Posted on 01/05/2015 6:36:09 AM PST by grundle
link only:
It’s definitely painful trying to come up with about $12,500 this year to pay for mine.
It’s not presented as an obamacare issue in the headline. Americans are too stupid to piece it together if it’s not in the headline.
Not many families can stand a $12000 deductible. They just won’t go to the doctor. Obama has caused a lot of suffering among the Middle Class with this disastrous change to medical care in this country.
But DeAnn Friedholm, director of health reform for Consumers Union, says she's skeptical when employers point to the ACA. "This isn't new," she says. "Companies have been cutting back on benefits and cutting costs for decades."
Oh, I see. This would have happened anyway.
Several experts say the consumer crunch has less to do with the health system overhaul than stagnant salaries. The average hourly wage is nearly identical to what it was 50 years ago in today's dollars: $19.18 in 1964 compared with $20.67 in 2014
Sooooo... in adjusted dollars, wages have actually ticked up nearly 10%. WTF is this person saying?
Of course it hurts the middle class... that’s one of the primary goals of the legislation.
Before Obamacare our whole family would have paid $400+ a month for insurance, now it costs nearly a $1000 a month for the worst high deductible insurance.
The kicker is that I think though my wife and son remained insured, due to Obamacare penalties I think the WHOLE FAMILY income will still get fined despite my wife's and son's compliance.
So not ONLY do we have 300% increased cost of insurance, but for being married we will possibly get the 1% fine this year and 2% the next. This is where if there was no marriage some of us could get free health care and one would have paid insurance for $400 a month.
Not being married and getting divorced under Obamacare would save my family $8000 which is one hell of a marriage penalty.
My company got rid of the HMO option with no deductible two plan years ago. They individual deductible for the PPO went up $500 a year, a 30% increase, on top of a 30% increase in the premium taken out of my paycheck. The PPO does pay for things like office visits. I hope and pray there is no emergency room visit because I could be looking at four figure payment for that.
Personally, I don’t much care anymore.
I had to go in today for a nuke scan and stress test. Had open heart back on Jan. 20, 2014 and have been having issues lately with angina and dizziness. Cardiologist suggested the tests. If all comes back clean I go to a neurologist to look at my left arm, which has been giving me issues from, I suspect, severe carpal tunnel. Doc says this could be causing issues with angina, etc.
All that said, I expect my portion of the upcoming bill will be the full deductible, 10K - 12K $$.
Like I said, I don’t much care anymore. They will get whatever I can afford to send them each month. $25, $50, whatever.
I’m still paying 50/month on the surgery bills, which is down to about 600.00 now.
Until we get some pols in there that have real balls, not the glass ones that people like Boehner, McConnel, etc., have, we will all be paying through the nose for anything they can get from us.
Y’all have a good day!
I think you have the right to avoid the penalties of Obamacare if you can prove the hardship of your insurance costing more than 8% of your income. I don’t know if that is gross or net, but it should be net.
Obolacare replaced them with "superior" high-premium/high-deductible policies.
Whee!
This deductible crunch is across the board. Even the Medicare Advantage plans now have something like a $6000 deductible - or more. The plans may cost less than they did for some people, so the low information folks liked it: but it was a lot easier for Granny to come up with usually under $100 a month for her coverage (in addition to what is deducted from her SS check for Medicare, btw) than to suddenly have to come up with $6000. And to have to do so every year...
The effect of this on people who pay their own way has been disastrous and will cause a lot of suffering.
To the headline:
That was one of the primary goals.
Great, we have to beg our masters for a reprieve from the lash.
There is a reason that we have a sales tax of about 8.5%, depending where you live, and most European countries have a national VAT of about 22% and up. It is to pay for their ‘free’ healthcare.
Enough to make you want to go off the grid!
Seniors are about to see those pesky “choices” they used to have to make for themselves and loved ones about prolonging life are no longer theirs to make. I’m seeing this happen now in a family situation. The whole atmosphere of our healthcare system has changed from being focused on extending and improving quality of life and choices to being focused solely on cost per unit. The bureaucracy now has the final say, not us.
Seniors will no longer be allowed to take up hospital space or resources for longer than a few days unless they are terminal. It’s treatment, surgery, and transport home. Then you’re on your own. Got to make room for all those healthy, fertile new citizens. Can’t be bogged down with the obsoletes.
The problem is the less expensive, very high deductible “Bronze” plans were created expressly for healthy people (and primarily young, healthy people) who had no chronic conditions. In other words, Bronze plans are essentially catastrophic hospitalization plans, not health care plans, despite a separate catastrophic plan option under Obamacare.
This is a great idea if you have little need for regular health care. If you are 20 years old, and you save $1000 a month with a Bronze plan over a Platinum plan, and three years later break your leg skiing and have to pay a $12,000 deductible, you are still ahead of the game.
The assumption was with the end of pre-existing conditions, patients would move from Bronze to higher coverage plans as needed.
If you are a 50 year old with chronic conditions like high blood pressure and diabetes, needing regular health care visits and regular medication, it was not expected that you would buy a Bronze plan.
However, most people just purchased a plan based on cost alone.
Sadly enough, Obamacare demonstrates the progressives are right and the libertarians are wrong on the subject of most people being able to make informed decisions on their own. Instead, most people vote their wallet based on short-term costs.
But if you limit Bronze policies to only healthy people under age 30, there will be howls of protest from the libertarian right.
Meanwhile, those able-bodied, people now on Medicaid, as a result of the Medicaid expansion, get to go to the doctor when they want.
Almost all of the increased coverage as a result of Obamacare is due to the Medicaid expansion.
Until American society and American politicians realize two fundamental truths: Healthcare is expensive; and health insurance is not the solution to high healthcare costs, nothing will change.
The problem is with the math.
The premium is say $600 per month. The deductible is say $6000 per year - so the real monthly cost is $1100 per month and NOT $600 per month for anyone who reaches their deductible.
I believe the insurance industry says that something like 40% of people actually meet the deductible - however meeting that deductible is usually because of some chronic condition or a surgery event - and the deductible is slammed on you all at once - thus the person ends up with that expense.
The entire process of Obamacare is flawed here. If people were having trouble paying for their insurance premiums what thought process was used to believe that they will be able to pay the premiums PLUS deductible? How are those on subsidies paying the deductible - or do we, the taxpayer get to pay that as well?
We used to have no deductible medical insurance but due to Obamacare that was no longer offered so my company buys insurance with a $1200 deductible but the company pays the deductible! We saved about $1800 per year per employee and even if we pay the deductible for every employee each year we still save money on premiums.
....And the communist plot continues.
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