"Affordable" Care Is Such A Cute Term
If you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor -- until you go bankrupt from having to pay the skyrocketing "affordable" premiums.
Jonelle Marte writes in the WaPo:
Open enrollment for the insurance exchanges created by the Affordable Care Act kicks off Tuesday, and there's a good chance consumers logging on to compare plans will face some sticker shock.Monthly insurance premiums for popular plans on HealthCare.gov are rising by 25 percent on average next year, according to government data. But the increases will be more dramatic in certain parts of the country, especially for consumers not receiving subsidies, the numbers show.
Nowhere has been harder hit than Arizona. Take somebody living in Phoenix, where the cost of the premium for a benchmark plan is growing by a whopping 145 percent to $507 a month in 2017 when compared to this year, according to an analysis by the Kaiser Family Foundation, which tracks how premiums are changing in some major cities.
In Birmingham, Ala., health care premiums for a similar plan are climbing by 71 percent next year to $492 a month. And in Oklahoma City they are growing by 67 percent.
Oh, and don't forget that $5K deductible so many of us have.
This is a wonderful way to keep people from getting the health care their doctors order for them. Just make it so pricey that they -- like me -- still have health care; it just becomes really overpriced catastrophic care only, because they can't afford to use it except if they're near death.
Ahhhh! Health care.
If you like your life, you can keep your . . . .
Well.
Maybe not.
Wfjag at November 1, 2016 10:27 PM
With premiums at over $12,000 per year and a deductible of $8,000 I found it cheaper to pay the Obamacare "tax."
charles at November 2, 2016 12:57 AM
$3000 in premiums for our employer-provided care, $8000 deductible, THEN it'll cover 80%. Of most things.
I'd vote for Satan if he said he'd repeal the ACA.
momof4 at November 2, 2016 5:58 AM
Me too Charles. I also have greater access to doctors and they cost less too.
Ben at November 2, 2016 6:29 AM
"With premiums at over $12,000 per year and a deductible of $8,000 I found it cheaper to pay the Obamacare 'tax.'"
Expect that to be drastically increased in the lame-duck session after the election.
Cousin Dave at November 2, 2016 6:35 AM
The tax is easy enough to avoid, since the IRS hasn't yet been given an effective method of imposing said tax.
Until that's fixed, one simply needs to make sure they have a balance due on April 15. Otherwise, the IRS can keep your refund to pay that tax.
I R A Darth Aggie at November 2, 2016 7:19 AM
"With premiums at over $12,000 per year and a deductible of $8,000 I found it cheaper to pay the Obamacare 'tax.'"
You are in essence self insuring yourself. Try to "pay" the 12k premium to a savings account for emergencies if you can. If you need surgery go to India where you will be treated like a prince for your money. If shit is really really bad just hold out until you can enroll in Obama care next year.
Shtetl G at November 2, 2016 7:30 AM
Calm down everyone. Mark Cuban stayed at a Holiday Inn last night and has it all figured out.
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/mark-cuban-obamacare-worlds-biggest-171528977.html
JFP at November 2, 2016 8:24 AM
They didn't "underprice," they priced according to the size of the mandatory insurance pool they were told to expect. Then, the Obama administration delayed the employer mandate several times, leading to a smaller insurance pool that consisted mostly of people who could not afford insurance or who had pre-existing conditions and were costly to insure.
It's not Trump who doesn't understand how ObamaCare works, it's the Obama administration.
And Cuban's analogy is off. A startup with that many issues is usually starting a brand new industry or off-shoot of an existing industry. Health insurance is not a new industry. And the insurance industry folks selling ObamaCare plans are not neophytes. This should have been a slam-dunk with very few hiccups, done by insurance veterans who were experienced introducing new plans and products into a seasoned industry. Government interference in what should have been a free market exercise created this mess.
Conan the Grammarian at November 2, 2016 9:04 AM
Not to pile on but . . . Blue Cross Blue Shield, Aetna, Humana, UnitedHealthOne, ... are not startups. They've been in the business of health insurance both group and individual for decades. The market for individual health insurance didn't start with Obamacare. It too has existed for decades. Comparing price increases from before Obamacare is entirely valid as well.
Obamacare is unquestionably in a death spiral. Maybe Cuban needs another night at that Holiday Inn.
Ben at November 2, 2016 10:06 AM
It's not Trump who doesn't understand how ObamaCare works, it's the Obama administration.
✔
You know who else doesn't understand Obamacare? Mark Cuban.
Source: https://robschwab.com/how-many-pages-is-obamacare/
I would submit that it is impossible for any single human being to be able to read, understand, retain and then be able to explain what would happen in specific situations.
I also suspect that if someone did actually try that, besides being clinically insane, would find sections that completely contradict other sections. Complexity is like that. There's a reason I have a post-it note with this on it:
Complexity is the enemy of reliability.
I R A Darth Aggie at November 2, 2016 10:12 AM
I R A Darth. Your comment evokes a question I've had for years. People like Obama and Pelosi don't even have time to read this crap. That means that somewhere there is a low-rise office building full of lawyers and assorted bureautrash, often seduced by lobbying scum, who are writing this policy. How could that job be tolerable and wouldn't it make you hate the world? And if just the writing is that complex, interpreting it will be an act of divination.
Canvasback at November 2, 2016 10:31 AM
I R A Darth. Your comment evokes a question I've had for years. People like Obama and Pelosi don't even have time to read this crap. That means that somewhere there is a low-rise office building full of lawyers and assorted bureautrash, often seduced by lobbying scum, who are writing this policy. How could that job be tolerable and wouldn't it make you hate the world? And if just the writing is that complex, interpreting it will be an act of divination.
Canvasback at November 2, 2016 10:31 AM
My experiece as a former member of the military with quite a few years of civil service is that 90 percent of government documents are boiler plate, ten percent of the rest was written by a few select and not necessarily literate bureaucrats, which was then cut and pasted by a large army of semi literate drones.
Internal consistency between various paragraphs is often non existent.
Interpretation requires another large Army of the bottom halves of most of the third tier law schools in the US.
Isab at November 2, 2016 10:49 AM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hV-05TLiiLU
I'm sure Ms. Pelosi can explain it.
Bob in Texas at November 2, 2016 11:37 AM
"Complexity is the enemy of reliability."
But it is the friend of graft and corruption.
Cousin Dave at November 2, 2016 1:17 PM
No, but she and her political allies can exploit it. And that's what really matters, isn't it?
Conan hte Grammarian at November 2, 2016 1:39 PM
No, but she and her political allies can exploit it. And that's what really matters, isn't it?
Conan hte Grammarian at November 2, 2016 1:40 PM
Leave a comment