Posted on 09/24/2015 2:17:48 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
We all remember the promise – President Obama famously told us time and time again that ObamaCare would lower health insurance premiums by $2,500 a year for families. But unless you’re receiving a giant subsidy from the government for your insurance, you’re not paying less in premiums, in fact, for employer sponsored plans, premiums have risen nearly $5,000 since Obama promised to cut them. What about deductibles? They haven’t decreased either. But don’t just take my word for it.
A new survey finds that in 2015 deductibles on employer-provided health plans actually rose by almost nine percent.
According to a new report by the Kaiser Family Foundation and the Health Research & Educational Trust, the increase brings the average deductible that workers must pay for their health insurance plans to $1,077; more than triple what it was a decade ago. As reported in the L.A. Times, “That is seven times faster than wages have risen in the same period.”
Kaiser Family Foundation president Drew Altman said, “It’s a quiet revolution. When deductibles are rising seven times faster than wages … it means that people can’t pay their rent. … They can’t buy their gas. They can’t eat.”
As a comparison, “workers’ wages increased 1.9% between April 2014 and April 2015, according to federal data analyzed by the report’s authors.”
The news is also bad for family plans as, the “average family plan cost workers $4,955, up 3% from last year.”
This is a significant problem for families trying to make ends meet.
Employers’ rising health costs are often singled out as a cause for stagnant wage growth in recent years, as businesses have put money into health benefits that might otherwise have gone to workers’ paychecks.
There is also growing evidence that the steep rise in deductibles and other out-of-pocket expenses such as co-pays are preventing workers from benefiting from the overall slowdown in healthcare cost growth.
Even the left acknowledges that workers are getting the short end of the stick, saying that workers are having the higher premiums and out-of-pocket costs passed on to them from their employers.
Unaffordable deductibles are also emerging as a major issue for health plans being sold on marketplaces created by the Affordable Care Act. The marketplaces, now in their second year, were designed to help people who don’t get health plans through an employer.
Most of the nearly 10 million people in marketplace plans qualify for subsidies to offset their premiums, but deductibles in many plans are thousands of dollars.
Peter Lee, executive director of Covered California, the largest state marketplace in the country told the L.A. Times that “Deductibles are a big problem for consumers.” He’s right. According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, “The average deductible for a silver plan on marketplaces nationwide this year is more than $2,500.”
If you’re already paying a couple of hundred dollars a month for your mandated health insurance and have a large deductible, you could be out nearly $5,000 before your insurance even kicks in. If you couldn’t afford insurance before ObamaCare, this likely isn’t affordable either. At least before ObamaCare, high deductible policies had low monthly costs, and a wise consumer could save the money they weren’t spending on high premiums. But those plans aren’t ACA compliant and are no longer available.
With many companies subject to the upcoming “Cadillac Tax,” in 2018, the health care costs for American workers are likely to continue rising. The promised $2,500 savings is nowhere in sight and this latest survey once again shows that the “Affordable Care Act” has made health insurance more unaffordable than before.
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Kristina Ribali is the Senior Coalitions Director for The Foundation for Government Accountability.
What a surprise!
No...really? That explains the FOUR Bill Pay Accounts I am managing to pay off my deductible. And if my employer didn’t kick in an extra $1,000. I would have had to buy Supplimental Insurance.
Signpost...
SINGLE PAYER AHEAD
So I guess that “$2500 back in your pocket” thing isn’t working out. Barack Hussein Obama in nothing but a liar. Everything he spews is a lie and yet, endless lines of freeloaders line up to lick his feet. This mess isn’t costing them anything.
They were artificially low to help sell the program.
This is ridiculous - its gotta stop.
Yet the GOP won't do a damn thing about it. They wont't even acknowledge that there are millions like me having to deal with these astronomical cost increases.
Wasn’t the KFF totally in the tank for Obamacare?
Kaiser is, at its core, an insurance company, and as an insurance company, they were ASSURED that enormous numbers of new clients will be directed to purchase their coverage.
Interesting that they bought it in the first place. Perhaps there was a little arm-twisting in the back rooms that FORCED the insurance companies to come aboard, and because the acceptance was less than complete by the public, the rates had to be raised to cover the inevitable deficits.
Well unfortunately the GOP doesn’t feel the pain. It’s not their problem until they feel the pain of their constituents. Remember, those in Congress are exempted from that pain.
I got a booklet for my current Medicare Advantage with costs for next year (assuming I keep this plan).
Premium (in addition to the Medicare premium) goes from $0 to $10 per month.
Preferred Doctor reduces from $12 to $6.
Generic prescriptions (in the formulary) increase from $3 to $6.
Prescription deductibles will go from $0 to $175.
Small increases, but like the cable bill, a dollar here and 3-dollars there. It adds up, especially considering that the Social Security increase for next year will be $0.
Vote Republican.
Nothing will change, but you’ll feel better thinking they might have made a difference.
:)
I have an aging friend who is basically unemployable who got the dirt cheapest plan just to avoid the tax...., oops! I meant “penalty.” I asked him what his plan does for him (diabetic) and he replied that it doesn’t do squat without him forking over hundreds of dollars every month.
In other words, these plans are “protection money.”
The GOP does only what their corporate donors ask and feeds its voters BS.
The plan from day one.
It was all LIES
Exactly.
Absolute control!
Trump will roll that back. I would think more folks would buy in, but I guess that’s the nature of this years exercise in denial.
“This is ridiculous - its gotta stop.”
In the meantime, a large number of administrative jobs have opened up in the resulting large hospital systems, and the highest paid people are the growing number of seven figure administrators (there are lots of them - even in the relatively obscure smaller systems).
For the first time in my adult life I have no health insurance because of obamacare. I can’t afford any of the policies anyone offers. I hope I make it to Medicare before I get sick.
Obamacare's main impact is in the individual insurance market and it's a real stretch to blame increased employer pass through costs on the ACA.
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