kff.org/interactive/subsidy-calculator/


I ran a few settings for those in my state:


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If I made 24k a year, I'm paying 1,587 for the silver coverage or about 132 a month or 6.6%ish of my total income.

If I make 100k a year, I can get coverage for about 2.6k. That's about 216 a month or 2.6% of my total income.


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Now if I'm making only 24k, single parent with 2 children...I only pay 480 per year.

Making 100k and having 2 children will cost me 5.7k a year.

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2 parents, 50k, 2 children
3,365k

2 parents, 100k, 2 children
8,407

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2 parents, 50k, 3 children
2,721

2 parents 100k, 3 children
9,500

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Without babies:
2 people, 50k, no children
4,750

2 people, 100k, no children
5,391

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seems a bit regressive for lower income folks but it cleans up a bit as you add children. morale of the story..have more babies.


How does this compare with your cost before ObamaCare? I'm covered through my employer.


For those of you without insurance, do these rates seem affordable? Keep in mind the numbers quoted in my post apply to a silver plan. The bronze plan is a bit cheaper, sometimes not significantly so, and it offers higher deductibles and less coverage. You can get a summary of both if you read the information given to you on that website.

O Canadaaaaaaaa :D

those costs seem very reasonable for health care coverage.

but on principle i'd prefer to go bankrupt if i ever had a health emergency.

I have free healthcare from my company.

It also varies by state.

I have a friend in CA who is doing some very detailed analysis for a group of friends based on total out of pocket, not just the difference in premiums.

I.e. - you need a comparable plan with the same or comparable doctor options and items covered. You then need to look at premiums, co-pays, deductibles, cost-sharing, prescription drug costs, etc.

The idea is to come up with the full real comparison of "life under current employer plan" vs. "life under state exchange based plan".

In her case, she is finding it all depends on the number of visits. Since she has an accident prone child and has more doctor visits, the exchange is working out better than her employer plan. But she is getting different results for different people so she is gathering a larger data set to examine.

So this is going to come directly out of your taxes? Or im guessing you have to sign up.

Rates will continue to go up because they cannot deny for pre-existing conditions which means they will have to pay out more and thus be forced to increase premiums to cover the claims payments.

Just curious if you think not being able to deny those is a good or bad thing Req

Also why would they postpone the corporate participation 1 year but not the individual?

Also do you know that the penalty is going to be for people who still don't buy it?

Pre-existing conditions are not an insurable risk because the risk is 100% that you pay for a condition. Insurance is designed to pay for a certain risk before a condition arises. That'd be akin to not having homeowners insurance, then a tornado comes by and blows down your house, then you go and buy homeowners insurance to rebuild it. In insurane there are:

1. Insurable risks
and
2. Non-Insurable risks

If you already have a condition that is a non-insurable risk.

Nowwwww with that said we need to come up with another solution to that problem. What that solution is I'm not sure but insurance isn't designed or meant to cover non-insurable risks.

It's also not that they are "denied" up front its that they never got insurance in the first place then after they develop some condition they want insurance, which at that point become a non-insurable risk.

Also our health care sucks in America... We are ranked like 27th or 37th somewhere in there in the world yet we by far spend more money than any other country on health care.

In theory, the addition of a bunch of healthy 20-somethings that were previously uninsured (and probably not using the health care system as much) should offset some of that cost.

Some people might opt to pay the fine the first year, since it's pretty minor the first year, but it goes up a lot in year 2, so I'd imagine most everyone with the means to pay in year 2 will have insurance.

Only time will tell if your theory is right :p

True. As I said "in theory...."

There's a great video out there done by John Green (who does a lot of different YouTube videos and is also a well-known author) that discusses all the reasons our health care sucks.

He brings up a lot of different aspects of why we pay more to get less and I think it's worth a watch.

The one thing that's really good about it is he doesn't just oversimplify things and talk about ONE topic. He brings up that there are a lot of things that need to be fixed and he actually has cited figures that tell where a lot of our waste goes.

bonus

Yeah its a complex issue indeed. Lot of moving parts. Link to the vid your talking about? I can't be bothered to search it...

The funny part is this bill does nothig to actually lower the overall cost of healthcare, it just subsidizes the sky high prices we pay on the backs of the middle class that were promised wouldnt see a penny of tax increases.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qSjGouBmo0M

There's a link. It's over 7 minutes long though, just to warn you.

Ohhh yeah ive saw some of that guys vids before. I'll watch it in a bit, time to read the kids a bed time book :p

Nice lotta points in that video. One thing he forgot to mention is the cost of education to even become a doctor. That might have something to do with what they make.

for me it costs more than the coverage I have and what I have is better

yup, you spend twice as much as Norway per person. Norway, thanks to oil, is the richest country in the world. And uses that excess cash to provide free education, health care etc and the rest of the money it adds up into an investment fund - the worlds largest.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-24049876

How the US can spend twice as much per person and get worse coverage is mind boggling.

obamacare...the nail in the coffin.

One of Jimmy Kimmel's now famous segments with the stupidity of the man/woman on the street...

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...care-prank_n_4022424.html

to quote obama's catch phrase from the first election "its time for a change"

HAHA!

It should in theory cost more for most people on here because of the ratings system that says no premium can be more than 3x as much based on age/tobacco use/etc (it's 3x as much for age and 1.5x as much for tobacco use). The rating rules didn't exist before so on average it was something approaching 6x as much for someone right at retirement versus a 20-30something. Making it 3x as much meant the premium expense could only go one way, which is down the chart. Hence why the rates are much higher for young people than they otherwise would have been.

Could a big part of the problem be that it's one big scam?

Without insurance my wife could have gotten a D&C for about $3,300.
With insurance, our OOP expenses totaled ~$2700 and the total bill was over $8k.

HMMMM

A Fox news article that SUPPORTS Obamacare:

http://www.foxnews.com/...-reason-why-theyre-gonna/

I think hell just froze over.

I'm 42 and my wife is 60. We have no children living at home. We had a plan that was most comparable to the new "bronze".. an HSA plan because I believe health insurance should only cover things you can't cover on your own.. Otherwise you're just stupidly paying an insurance company's markup on your minor health expenses, but I'm getting off the point here..

Prior to the "Affordable" Care Act, my monthly premium was $161.00 and my wife's was $272.00. We had individual yearly out of pocket maximums of $5000.00, $10,000 for our family. We liked our plan. We hoped we could keep it. That's what the President promised everyone, right?

Well technically yes, but you can only keep your plan if you're willing to pay through the nose for it. We just got notices from our insurance company a couple weeks ago regarding how the "Affordable" Care Act will impact our plans.

My monthly premium will increase to $290.62. My wife's will increase to $595.27. Our yearly out of pocket maximum for the two of us is increasing to $12,500.

Seems pretty steep, but I'm not being fair.. I'm not telling you all the benefits we'll gain now that the Federal Govt is forcing my big mean insurance company to provide essential coverage to all...

We get:

Maternity Coverage! Now that is something I and my 60 year old wife can really make use of!!!! I sure am glad we can't drop that!

and...

Chemical Dependency Coverage! Finally! I can pursue my lifelong dream of trying heroin, without worrying about the consequences! THANK YOU FEDS!!!

Those benefits are definitely worth the $5424.00 we'll be paying in extra premiums next year, and the potential extra $2500 out of pocket medical expenses we'll have to pay if God forbid we ever actually need to use our health insurance.

Supertodd, the insurance company is BSing you. There is nothing in the plan that is making them charge you more for what you already have. This is them just using it as an excuse to raise your premiums. My insurance plan from working isn't changing at all next year.

I'm generally pro-ACA, but even if it's the insurance company BSing Supertodd, it's a negative effect of Obamacare that needs to be addressed in some way if possible. I'd suggest shopping around to see if other plans are cheaper.

I just wish they'd stop fluffing about repeal/defund and actually introduce reforms to the holes within Obamacare that exist. There are plenty of things that can be done to try to keep costs down beyond just enlarging the pool of insured payers.

In order to get a 'bronze plan' I would have to pay 231 dollars per month. For a single 26 year old non-smoker, that is very high. Forcing healthy young people to sign up and pay outrageous rates is the only way this thing works, they are needed to subsidize those with pre-existing conditions, etc.

Goofy, that is a ridiculous statement. You honestly think there is nothing in Obamacare that forces insurance companies to raise premiums?

He's referring to "essential health benefits" that individual plans must meet. If his plans don't meet it then he can still keep the plan, but he would be subject to the fine ($95 for an individual or 1% of his/her income, whichever is higher in 2014--climbs for three years too). It sounds like he has a hybrid catastrophic/health care plan with high deductibles. The point of such a plan is for the individual to cover his smaller costs like primary care or prescription drugs and for the insurance company to be there if something horrible happens--auto accident, cancer, etc. So yes, it's very possible that this did happen.

One of the key components of Obamacare is adjusted community ratings. It's fancy jargon for rules that set caps on the difference in premium price caps. The item he's referring to is called essential health benefits (things are in there like preventative care, pallative care, etc that many high deductible plans did not previously include).

The theory was supposed to be that by increase the size of the risk pool that you will subsequently lower premiums. But really for this to work you need huge buy-in from the younger populations because they are healthy and paying in without taking out (the exception is pregnant women, but even OB services are far cheaper than most inpatient surgeries). Part of the extension to 26 years old is a theory that your'e taking it far enough out post-graduate that these kids will have jobs and thus will buy new insurance (when they graduate with no jobs, they're very unlikely to carry insurance).

Anyway, the long and short of it is that Supertodd's scenario is not only possible, but likely for folks in that situation.

don't care what it costs. I'm not buying it. going to spend the money building up a stockpile of empty beer bottles that i can throw at the Storm Troopers when they come and try to collect it.

Dibs you'll die of liver failure long before that.

think that might be a myth. you have to take the aspirin or acetaminophen after drinking the booze to trigger liver failure.

besides from what i remember being told, i was born jaundiced.

What are you comparing this too that leads you to call it outrageous?

26 is the first age you are no longer covered under your parent's plans. Depending on your income and other situations there are multiple tax credits available that you can claim on your return or take as a deduction against your premiums. Finally, if you are in good health you can also choose catastrophic coverage which has a lower premium but is still better than having no health coverage at all.

I am comparing it to my current plan and what I believe others my age would be willing to pay. I do not know anyone without insurance that would be willing to pay 231 a month rather than pay the 95 dollar penalty.

If you have a current plan that is less expensive then this doesn't apply to you???

Private health insurance for a single person purchasing alone is often quite expensive (varies by state).

If $231 is too much, there are about a million exemptions:

https://www.healthcare.gov/exemptions/

The first $95 isn't due until April 2015, but is a reasonable option if you insist on no coverage and also don't want/qualify for the catastrophic plan.

Remember, part of this is to stop freeloaders who run around with no insurance and then expect the rest of us to pay for their healthcare when they show up in the emergency room. That is why it is called the individual shared responsibility payment.

https://www.healthcare.gov/...-health-coverage-in-2014/

No, it does not apply to me I am just saying that the price is still not affordable. I am aware of the tax credits and subsidies, the 231 figure includes that. If the law requires the young and healthy to sign up, it will fail. Regarding free loaders, correct me if I'm wrong here, but with the inability to discriminate based on pre-existing conditions is there not now an incentive to pay the penalty while you are healthy and then sign up for insurance once diagnosed with an illness that is going to require medical help?

For the first year, perhaps, but the penalty jumps dramatically after that.

The penalty remains far, far lower than the cost of the cheapest plan even when it reaches its maximum.

Next year expect those figures to double. Then go up more the year after. The gov will be using lube with slow steady penetration rate. The fine will go up every year too.

It does nothing to stop those people who have no insurance from going to the emergency room and getting care. Obama care made a big point of "illegals" won't be allowed to purchase insurance through Obama care... yet, if they go to the emergency room they will be covered just like they are now. There will still be 30M people uninsured in America. If you chose not to get the insurance and pay the $95 fine but end up in a car accident, you can sign up at the hospital and be covered. No pre existing conditions... this is nothing more than government stepping in where they are not needed or wanted so that they can gain more power by creating more dependency on government.

so is senate and congress going to use this plan?

like what I said above, what I have is cheaper and better, my premium is less and out of pocket expense is less too. I am self employed and can feel the shaft going deeper and deeper.

But with health insurance being mandatory they also get a lot of healthy new customers as well. They'll make out just fine.
solution: Single-payer health care.

Blid maybe but you dont know tye cost of claims yet... can't rule it out. Plus what about the ppl who still dont buy and pay the low fee?