with their health insurance to keep the cost down? Well, increase your deductible or co-insurance of course. I just got an e-mail from Assurant Health today stating that under the new guidelines, if you have an individual health insurance policy and increase your deductible or co-insurance at all, your plan loses grandfather status and will be subject to all of the new mandates (guaranteed issue for kids, "free" preventative care, unlimited lifetime benefits,etc) which will require higher premiums. So you can either pay higher premiums by keeping your plan the same every year, or you can lose grandfather status and raise your deductible which will increase your premiums anyway.

Removing a maternity rider on any policy currently in force will also cause you to lose grandfather status. Most companies have eliminated maternity riders, which means the rates for people keeping them are going to keep skyrocketing. Screwed again eh....

 

[barker]

They're going to raise your premiums every year anyways(as they have so far), so it just becomes a cost/benefit decision of whichever option makes more sense for you. If you're buying private health insurance you've been screwed all along already.

I've raised my deductible from $1200 to $2000 to $5000 and just this year to $10000. Seems kinda ridiculous to have a health insurance policy with a $10,000 deductible.

 

[fisherman]

What do most people do each year with their health insurance to keep the cost down? Well, increase your deductible or co-insurance of course. I just got an e-mail from Assurant Health today stating that under the new guidelines, if you have an individual health insurance policy and increase your deductible or co-insurance at all, your plan loses grandfather status and will be subject to all of the new mandates (guaranteed issue for kids, "free" preventative care, unlimited lifetime benefits,etc) which will require higher premiums. So you can either pay higher premiums by keeping your plan the same every year, or you can lose grandfather status and raise your deductible which will increase your premiums anyway.

Removing a maternity rider on any policy currently in force will also cause you to lose grandfather status. Most companies have eliminated maternity riders, which means the rates for people keeping them are going to keep skyrocketing. Screwed again eh....

Useful information here but still dripping with political rants.

So by your words above my rates will go up either way but under the new mandates I will get free preventive care and my kids cannot be canceled. Gee, sounds like the better of the two options!

 

[dgoldenz]

Useful information here but still dripping with political rants.

So by your words above my rates will go up either way but under the new mandates I will get free preventive care and my kids cannot be canceled. Gee, sounds like the better of the two options!

Your kids can't be canceled anyway, I don't know why people keep bringing that up. They never could be canceled based on claims made. The only thing they could be canceled for was aging off the policy since health insurance is guaranteed renewable. The new law requires that children can't be denied health insurance for pre-existing conditions. The insurance companies have already stopped offering child-only policies for this reason as they are not denying coverage if they don't offer the plan in the first place.

You also don't get free preventative care. It's not free - it's built into your monthly premiums. That's the same thing as BMW saying that you get free maintenance on your car for 4 years....it's not free, it's built into the price. Nothing is free.

 

[M Paquette]

Your kids can't be canceled anyway, I don't know why people keep bringing that up. They never could be canceled based on claims made.

It's called 'rescission'. When a potentially expensive diagnosis is seen in a claim, then the applications for that person's coverage are reviewed in detail for heinous acts of fraud such as neglecting to report a case of acne, inaccurate body weight, or diaper rash ("failed to report chronic infantile psoriasis").

 

[dgoldenz]

It's called 'rescission'. When a potentially expensive diagnosis is seen in a claim, then the applications for that person's coverage are reviewed in detail for heinous acts of fraud such as neglecting to report a case of acne, inaccurate body weight, or diaper rash ("failed to report chronic infantile psoriasis").

I know what a rescission is. The amount of rescissions that happen are so incredibly small and totally overblown by the media without full details on the stories. There is no way for all of the facts to be exposed without the person who was rescinded signing a HIPPA waiver, which never happens.

Insurance companies don't make mistakes very often and know exactly what kind of legal action they would face if they were wrong in rescinding a policy. Just ask Assurant Health. Without all of the facts on a specific case, it would be impossible to say whether the insurance company was wrong or not. In the cases that I have seen rescinded, they have always been right (except the $$$ case with Assurant). "Inaccurate body weight" could be someone saying they weigh 220 pounds when they really weigh 245, which might cause them to have been auto-declined if known up front. Any time the word "chronic" is used in a diagnosis, the odds of getting coverage pretty much go down the tubes. Acne could be someone who used Accutane in the past, which is an auto-decline with a lot of companies. Just saying.

 

[M Paquette]

Just wanted to be clear. "Can't be cancelled" really means "hardly ever happens, but more likely if you make a claim serious enough to trigger the company into reviewing your applications in detail."

And equity index linked fixed deferred annuities always return 6%...

 

[dgoldenz]

Just wanted to be clear. "Can't be cancelled" really means "hardly ever happens, but more likely if you make a claim serious enough to trigger the company into reviewing your applications in detail."

And equity index linked fixed deferred annuities always return 6%...

Exactly, it can't be cancelled. It can be rescinded. In 20 years of selling health insurance we have never had a single case rescinded. Of course, there is a much higher chance of a rescission when people apply on their own and conveniently forget things instead of using the help of an agent that costs them $0.

Given that the caps on ELIA's are under 6% for the most part right now, I'm not sure where you got that from. ELIA's were more attractive when the caps were 10-12% and aren't a very good deal right now unless you're looking for something with a guaranteed income or just a straight fixed annuity.

 

[M Paquette]

Exactly, it can't be cancelled. It can be rescinded.

Just pointing out that one has to be careful with one's words when dealing with insurance policies and salespeople. Most of the unwashed would believe that cancellation is the same as rescission, but it's not (except in Virginia). And don't get me started on 'discontinuance'...

 

[dgoldenz]

Just pointing out that one has to be careful with one's words when dealing with insurance policies and salespeople. Most of the unwashed would believe that cancellation is the same as rescission, but it's not (except in Virginia). And don't get me started on 'discontinuance'...

That's right, all insurance salespeople are scumbags and only act in their best interest. You're way better off buying one of the most complex consumer products in the world on your own.

Every single insurance application has a written disclaimer acknowledging that the applicant understands the policy can be rescinded in the case of fraud or material misrepresentation. In most applications it's written twice, once at the beginning and once before the applicant signs it. Rescission is NOT the same as having your policy canceled. Inside the policy, there is a statement that says the policy is guaranteed renewable, which means that it cannot be canceled until you stop paying premiums or give notice that you want to terminate it.

Discontinuance is the exact reason I tell people to avoid small regional companies and purchase from the "big 4" (BCBS, United Healthcare, Humana, Aetna) if they can qualify. Those companies aren't going anywhere [moderator edit--partisan]....and yet, people still buy the limited-benefit flavor-of-the-month for $549/month because it has "no deductible" and they think they know more about insurance than the agent does. Then complain to the media that they were only re-imbursed $2k on their $100k hospital stay, if the claim even got paid at all.