Health insurance after 60, but before medicare

[VanWinkle]

While what you write might have been true in some parts of the country, it's definitely not true in my experience... we were on individual health insurance prior to ACA and then for ACA... premiums were not that much different after ACA than before ACA where we lived. The year before ACA our premiums went up 13% and the first year of ACA they were up 8% and were less than double digits each year thereafter (in fact, for us in 2019 was a $3/month decrease).

Medical service costs for private health insurers had been cross-subsidized for many, many years prior to ACA because of Medicare and Medicaid.... limits on Medicare and Medicaid reimburement rates pushed costs over to the much bigger private plans... the impact of adding ACA was relatively insignificant.

I think the reason the increases are happening is up for discussion, but the actual increases are not. Per the linked article, health care costs in 2021 will increase about 8% for individuals and over 8% for families.


https://www.shrm.org/resourcesandto...-inflation-will-affect-health-care-costs.aspx


"For individual coverage, PPO plan costs are projected to be $6,516 by year-end 2021, up from $6,052 in 2020."
"For an average family of four, PPO costs are projected to be $28,256, up from $26,078"

 

[pb4uski]

One source is far from defintive.... from the same link/article:

Consultancy PwC's Medical cost trend: Behind the Numbers 2022 report, based on information from health plan actuaries and health care executives, found that U.S. health care costs last year increased by 6 percent, while PwC projects 7 percent growth this year. The rate of increase could moderate slightly in 2022, "taking into account the pandemic-rooted inflators and deflators of cost." (emphasis added)

But my previous post was more objecting to your attribution of the growth in health care costs so the amount of growth isn't really relevant.

 

[neihn]

...
side comment: COBRA prices are proof that the US healthcare industry is morally and ethically bankrupt.

+1

 

[pb4uski]

^^^ Not necessarily... modern health care is very costly. If healthcare providers were earning outsized returns then you might have a valid point, but their returns are not any better than the industries and are lower than many.

The health insurer margins are limited to 25% by law and that is before overhead, taxes and return on shareholders capital.... and health insurer return on equity is not particularly high so there isn't a lot of meat on that bone. Same with health care providers... their return on equity are not particularly high either. The unfortunate fact is just that modern health care, especially in the US, is very expensive.

The mystery to me is why is the cost of US healthcare per capita so much higher than other developed countries.

 

[Z3Dreamer]

but not as much as I would hate working for 7 more years.

Once I read that the PPACA can also be known as the "Early Retirement Health Insurance Affordability Act" (my name for it), I was out the door. Read an article in late 2012, spent a few months making sure I wasn't hallucinating then gave notice in early 2013. The rest is history.

I had figured that with DW having had cancer, we were going to continue w****** until Medicare in 2020.

 

[chassis]

The mystery to me is why is the cost of US healthcare per capita so much higher than other developed countries.

Exactly. It's a mystery to everyone. As you put it, "so much higher", means 4x higher than comparable developed nations (Germany, Japan, etc.) on a cost per capita basis. It's morally and ethically bankrupt.

UNHW people and literati are starting to speak to this publicly. Listen to some of Barry Ritholtz's podcasts. He gets some big names on his show. When the subject of healthcare comes up, as it does from time to time, the truth comes out (from non-healthcare industry guests). "Howling mess" is how one of Barry's well-known guests described the US healthcare system.

I have first hand experience in the industry and it is a howling mess.