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Old 03-24-2021, 01:37 PM   #41
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Originally Posted by Aerides View Post
I'm sure there are a great many people who are glad they can keep their kids on their workplace insurance until age 26. That's also part of the ACA. And the whole not-getting-refused thing that enabled a lot of people to retire, when they otherwise could not because of pre-existing conditions.

Oh and the lifetime cap thing. So many provisions in the law, but everyone tends to equate the ACA with its marketplace plans, when that's really less than half of the legislation.
+1, my 24 yo daughter and most of her same age friends are on parental insurance.

I really like the removal of the cliff. I think it will help a lot of lower and middle wage working families.
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Old 03-24-2021, 04:03 PM   #42
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Originally Posted by jimbee View Post
I recommend checking your math. You may need to move the decimal point a couple of places.

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Originally Posted by Time2
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Ok, so it's 0.0345% vs 0.0242% of the entire US population that is covered
with an ACA policy. That small amount of people could have been taken care of better with less money rather than this massive program.



Yes my math was correct, but I didn't adjust when I made it a percentage.
3.45% vs 2.42%, so a lot of nonsense went on to provide for a very small
percentage of the population. My point still stands.
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Old 03-24-2021, 05:30 PM   #43
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Wow. I hadn't heard of this change until now. This could have a big impact on me though who knows what the law will look like in another 6 years when I'm ready to retire. I'm still holding out hope they will lower Medicare eligibility to age 60.
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Old 03-30-2021, 03:49 PM   #44
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OK...DH is retiring this year; I have 2 yrs. I will keep our current insurance as our 2 youngest can still be on it.
I believe our BC/BS retirement rate is about $1100/mo. after the kids drop off (we expect that in 2 years). Our deductibles aren't too bad. (sry, exact numbers escape me)
If there is an 8.5% cap, that puts us at under $650/mo--but what kind of deductibles could we be looking at?
We have had BC/BS our whole lives with zero issues. Are ACA providers as good to work with?
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Old 03-30-2021, 04:00 PM   #45
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Originally Posted by 4legsgood View Post
+1, my 24 yo daughter and most of her same age friends are on parental insurance.

I really like the removal of the cliff. I think it will help a lot of lower and middle wage working families.

It sure helps me a ton. No worrying about the damn cliff anymore.
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Old 03-30-2021, 04:20 PM   #46
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Originally Posted by Librarian View Post
OK...DH is retiring this year; I have 2 yrs. I will keep our current insurance as our 2 youngest can still be on it.
I believe our BC/BS retirement rate is about $1100/mo. after the kids drop off (we expect that in 2 years). Our deductibles aren't too bad. (sry, exact numbers escape me)
If there is an 8.5% cap, that puts us at under $650/mo--but what kind of deductibles could we be looking at?
We have had BC/BS our whole lives with zero issues. Are ACA providers as good to work with?
In most states BC/BS is one of the major ACA providers. Unfortunately, ACA plans generally have big deductibles compared to corporate/COBRA plans.

Anyway, you need to shop your own state's marketplace to see what's what.
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Old 03-30-2021, 04:48 PM   #47
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I'm from the government and here to help. What could go wrong.
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Old 03-30-2021, 04:51 PM   #48
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My state just announced that they are auto-adjusting the APTC starting April 1st, no action needed by the subscriber. Nice.
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Old 03-30-2021, 05:10 PM   #49
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What I still don't understand is what happens when only one of the two married people filing a joint tax return needs the ACA insurance. Does only one person still pay 8.5% of MAGI, whereas if both parties needed the insurance it would still be 8.5%?
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Yep
Old 03-30-2021, 05:17 PM   #50
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Yep

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Originally Posted by Packman View Post
What I still don't understand is what happens when only one of the two married people filing a joint tax return needs the ACA insurance. Does only one person still pay 8.5% of MAGI, whereas if both parties needed the insurance it would still be 8.5%?
That's what I am seeing as DH starts Medicare this fall.

However the impact is somewhat lessoned as we use bronze plans and the % is based on the second lowest cost silver plan.
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Old 03-30-2021, 05:22 PM   #51
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That's what I am seeing as DH starts Medicare this fall.

However the impact is somewhat lessoned as we use bronze plans and the % is based on the second lowest cost silver plan.
Doesn't seem right that two people pay the same price as one.
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Old 03-30-2021, 05:30 PM   #52
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Doesn't seem right that two people pay the same price as one.
It's not right , but they wrote the law in a hurry and there are glitches, like the family glitch.
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Old 03-30-2021, 05:31 PM   #53
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Originally Posted by Librarian View Post
OK...DH is retiring this year; I have 2 yrs. I will keep our current insurance as our 2 youngest can still be on it.
I believe our BC/BS retirement rate is about $1100/mo. after the kids drop off (we expect that in 2 years). Our deductibles aren't too bad. (sry, exact numbers escape me)
If there is an 8.5% cap, that puts us at under $650/mo--but what kind of deductibles could we be looking at?
We have had BC/BS our whole lives with zero issues. Are ACA providers as good to work with?
You can check the ACA plans available to you here, https://www.healthcare.gov/see-plans/#/. The cost ($650/mo) you calculated is based on selecting the second lowest cost silver plan available to you. Your cost could be less than that if selecting a Bronze plan or more if selecting a higher cost Silver plan with lower deductibles. At my location I have 16 Silver plans to choose from, the plans with a very low deductible are pricy. Also, the 8.5% cap is only guaranteed to last through 2022, I'm sure they will try to extend it but....
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Old 03-30-2021, 05:36 PM   #54
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When does this take effect? Just priced some plans on Covered California, assuming a May 1 start date for a family of 5 and 200k income and cheapest I'm seeing for a Silver Plan is an HMO for over $3k/mo with a $8k family deductible. If I want a PPO, it's $3,900/mo.

That's 18%+ MAGI. Ouch!
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Old 03-30-2021, 06:27 PM   #55
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.

The thing the ACA tried to do is to add an extra charge the healthiest customers' premiums and use that overcharge to subsidize other customers' risk premiums. In the term insurance example, it would be like the 25YO being overcharged and the 65YO being charged less than his risk calculation would call for. Much of this discount was due to accepting customers with preexisting conditions without making those customer pay the real cost of their insurance. There really is a free lunch for those folks. The actuarially healthier folks at the next table paid. Or at least that was the plan.

Now you can argue whether this kind of cross-subsidy is desirable or not but the fact is that the cohort that the government planned to overcharge figured out the scam and refused to play the game.
Bingo.

And this is the reason why, without a true enforcement of the mandatory enrollment, that the plan was doomed for failure -- and I might add predicted by people like myself.

Self-selection bias. If the people are able to choose whether to enroll or not-enroll, then the results are that those who are "sicker" will enroll, and those who are not won't. This results in higher payments out of the $ paid by premiums than expected, which results in higher premiums, which results in those who are "really sicker" staying in the plan while those who are "only a littler sicker" dropping out (due to increased premiums), and the non-virtuous cycle continues.

This can be seen prior to the ACA in states that had "community rated" plans and disallowed exams/checks for pre-existing conditions. (As an example, NY was this way). Yes, anyone could get a plan but the costs were much higher - and if you were a healthy 25 year old would you pay $800/month for health insurance? For many, the answer was no.
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Old 03-30-2021, 06:41 PM   #56
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In most states BC/BS is one of the major ACA providers. Unfortunately, ACA plans generally have big deductibles compared to corporate/COBRA plans.

Anyway, you need to shop your own state's marketplace to see what's what.
Yes, you need to shop since what's available varies a lot for different states and even regions.

Our Silver plan, e.g., has a $0 deductible and is a BC/BS. But, the copays are relatively high - $40 to see our primary and $80 to see a specialist.

My old corporate plan had a $1,250 deductible.
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Old 03-31-2021, 06:18 AM   #57
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I'm from the government and here to help. What could go wrong.

It will be great, Well, unless you are the tax payer.
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Old 03-31-2021, 06:27 AM   #58
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It will be great, Well, unless you are the tax payer.
Yep, we now have four major health systems where most or all costs are paid by taxpayers...Medicare, Medicaid, VA, ACA...wonder how much costs could be squeezed if you simply combined them all...most national public health services operate like our Medicaid anyway.
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Old 03-31-2021, 06:31 AM   #59
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Doesn't seem right that two people pay the same price as one.

The part that doesn't seem right to me, is that we are subsidizing a family of 2 making $70K a year and a family of 4 making $104k. I thought it was poor people that needed help.
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Old 03-31-2021, 06:40 AM   #60
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The single biggest tax benefit the US Government provides is the health insurance tax break for employed people, and the highest income employees earn the greatest benefit. This is never mentioned when people complain about a benefit others receive.

The median household income in the US is around $69k, and the average cost of large group family health insurance is $21k. Before tax, that’s almost 1/3, before payroll and income tax. Health care insurance is unaffordable for middle income working families, and they only get it at all because it’s paid by the employers.
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