Obamacare premiums in 2015

[travelover]

..........I was one of the six million who received a letter last fall stating my plan was not ACA compliant and was being canceled......... .

I'm curious why it wasn't compliant. Did it have a yearly or lifetime cap?

 

[mpeirce]

I'm not that familiar with "high risk pools", what were the flaws with this idea before?

This seems like a reasonable way to address the issue of people who have terminal or chronic high cost diseases and can't get health insurance.

I can't imagine that (even a subsidized) high risk pool for those I describe would be as disruptive and costly as the ACA is proving to be.

 

[ls99]

Scott Gottlieb a Forbes contributor, ran the numbers and has elaborated on ACA in an article in Forbes magazine. The Headline does get attention as do the cost figures tabulated. The numbers are near the bottom of th page.

How Much Does Obamacare Rip Off Young Adults? We Ran The Numbers. Here Are The Results. - Forbes

"Obamacare is asking young adults to effectively subsidize the healthcare costs of older Americans. So far, Millennials are resisting this age-based transfer of wealth. Many are clearly opting instead to remain uninsured, or else they are buying cheaper health plans that don’t conform to Obamacare’s regulatory dictates.
My AEI colleague Kelly Funderburk and I looked at four states: Arizona, Illinois, Pennsylvania, and Texas. We then looked at a typical 30-year-old at one of six different annual income brackets: $20,000 in annual income, $25K, $30K, $35K, $40K, and $45K. "

Edit add: By the way Gottlieb is an MD.

 

[anethum]

To the extent there are millions of others making a similar reallocations of spending to support higher healthcare costs there will be a net reduction in consumer demand for food, energy, and other consumer good as and services. I suspect the net effect of the ACA to be a lowering of consumer discretionary spending in 2014. Currently sluggish retail sales, retail bankruptcies, and retail mergers in Q1 are symptoms of the ACA drag on consumer spending and the economy. I have to believe the economists inside the Fed and Treasury have already performed the analysis and the political advisors to the administration and Congress have seen the results. Hence the decision to delay ACA implementation for the much larger employer subsidized insurance marketplaces until after the elections.

Stay tuned for more uncertainty and slow economic growth.

Sorry, this makes no sense to me. Furthermore, I've seen nothing whatsoever to back up your assertion that "there are millions of others making a similar reallocations of spending". And even if that were the case, there would be similarly millions who are spending less on health insurance and health care now (factoring in the increases we see every year) and would presumably be spending more elsewhere in the economy.

There is a similar balancing for health insurance companies. It sounds like they were losing money on you before the ACA. Now they're making money off of you. However, the reverse will be true for other individuals. The difference is that now, far more people can get insurance, and those who have insurance who get sick or injured will not be dropped nor driven to bankruptcy because of the banning of lifetime caps.

 

[Fermion]

Interesting the theory that younger people are subsidizing older people. The portion of my real estate tax that supports the local public school is over $3000. Over a 30 year span of home ownership I am paying $90,000 to support younger people and we have had no kids of our own and went to private school growing up.

Younger people are most likely to be pregnant vs older people. The example:

"Look at our numbers (laid out in the charts below) and you’ll see why so many Millennials have Obamacare sticker shock. Someone, for example, earning $25K annually in Arizona will pay $2,424 in total monthly premiums for Obamacare (10% of their annual income) and still be stuck with a $4,000 deductible and a $5,200 cap on their out of pocket costs. "

$7,424 won't even cover the cost of a few days of care for a problem during birth. It looks like prenatal care and delivery costs can range from about $9,000 to over $250,000 according to some sources.

Perhaps the older people would not like to subsidize these costs of younger people?

 

[ls99]

Interesting comment on the older folks' subsidy to young ones. I have owned houses since age 23, never had any kids, have paid school taxes ever since. Hmmm, should I be upset at age 66? Or be upset about younger folks not rushing to subsidize the old?

Males do not get pregnant, yet gender discrimination is not allowed in ACA, so males pay for childbirth complications of those who do.

 

[travelover]

........Males do not get pregnant, yet gender discrimination is not allowed in ACA, so males pay for childbirth complications of those who do.

Good point, although I seem to remember something about males being involved in pregnancies, but can't recall the source.

 

[Bestwifeever]

Scott Gottlieb a Forbes contributor, ran the numbers and has elaborated on ACA in an article in Forbes magazine. The Headline does get attention as do the cost figures tabulated. The numbers are near the bottom of th page.

How Much Does Obamacare Rip Off Young Adults? We Ran The Numbers. Here Are The Results. - Forbes

"Obamacare is asking young adults to effectively subsidize the healthcare costs of older Americans. So far, Millennials are resisting this age-based transfer of wealth. Many are clearly opting instead to remain uninsured, or else they are buying cheaper health plans that don’t conform to Obamacare’s regulatory dictates.

Yeah, this never happened before. I want my money back from my group rates subsidizing those geezers' health insurance when I was 22, 23, 24, 25.....

 

[M Paquette]

I'm not that familiar with "high risk pools", what were the flaws with this idea before?

This seems like a reasonable way to address the issue of people who have terminal or chronic high cost diseases and can't get health insurance.

I can't imagine that (even a subsidized) high risk pool for those I describe would be as disruptive and costly as the ACA is proving to be.

High risk pools are not a 'free for all' or 'anyone can apply' form of insurance. Depending on the implementation there may be:

1) a limited number of people allowed in the pool.
2) a wait list with some additional criteria before being accepted (for example, 'must be on Medicaid', or 'uninsured for 6 months', or a specific list of qualifying medical problems).
3) Higher cost than conventional insurance, sometimes capped by law or regulations (capped at 1.7 times higher than the average cost of the three largest plans sold on the individual market, for example). The cap constitutes the subsidy, with the state budgeting for the gap between the cap and the actual cost.

When my COBRA coverage was running out, I had been turned down for individual policies and had to look at the high risk pool here. It would have been quite expensive for me ($944/month for just me, for Major Risk Only coverage), and due to funding limits had a waiting list (around 8 months at the time). Under the rules I would have had to go without insurance for 12 months before qualifying. Oh, and there was a $75,000/year cap on benefits along with a $750,000 lifetime cap.

http://www.mrmib.ca.gov/MRMIB/MRMIP_June26-Capitol-Briefing.pdf

 

[W2R]

Thanks, all...

Porky Pig Cartoon Ending "That's All Folks!" - YouTube