No, we've been out of that game for the last two policy years.
ACA Running Thread
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No, we've been out of that game for the last two policy years.
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That's actually not bad. Most people I've spoken to have seen either a huge increase in deductible to go with <20% increases.
I should find out my numbers sometime in the next week.
My current plan for 2013:
* employer pays 100% of my coverage and 85% of my dependent's coverage (I realize I'm very fortunate to work for such a company). This number is almost certain to change with the anticipated changes.
Calendar Year Deductibles
Insured Person Deductible ........................................................... $500
Family Deductible ...................................................................... $1,500
Employee sponsored portion of healthcare insurance reported on W2 was close to $16,000 with my monthly part of this package coming out somewhere around $150/mo. In other words, it costs almost $18k/yr for medical and dental coverage for my family of 5. That's a staggering number, and I can't understand how anyone on lower middle class income or lower can afford it.
My prediction is that my employer will likely pass on a moderate increase to the employees, however they will also be a little stingier with bonus pay and annual raises. I think it would be fair for them to point out to some employees exactly how much their insurance costs when discussing their total compensation package.
Yeah, I think I got off relatively easy from some of the stories I hear, but when you're already paying $800.00 a month with a $5,450 deductible, there's only so much higher you can go in terms of ratio. The problem isn't the insurance premiums (we all knew those were going up, regardless of the misinfo campaign's best efforts).
My issue is that we're already paying for other people's care in terms of our current price structure. I don't have a problem with the premiums going up (basic market forces simply command it; there's no wishing that away), my (safe) prediction is that current prices (the one's we;ve all been paying, that feature built-in markups to subsidize unfunded care) are going to remain inflated. After all, people are already paying it. If you don't believe me, try to buy a $1.75 gallon of gas after Katrina. Those prices just never come down, until you move supply.
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wake20
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I honestly have no idea what to expect. I posted in another thread, but I skated by without insurance throughout law school because I wasn't going to spend student loans on insurance (bad idea? probably, but it worked). Now that my wife's company is going to pay 100% for a family plan for her, myself, and our newborn, I'm going to opt out of my employer's insurance and we're going to design our own plan. We haven't been able to come up with any numbers yet since the system isn't working for us, but I imagine the number will be high. As LK said, I don't get how people are going to be able to afford this, but I really haven't been paying attention to this since my wife is in insurance and handles it for us.
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I think the big miscalculation is that they expected young, healthy people to join and pay higher premiums to subsidize older, high risk people, a group which is ever expanding due to the inclusion of pre-existing conditions. They are going to find that many people will take the cheaper option of paying the penalty and simply waiting until they get ill to purchase insurance.
The end result is that costs have to go up.
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I don't get how they afforded it before the ACA. If my insurance for my family already costs 18,000, I can only imagine the hardship on a family of 4 that isn't as fortunate financially as we are.
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Deductibles.
The out of pocket expense of having a newborn is going to be multiple thousands of dollars.
dot com
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Our bill was $57k, we paid $2k.
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That 2k number is going up for a lot of people now.
Yep. I don't think the people that drew up this plan are dumb enough to have believed it was ever going to work. I think they wanted it to fail, so they could get the single payer system they really wanted but couldn't get passed to replace the failed system they could get passed but never really wanted. There's just no logical connection between these reforms and cost savings. You can't get there from here.
Deacon923
Scooter Banks
You think the Heritage Foundation has been scheming to put single-payer in place since the early 90s?
I think a bad stolen idea is still a bad idea. We have a supply problem, and this focuses solely on increasing demand. If young people aren't signing up when they're young and healthy NOW, why would they sign up when they can't later be denied for preexisting conditions? If you're irresponsible enough to be the fence at all, then the ONLY reason to sign up when you're young and healthy is to avoid getting blocked later on a preexisting condition bar. We've taken away the real disincentive and replaced it with an illusory one. Might as well say it's going in their permanent record. A fifth grader can see that this isn't going to work.
It's also about as regressive an idea as you could imagine, but if you call it Obamacare, you've locked the true believers in to the RJ Corner of Doom (the one that turns a blind eye to NSA spying and drone strikes, b/c, ya know...).
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Deacfreak07
Ain't played nobody, PAWL!
Single payer is obviously the desired outcome. We will get there eventually.
ONW
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You can always count on Americans to do the right thing - after they've tried everything else.
-Winston Churchill
I believe the Heritage Foundation idea was a limited individual mandate (catastrophic coverage), with tax credits instead of a income limited rebate system
Deacon923
Scooter Banks
I really don't disagree but I couldn't resist busting your chops a little.
It's hard for me to see how to really make the free market work for health care. When your options are "pay me the asking price for chemo or die of cancer" or "you just arrived in an ambulance, to the only hospital in the county, with intense chest pain, now let's talk price!", you really don't have a functioning market. The market can and does work on the optional fringes of health care, like LASIK, and it might work if expanded to other quality of life procedures like joint replacements.
Some form of single payer is probably the only realistic option. It has to be combined with some spending and reforms pointed toward capacity building, as you have said several times.
Deacon923
Scooter Banks
I think this is right. There aren't many countries that have a successful free-market, private insurance based system. The countries that have better health outcomes than ours generally have some form of either single payer with supplemental insurance or straight up government provided health care. We should be looking to follow the most successful models.
