Posted on 11/07/2023 5:51:37 AM PST by Mr. Mojo
Nearly 3 in 5 people who purchase individual health plans find it at least somewhat difficult to afford care, according to a new Commonwealth Fund survey.
Put another way, insurance under the Affordable Care Act is anything but affordable.
That's no surprise. Democrats have spent billions subsidizing coverage through the exchanges without doing anything to address the structural reasons why the cost of insurance has surged. Their approach is making insurers rich — at the expense of taxpayers and patients. In 2013, the year before Obamacare went into effect, the average monthly premium in the individual market was $244. By 2019, it was $558.
Next year, the average lowest-cost plan premium on the exchanges will be $479 a month. Democrats know that's not exactly affordable. So they've used taxpayer dollars to mask the true cost of exchange coverage. Federal subsidies for insurance premiums amount to $91 billion this year. More than 9 in 10 exchange enrollees receive subsidies. That amounts to a multibillion-dollar transfer from your wallet to insurance companies. It only adds to the handsome profits insurers have made, and will continue to make, off of Obamacare.
With taxpayers picking up an ever-greater share of premiums, consumers are relatively insensitive to premium hikes. So insurers have little problem raising rates. Indeed, next year's average lowest-cost plan premium on the exchanges is 7% higher than this year. The subsidies may insulate against premium hikes, but they do not alleviate the pain associated with high deductibles and narrow provider networks.
This year, the average enrollee with a mid-level silver plan had to meet a deductible of nearly $4,900 . Less generous bronze plans had an average deductible of nearly $7,500. Historically, roughly three-quarters of exchange plans have confined their beneficiaries to narrow provider networks.
Until lawmakers address Obamacare's flaws, insurers will continue profiting off of the individual market's dysfunction. And patients and taxpayers will continue paying the price.
And for all the doubters out there, B. Hussein WAS foreign born. His grandma said he was born in Kenya, his brother said he was born in Kenya, and Obama himself said he was born in Kenya when he went to Harvard, yet when Trump repeats that he's called racist.
Why would his publisher put down that he was born in Kenya unless Obama said he was and requested it be put down? This was no mistake. Imagine you write a book, or booklet and the publisher puts down you were born on Mars? It makes no sense unless YOU demanded it be put down.
I doubt Barack Obama is even his real name. Why would his mother name him after his father when his father skipped town the second he was born?
Like Clinton Eastwood said: "One day we will realize that the Barack Obama presidency was the biggest fraud ever perpetrated on the American people."
Obama in his homeland w/ his Kenyan relatives.
All part of the plan for the government to take over healthcare.
Obamacare was really:
An insurance industry bailout. Before Obamacare profit margins for health insurance companies was in the 1-5% category (close to business failure) after it was 50-100%
Tax on the middle class to subsidize those who didn’t do the right thing.
Expansion of federal government
Gateway to loss of privacy (having records online) while being able to blame Physicians
Software company (health records) bailout for unpopular EMR’s
A healthcare system that was always unaffordable, made no attempts to control costs, so it would fail spectacularly, and ‘socialized medicine’ with more federal control could be done next. It was a step to socialism/communism from the get go.
Dramatically allowed for increased government propaganda and control, by affording a ‘media and advertising budget’ in the billions, which took over other industries independence.
Was a giant lie to the American public, which cost trillions, and never delivered on what was promised.
Yep
Never really had any medical insurance all the years I worked. Couldn’t afford it on what I was paid. I’m doing better on Medicare & an Advantage plan now than I ever did when I was working. All the employer’s “health insurance group plan” ever did was make a poor man poorer. Some companies may have paid it for the employee, but mine never did. They didn’t pay much, nor did they have any retirement plan. And this was a skilled job. And to think some folks urged me to go back to work after I had retired late in life. There wasn’t enough left of me after those working years to enable me to do anything i was skilled at.
this:
“This year, the average enrollee with a mid-level silver plan had to meet a deductible of nearly $4,900 . Less generous bronze plans had an average deductible of nearly $7,500. Historically, roughly three-quarters of exchange plans have confined their beneficiaries to narrow provider networks.”
you have to pay the deductible first b4 the health plan pays anything, and they pay at the medicade rate, which is below even medicare rates..
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