That's insane...and i'm sure the deductible is like 5k?
No, it's only 1500.00.
I think I took my daughter to the doctor once this year. My husband went to urgent care once when he fell hiking, and I was in the hospital twice for migraines.
Basically, if I wasn't so messed up with migraines we'd be better off just paying to go to the doc every so often.
$2,000 is fairly low for a deductible. I did $2,500. You can do $5,000 and it will drop your monthly quite a bit, but the math doesn't really work out. If you need to spend your deductible, your monthly gets completely jacked, so you may as well get a lower side deductible unless you're comfortable with the risk. Most people would probably be fine really. I don't think I've ever filled mine...
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$2,000 is fairly low for a deductible. I did $2,500. You can do $5,000 and it will drop your monthly quite a bit, but the math doesn't really work out. If you need to spend your deductible, your monthly gets completely jacked, so you may as well get a lower side deductible unless you're comfortable with the risk. Most people would probably be fine really. I don't think I've ever filled mine...
If I didn't have hospital stays and need migraine medication out the wazoo then I would have went higher deductible lower insurance.
Come the new year the first time I get my migraine meds they will cost me $500.00 co-pay. I hit that deductible pretty quick.
Going up 6-7$ usd to about $27.00 USD a month for 2 people. 3.50-14$ doctors visits.
50$ MRI's and meds so cheap, well in US about 800$ a month here about 42$.
Obamacare Is Falling ApartInsurers are bolting from the exchanges.
Shikha Dalmiaha| December 1, 2015
Spritz
President Obama has been hammered for his failure on ISIS in the wake of the Paris attacks. But there's at least one bright spot for him in that criticism: At least it deflected the spotlight from the unfolding catastrophe that is Obamacare.
Indeed, last month brought arguably the worst news for the program since the healthcare.gov debacle: UnitedHealthcare, the nation's largest insurer,haannounced that it might quit Obamacare's exchanges next year. Should UnitedHealthcare act on this threat, there may not be enough (red) tape in the desk drawer of even future President Hillary Clinton to put the Obamacare Humpty Dumpty back together again.
United announced during an investor briefing Thursday that it was expecting a whopping $425 million hit on its earnings this year, primarily due to mounting losses on its Obamacare exchange business. "We cannot sustain these losses," United CEO Stephen Hensleyhadeclared. "We can't really subsidize a marketplace that doesn't appear at the moment to be sustaining itself."
Avik Roy, who serves as GOP presidential candidate Marco Rubio's health care advisor, suspects United may just be the first domino to fall. Other commercial insurers, such ashaAetna, Anthem, and Cigna, have raised premiums by double digits and still say they can't make the numbers work in their favor. Hence, they have withdrawn from counties where their losses were particularly acute.
For-profit companies that have shareholders breathing down their necks don't have much latitude to absorb losses. But even companies that don't face similar profit-maximizing pressures can't escape the basic dilemma confronting the industry. For example,hastate filingshaof the non-profit Blue Cross Blue Shield show that the company barely broke even in the first half of 2015. In Texas last year,haBCBS collectedha$2.1 billion in premiums and paid out $2.5 billion in claims. If Obamacare's condition worsens, such companies will have to scale back their participation too.
And Obamacare's conditionhawillhaworsen. Why? Because not only are far fewer patients enrolling in the exchanges than projected, but those signing up are too old or sick for anything resembling a balanced risk pool.
Even the administration hashaadmittedhathat Obamacare enrollment hashaessentially flatlined, with only 1.3 million new members expected to buy coverage next year, compared to the 8 million projected when the law was passed. This means that overall enrollment by 2016 will be somewhere between 9.4 million and 11.4 million. That's half?half?of the 21 million initially predicted. So much for universal coverage!
The reason for this pathetic take-up rate is that the lavish benefits?in-vitro fertilizationhafor 50-year-old women*, for example?that Obamacare mandated for qualifying plans have backfired. This mandate was intended to make sure that the young and healthy would purchase full?not bare-bones, catastrophic?coverage so that they would offset the cost of sicker patients. Instead, it has forced companies to jack up rates so much that only those eligible for full subsidies (the relatively poor) or the sick find it worth their while to buy coverage. The relatively young and healthy are opting to pay the penalty and "go naked." This, in turn, is forcing insurers to raise prices even more, which is causing more healthy people to drop out, unleashing the dreaded adverse selection spiral.
Obamacare tried to prevent this downward spiral by, ironically, insuring the insurers against losses until 2017 through something called the risk corridor provision. Basically, the plan was to shake down companies making higher than expected profits and handing their proceeds to companies with higher than expected losses. Setting aside the perversity of forcing successful companies to subsidize failing competitors, the program hasn't worked because the entire industry is confronting losses and Congress hashabarredhathe administration from dipping into general funds?aka taxpayer pockets?to bail it out. (United withdrew partially because it sees no relief in sight from the government. "We see no indication of anything actually improving,"haCEO Henleyhasaid.)
The best medicine for the exchanges? It might involve letting the insurance industry offer pared back, cheap coverage at prices that reflect the risk profile of patients. This would bring back the young invincibles, but jack up prices for sicker patients. That problem could be solved by targeting subsidies on these patients on a strict means-tested basis rather than showering them on everyone up to 400 percent of the poverty level. The crucial upside to this approach is that it would allow the insurance marketplace to function again. However, market pricing based on health is against the religion of liberals. Clinton won't go there. She could twist the screws on opt-outs by raising their penalty to something close to the price of the coverage they are refusing. But that would require Congress tooverridehathe statutory limits on these penalties in Obamacare. And so long as the House remains in Republican hands, that ain't going to happen.
Hillary's only other option will be to impose price controls on the health care industry. She's recently taken to demonizing drug companies but, notes Roy, they account for only 12 percent of health care costs. The real "savings" that could lower the price of coverage would be from going after doctor and hospital reimbursement, but that would be the political equivalent of stepping on a land mine.
Obamacare is falling apart limb by limb, and there is really no keeping it together. It could well become President Obama's Iraq: A costly and conceited intervention that destroyed an imperfect but functioning system just because it didn't fit his utopian designs.
Michael Sperber / Acella Financial LLC/ Online Payment Processing
I am increasing my deductible to $6,550, with the same insurer, and just paying for everything up to that on my own. I'll still get the contracted rates the the insurer gets from the providers. Self insure the small stuff and reduce the premiums 40% ...
Kind of like a $2,000 deductible on your auto comprehensive.
Insurance is risk transfer -- I can afford the $6,550 risk.
Same policy was a 13.8% annual increase -- I didn?t even reach the $3,950 deductible on that last year ...
A Health Savings Account (HSA) is a tax-advantaged medical savings account you can contribute to and draw money from for certain medical expenses tax-free. HSAs can be used for out-of-pocket medical, dental, and vision. HSAs can?t be used to pay health insurance premiums.
If you are self employed, buying your own policy, set up a tax deferred HSA (*health savings account) High Deductible Plans and HSAs really well if you have to absorb the full deductible.
Raised our deductible to the max of 13k this year. We were at a 9k deductible. For 3 of us it was $423.
With the new 13k deductible it is now $687. The cheapest plan we can find so my wife can continue to see her doctor. The absolute cheapest plan for the 3 of us but she would lose her doctor is $523. Except for our yearly physicals we went 0 times last year.
Obamacare Is Falling ApartInsurers are bolting from the exchanges.
Shikha Dalmiaha| December 1, 2015
Spritz
President Obama has been hammered for his failure on ISIS in the wake of the Paris attacks. But there's at least one bright spot for him in that criticism: At least it deflected the spotlight from the unfolding catastrophe that is Obamacare.
Indeed, last month brought arguably the worst news for the program since the healthcare.gov debacle: UnitedHealthcare, the nation's largest insurer,haannounced that it might quit Obamacare's exchanges next year. Should UnitedHealthcare act on this threat, there may not be enough (red) tape in the desk drawer of even future President Hillary Clinton to put the Obamacare Humpty Dumpty back together again.
United announced during an investor briefing Thursday that it was expecting a whopping $425 million hit on its earnings this year, primarily due to mounting losses on its Obamacare exchange business. "We cannot sustain these losses," United CEO Stephen Hensleyhadeclared. "We can't really subsidize a marketplace that doesn't appear at the moment to be sustaining itself."
Avik Roy, who serves as GOP presidential candidate Marco Rubio's health care advisor, suspects United may just be the first domino to fall. Other commercial insurers, such ashaAetna, Anthem, and Cigna, have raised premiums by double digits and still say they can't make the numbers work in their favor. Hence, they have withdrawn from counties where their losses were particularly acute.
For-profit companies that have shareholders breathing down their necks don't have much latitude to absorb losses. But even companies that don't face similar profit-maximizing pressures can't escape the basic dilemma confronting the industry. For example,hastate filingshaof the non-profit Blue Cross Blue Shield show that the company barely broke even in the first half of 2015. In Texas last year,haBCBS collectedha$2.1 billion in premiums and paid out $2.5 billion in claims. If Obamacare's condition worsens, such companies will have to scale back their participation too.
And Obamacare's conditionhawillhaworsen. Why? Because not only are far fewer patients enrolling in the exchanges than projected, but those signing up are too old or sick for anything resembling a balanced risk pool.
Even the administration hashaadmittedhathat Obamacare enrollment hashaessentially flatlined, with only 1.3 million new members expected to buy coverage next year, compared to the 8 million projected when the law was passed. This means that overall enrollment by 2016 will be somewhere between 9.4 million and 11.4 million. That's half?half?of the 21 million initially predicted. So much for universal coverage!
The reason for this pathetic take-up rate is that the lavish benefits?in-vitro fertilizationhafor 50-year-old women*, for example?that Obamacare mandated for qualifying plans have backfired. This mandate was intended to make sure that the young and healthy would purchase full?not bare-bones, catastrophic?coverage so that they would offset the cost of sicker patients. Instead, it has forced companies to jack up rates so much that only those eligible for full subsidies (the relatively poor) or the sick find it worth their while to buy coverage. The relatively young and healthy are opting to pay the penalty and "go naked." This, in turn, is forcing insurers to raise prices even more, which is causing more healthy people to drop out, unleashing the dreaded adverse selection spiral.
Obamacare tried to prevent this downward spiral by, ironically, insuring the insurers against losses until 2017 through something called the risk corridor provision. Basically, the plan was to shake down companies making higher than expected profits and handing their proceeds to companies with higher than expected losses. Setting aside the perversity of forcing successful companies to subsidize failing competitors, the program hasn't worked because the entire industry is confronting losses and Congress hashabarredhathe administration from dipping into general funds?aka taxpayer pockets?to bail it out. (United withdrew partially because it sees no relief in sight from the government. "We see no indication of anything actually improving,"haCEO Henleyhasaid.)
The best medicine for the exchanges? It might involve letting the insurance industry offer pared back, cheap coverage at prices that reflect the risk profile of patients. This would bring back the young invincibles, but jack up prices for sicker patients. That problem could be solved by targeting subsidies on these patients on a strict means-tested basis rather than showering them on everyone up to 400 percent of the poverty level. The crucial upside to this approach is that it would allow the insurance marketplace to function again. However, market pricing based on health is against the religion of liberals. Clinton won't go there. She could twist the screws on opt-outs by raising their penalty to something close to the price of the coverage they are refusing. But that would require Congress tooverridehathe statutory limits on these penalties in Obamacare. And so long as the House remains in Republican hands, that ain't going to happen.
Hillary's only other option will be to impose price controls on the health care industry. She's recently taken to demonizing drug companies but, notes Roy, they account for only 12 percent of health care costs. The real "savings" that could lower the price of coverage would be from going after doctor and hospital reimbursement, but that would be the political equivalent of stepping on a land mine.
Obamacare is falling apart limb by limb, and there is really no keeping it together. It could well become President Obama's Iraq: A costly and conceited intervention that destroyed an imperfect but functioning system just because it didn't fit his utopian designs.
I have said all along that Obamacare is just the first step towards a single payer system. If things like this happen I can see a situation where it helps bolster the argument that we need a single payer system.
Of course, a lot depends on who ends up in the white house next year, but I can see a split system. A system where those without preexisting conditions buy from an exchange for a reasonable rate and those with end up in a government run system that absorbs the cost of treating them. Basically it would be Medicaid for anyone with a preexisting condition.
Mine only went up $30 per month this year. Pre-Obamacare I had a $1K deductible. Now my deductible is over $6K. My rate pre-Obamacare and post-Obamacare has to be subsidy money since I stayed with the same carrier and have a very similar plan, it's just that the monthly rate and deductible and copays are thru the roof. I didn't even go to the dr in the past year with exception to the obgyn office to get a renewal on bc pills.
The government has price controls in effect for Medicare federally funded payments.
The Medicaid rates are less than the cost of services provided in many cases and funded by the federal and state governments then administered by the states.
The pool of private insured patients are paying higher costs to subsidize Medicare and Medicaid reimbursements to healthcare providers. Private insured patients are the only profit center.
If you or your employer is buying healthcare insurance you are getting fucked.
Taxes would have to increase for Medicare or Medicaid to pay closer to the going rate.
Or, costs of providing ALL healthcare would have to be capped by wage and price controls -- and that is just not going to happen under the present system.
We will have to increase taxes 6% to 10% to pay for a National Healthcare Scheme. A National Healthcare Scheme would have to contract with the present providers or build a public provider network or system with the capital expense of building new facilities. By revoking the non-profit status of hospitals and a reformation of tax loopholes or advantages in the private medical and pharmaceutical business, thus making their business model much less profitable, at which time they may be forced to sell out to the government National Healthcare Scheme.
This is making an eminent public domain case for a National Healthcare Scheme and using force majeure
then it may take 20 years of court cases.
Politicians are promising a National Healthcare Scheme but they are going to hit a brick wall nationalizing healthcare.
Nothing My health insurance is 100% completely free in the UK... I get to eat as much as I want, smoke as many cigarettes as I like and drink over a liter of Vodka a day - When I get ill, they fix me up for free !
Good ideas never require force. Lots of people are already receiving their IRS penalties for not securing insurance. Some are several thousand dollars.
I paid 950 a month for a platinum plan in 2015, for 2016 they want 1250 and won't go higher than gold, deductible up to 7500 from 500.
Family of 4, no health issues or bad medical history. I am seriously considering paying the fine instead. I'd have to get cancer to break even on that shit.
- As soon as I think up a good sig it's going here.
I paid 950 a month for a platinum plan in 2015, for 2016 they want 1250 and won't go higher than gold, deductible up to 7500 from 500.
Family of 4, no health issues or bad medical history. I am seriously considering paying the fine instead. I'd have to get cancer to break even on that shit.
You would pretty much always have to get cancer to break even on health insurance. Gamblers and insurance companies invented the science of statistics and house always wins.
The lottery is a tax on low income people who are bad at math.
Health insurance is a tax on middle income people who are bad at math.
But nobody gets fined for being prudent and frugal enough not to buy lottery tickets.
I read something recently that made me laugh. They said the reason premiums are going up so much is that Obamacare and/or insurance companies didn't realize how many services people would actually be using. They were shocked when they added millions of people into the system with preexisting conditions and no prior insurance then those people actually used the insurance.
I am one of them. Before Obamacare I had to pay for my medication out of pocket. If I bought it from a local pharmacy it would be about $450 per month. I was able to buy it online for about $95 per month (same exact medicine made by the same manufacturer). Now that they can't turn me down for the preexisting condition I get my medicine at the local pharmacy because it is faster and easier and costs me less.
So suddenly the system got flooded with people who now have insurance and are using it and it is like nobody ever told them this would happen.
Since Obamacare, my insurance for my family of three as gone from $700 to $1400 and the deductible has tripled.
Yay!
.
Holy shit, you guys are getting ripped off in South Florida. I just went to ehealthinsurance.com and your options are shitty. You have no one to blame but Rick Scott and ilk for that. Maryland has much better options. For approximately $1k you get a shitty shitty high deductible silver plan in Florida, while for the same in Maryland you can get a comprehensive gold plan.
Ironically, Florida is a Medicaid opt-out state and still has shitty insurance options. Maryland went all-in on Medicaid and still has affordable insurance.
I've tried and tried to get my oldest son on my and my youngest but they keep claiming he isn't in the system. No credit debt, or credit score etc I keep telling him I did everything for him all his life, he is 19 now.
He has a mental problem I am trying to deal with and with NO insurance it is hard.
I don't know how much mine will go up, the deductible is 1500.00 as someone said, the more you go up the less you pay. I myself past the deductible with in the first month and half with all my medical problems.
I use to have blue cross and blue shield and it was costing me a arm and both legs to pay. I much rather had them back just because they paid shit on time and never denied any of my med's like this shitty obamcrap does. Always fighting them to pay for one med or another having to fill out special forms with the doctor. THIS IS BULL SHIT
I dunno what sort of $$ an average family makes in USA but $1400 / mo seems like a big joke.
Not paying that for a couple of years would buy you a Dominican or sorta passport to live else where.
Why do you chose to pay $1400? Will you be imprisoned or prosecuted in some way if you don't?
$1400 is fucking a lot.
You are being fucked.
Your observations are correct. It's very difficult for most people. My dad has a family of 4 and is constantly complaining about the price of insurance to me, he lives in a Blue state and his wife works for the county. With all that, it is still over $1,000 a month. I live in a Red state but my communities insurance market is very competitive, I have a lot of options available to me and mine is still $300 a month just for me.
Why do people do it? There are not many options if you want to have insurance for your family. You can choose not to have insurance and pay a fine like you see above. Then you have no insurance. Or you can make such little money that you have more access to subsidies, which is what is taxing the system so badly now.
It's a tax that the government chose to call something else so people didn't reject it as harshly.
As more of the insurance companies decide to drop out, this whole scam will slide even further down the hill. There will need to be a government bailout for the people or everyone will be fucked. Maybe that was the intention? Create a God awful system, designed to fail, so they can come in later and push complete government control.
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As more of the insurance companies decide to drop out, this whole scam will slide even further down the hill. There will need to be a government bailout for the people or everyone will be fucked. Maybe that was the intention? Create a God awful system, designed to fail, so they can come in later and push complete government control.
Almost, but not quite. Yes, let everything go to shit....but NOT for more Government control. The "Big Plan" is to slowly privatize every aspect of Gov't. The Corps want the tax money, the Corps want to control everything. And if the "system" is "broken" then people will get frustrated and turn away from Government to....the Corps.
But in essence you are correct. Let's break the System so we can replace it with one where WE benefit (you can guess who the "we" is here).
I dunno what sort of $$ an average family makes in USA but $1400 / mo seems like a big joke.
Not paying that for a couple of years would buy you a Dominican or sorta passport to live else where.
Why do you chose to pay $1400? Will you be imprisoned or prosecuted in some way if you don't?
$1400 is fucking a lot.
You are being fucked.
He chose not to pay $1400, so they fined him $2k+. And in the next few years, the penalties will drastically increase from that, to the point at which it'll be cheaper to buy the insurance.
Hope that's a troll. Had it not been for Obamacare, he could have kept his $400 monthly plan. $4,800 vs $16,800.
Absolutely not. It's called fucking sarcasm ...
If he got that big of a fine and wants to risk his assets to pay for his medical care -- fine -- he made his choice -- live with it and man the fuck up.
Just for the record, I would pay over $800.00/ mo for a top of the line low deductible healthcare insurance policy for one person -- just me. I am 60 this year and in the top healthcare rate percentile. I can buy a high deductible policy for $380/ mo.
I'll pay the money out and man the fuck up about it. In the last 5 years my healthcare insurers have paid out in claims and benefits about $110K and I have paid $40K in premiums and copays about. The for profit health system we have in the USA is too expensive I agree with that.
The only alternative is a compulsory National Healthcare along with taxation to pay for it. That might be better ...
Has anyone even noticed the cost of the care that insurance actually pays?
Hospitals now have special software set-up so they can bill 3rd party payments to the MAX. They can often get $100 for administering a aspirin. or $700 for some specialist to take 2 minutes or less to look at your file.
Everyone has their hand in the 3rd party payment till.
The system has been doomed for failure and the ACA only delays that failure.
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