If You Like Your Health Plan...
We received a letter from Blue Cross / Blue Shield of AZ saying we could keep our plan, but the cost goes from about $579 a month to $739 a month in January of 2015 (a 27.6% increase). Note that this is for a pretty high deductible health plan, something like $5000. We wrote to our broker to explore options. We got this response:
Crazy as this latest BC [Blue Cross] rate increase is it is a lot better than Obamacare. I ran the same plan under the Affordable Care Act with BC and the rate for 1/1/15 would be $963.70 a month and if you went to the $6300 deductible plan the rate would still be $914 a month. So I guess we are all lucky to be out of ACA until we are forced into it. Now there is one variable that could lower your cost and that is if your household income in 2015 will be under $92k you could go into the Marketplace for premium assistance from our wonderful Federal government. If it is going to be higher than that be grateful you are where you are!
As predicted in advance, Obamacare and the exchange are not about saving money. The only people who are saving money are those getting taxpayer subsidies in the exchange.
mogden:
You got off easy! My rate will double when ACA finally drops the hammer. Hopefully it'll continue to be delayed or deferred into the future, as it has been in the past.
December 11, 2014, 4:05 pmmogden:
By the way, only filthy plutocrats complain about this stuff.
December 11, 2014, 4:08 pmIronman:
You might want to explore some of the alternatives to Obamacare:
http://politicalcalculations.blogspot.com/2013/12/how-to-get-real-and-affordable-health.html
There are ways to step around both the bloated coverage of the ACA-compliant plans and the Affordable Care Act's income tax.
December 11, 2014, 4:57 pmSteve Merryman:
I posted a pictorial Obamacare critique today on my blog, it seems appropriate to the subject at hand:
http://www.sigmadog.com/2014/12/11/open-mike-on-obamacare/
December 11, 2014, 5:07 pmbigmaq1980:
Up by over $300/mo here to keep same plan - should go without saying, that is waaaaaaay more than inflation, by an order of magnitude plus.
Same advice received...need to drop income below the cutoff for subsidies...btw, that trigger point is worth about $500/mo!
December 11, 2014, 6:55 pmbigmaq1980:
Thanks for the link...has further links to websites to calculate if you are better off with other insurance (and pay tax penalty), or to go with Obamacare, and to price out common procedures (though it is not clear if those prices are "all in" - i.e. inclusive of other related charges, such as anesthesiologist, hospital fees, etc. - folks are finding this out the hard way when they get bills for "free" procedures under Obamacare - e.g. colonoscopy).
December 11, 2014, 7:05 pmmesaeconoguy:
The legal aspect to Gruber’s idiotic testimony is that Congress may decide that he was deceptive in the approval process (controlled
by leftist Democrats) and that may trigger subsequent Supreme Court review, deciding if they were deceived during that process.
Obviously, the answer is yes, but this deferential Court is more flaccid than a 1980s Cyndi Lauper video.
December 11, 2014, 7:21 pmmogden:
Obama has increased the solidarity between the poor and the middle class by making it impossible to afford to be in the latter.
December 11, 2014, 9:40 pmHenryBowman419:
Well, what are we to do, long-term, about the PPACA? Dr. Keith Smith has an explanation as to why the costs are so high, and what to do about it. More from him here.
December 12, 2014, 7:31 amMNHawk:
"if you went to the $6300 deductible plan the rate would still be $914 a month."
These are the kind of numbers that ruin prospects of an early retirement...unless you leave the country. You literally have to escape America to escape this.
December 12, 2014, 8:32 amskhpcola:
Your insurance person needs to learn how to write with proper punctuation. Reading that paragraph was painful.
December 12, 2014, 8:52 amslocum:
Not necessarily. If you're old enough to draw on your 401K (and have a 401K to draw on), you can tune your annual income to hit the sweet spot with respect to subsidies.
http://thefinancebuff.com/stay-under-obamacare-premium-subsidy-cliff.html
December 12, 2014, 11:06 amMNHawk:
OK. If you don't want to become a welfare recipient.
Let's say everything is paid for, and I might think something along the lines of, I can live on as little as $20,000 per year. Let's do this. Well, those health care quotes are damn near that $20,000 per year, with co-pays.
December 12, 2014, 11:10 ambigmaq1980:
Forgot to mention that 2013 was a similar jump in premiums. So much for the savings (which we now know was a sham argument just to quell opposition).
December 12, 2014, 12:58 pmNehemiah:
Yeah, but just think how much more expensive it would be had Obama not bent the cost curve.
As has been said here and elsewhere, Obamacare was never about controlling costs. It was and is about controlling us.
December 12, 2014, 1:08 pmfrankania:
I pay $29/month for full coverage (zero deductible) with free medicine, labs, etc. It is a Mexican govt. program, but if you establish retiree status here, you can be covered.
December 12, 2014, 3:42 pmAlso, free-enterprise medical & dental care is very cheap (and faster than the bureaucratic program). Most people here don't carry ANY insurance, they just pay for services rendered.....It's called free-enterprise.
irandom419:
I was balancing my checkbook and noticed I hadn't increased my default paycheck amount for years. Then I remembered, that my contribution for healthcare had been absorbing my raises since our plan became compliant.
December 12, 2014, 3:58 pmlorennason:
My wife has insurance through her work. But to add myself and kid would be another 700. Through ACA i can get the super high deductible plan for $250 a month and they want to auto enroll kiddo onto Medical. I'm going to probably take the medical option just because and they signup myself for Liberty Healthshare and probably put him on as well. FYI i get no tax subsidy for my plan.
December 12, 2014, 9:23 pmJoe:
The law bans charging people more for preexisting conditions, so a healthy person must pay more so a sick person can pay less.
Women, who consumer more healthcare resources on average than men cannot be charged more than men for health insurance under this law. So men must pay more so women can pay less.
Obamacare also limits the ratio of premiums between the oldest and youngest people on the plan. Young people must pay more so that can people can pay less.
The law places all sorts of taxes on "the rich" to pay for subsidies for the poor.
No, Obamacare is not about saving money. Obamacare is about wealth redistribution. "From each according to their ability; to each according to their needs" is written all over this law. Directly or indirectly, the government is going to be determining what our needs are and healthcare resources are going to be distributed accordingly. As people leave the healthcare industry because of the burdensome regulations and controls this law puts on the industry we can expect those resources to become more scarce relative to demand over time.
December 14, 2014, 5:56 pm