Sticker shock

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Steinhauer

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Shelly Ross of San Francisco was looking forward to the opening of the new health insurance marketplaces under the Affordable Care Act because she was hoping to get a better deal.

But now that she's seen her options, Ross is disappointed. Turns out she earns slightly too much money to qualify for federal financial aid to help her buy coverage in the state's exchange, called Covered California. And because policies have to be upgraded to comply with the new law, her rates are going up nearly 10 percent.

"Every plan is going to cost more than what I pay now. And what I pay now is ridiculous," said Ross, 47, who owns a cat-sitting business called Tales of the Kitty and pays more than $400 a month for her insurance. "It's a great thing for some people, but it's certainly not helping me."

Ross is among the millions of Americans who buy coverage on their own, but must find new coverage because the health law has rendered their current policies outdated. But Ross, like many others, is not finding the plans sold through the Affordable Care Act to be particularly affordable.

Covered California, which opened Tuesday, was set up to help more than 5 million Californians who are eligible for the exchange because they are uninsured or they buy health insurance on their own.

Federal tax credits are available to help offset the cost of coverage purchased in the new marketplace, but more than half of the consumers it serves won't qualify.

"It's a horribly complex and ill-designed system that's going to be good for some people - mostly people with lower incomes - but for a lot of people, it's not going to be good for them," said Jeff Sher, a San Francisco health insurance agent who supports universal coverage but believes the law doesn't go far enough to help consumers and curb costs.

Aside from a prohibition on denying coverage to people with pre-existing medical conditions beginning Jan. 1, the health law also requires policies sold next year to cover a minimum number of benefits. And that can add to the cost of premiums.

These include such mandated benefits as maternity and newborn care, substance abuse treatment, and dental and vision coverage for children.

For John Lonergan, of San Francisco, those changes mean his current Kaiser individual plan will no longer be available to him. And if he wants a similar Kaiser policy, those added benefits will bump his costs 39 percent higher, from $625 a month to $931 in 2014.

Lonergan, 63, managing director of a venture capital firm for medical devices, is considerably outside the income range for subsidies, so his options include paying the increase or finding a policy with higher out-of-pocket costs in exchange for lower monthly premiums.

"I'm not complaining and I understand, but every mandate you put in place has a cost," he said. "Even if it's prenatal coverage, which I do support."

Health insurance experts anticipated the rate jump.

"People who had plans before Obamacare will certainly see some increases in those rates because of those essential benefits that are now required," said Brian Mast, spokesman for eHealth in Mountain View, the largest online health insurance broker in the country.

But Mast said the changes will allow many people who have been locked out of coverage because of their health backgrounds the chance to finally get insurance.

"It's definitely going to be beneficial for all those people who have been waiting, and these are going to be the people who enroll first," he said.

Getting covered

The enrollment period to buy individual health insurance continues through March 31, 2014. But coverage must be purchased by Dec. 15 to be in place by Jan. 1.

To contact the state's health exchange, Covered California, visit CoveredCA.com or call (800) 300-1506. Insurance may also be purchased through an agent or broker licensed by the Department of Insurance.


Health insurance shoppers suffer sticker shock - SFGate


You can see the reactions yourself at the official Facebook page:

https://www.facebook.com/Healthcare.gov
 
For low-income participants, these costs will be cushioned by massive federal subsidies, but, reports the Manhattan Institute, “most people will not receive enough in subsidies to counteract the degree to which Obamacare drives premiums upward.” That also means middle-class Americans will face the double-whammy of higher premiums and potentially higher taxes to cover the subsidies.

Obamacare sticker shock | The Detroit News
 
EDITORIAL: Obamacare sticker shock | Las Vegas Review-Journal

“It didn’t even show me Gold (plan). Probably figure I’d have a heart attack right there.” It did show the bronze plan, at a cost of about $750 per month — along with a whopping $5,000 deductible and out-of-pocket expenses of 40 percent.


And regardless of whether you need an individual plan or a family plan, even with a subsidy, you are looking at a huge increase in premiums and out-of-pocket expenses, with stringent limits on care.
 
The launch of Obamacare has been a complete and total nightmare so far. The “online exchanges” are constantly crashing, there are endless glitches and delays, and many of the people that actually have been able to successfully register for an account are discovering that health insurance premiums under Obamacare are far higher than what they are used to paying. In fact, as I wrote about the other day, some Americans that have had their old policies canceled by their insurance companies are discovering that their health insurance costs will double or even triple under Obamacare. What a great “success”, eh? Under Obamacare, Americans are going to pay more for health care, they are going to have more limited health care options, they are going to be subjected to much more paperwork, and if they choose not to participate in the system they are going to be hit with very punitive fines. What’s not to like?


21 Of The Best Comments Posted By Frustrated Americans On The Official Obamacare Facebook Page |
 
If all of this is true, well, Obama must drop it and start all over because nobody will buy non-affordable insurance through Affordable Care Act. That's ****ing crazy. I hope Obama will agree with House Republicans to delay Obamacare so Congress will open our govt ASAP. I am sure he's embarrassed right now.
 
Trust the Republicans to whine about making too much money for receiving charity while wanting to deny it to others who need it.
 
Except this isn't a charity ... this is a law. If you do not pay for health insurance, you are breaking the law. It does not matter that the ACA just drove up premiums.

twist it any way you want to - you are mad at Republicans for blocking something that is devastating to the country's economy (something you thought was going to be free).
 
I can't speak for anyone else but I've always known you'd have to pay for it. When they were talking about opening exchanges to buy insurance and qualifying for subsidies based on income, yep when you start talking about buying something I don't think free. Maybe that's just me? If you income would be so low that you'd have 100% subsidy you'd qualify for medicaid and wouldn't be buying anything. It's not rocket science.

Btw I played around on the kaiser calculator just for shits and giggles. Preface this with I live in SC, a state with one of the highest uninsured rates because insurance is so expensive here. Just glancing at some tables it looks like I'd be able to get insurance on the exchange for almost 50-100 less a month in Texas than in SC whoo hoo one more reason to move.

Anyway so I plugged in my my age, my kids and my income from last year (40K) and after subsidies I'd pay roughly 215/month. If I were to make 30K my premiums would be 104/month. The amount of the premium for a silver plan for us was 6255. I wouldn't completely lose a subsidy til I hit 67K a year. Even if I did lose it premiums would be 521/month. For SC that's not shabby.

To put that in perspective. A few years ago I worked for a condo rental agency that offered insurance. My premiums for a comprehensive plan for a family of for would have been over 1000 a month. My exhusband was offered insurance, that was quoted at like 900 per month. A couple years ago, after my hearing loss in my good ear dropped into profound, my sister was talking to me about a CI and insurance. She works for Aetna and wanted to try to help me find some insurance, so she started looking. Came back to me with, OMG those rates are high. The cheapest comprehensive package we could find was for over 600 a month.

Tell me more about high premiums are now. Because the cheapest plan I could find at all last year was 200 a month and it covered nothing but hospitalizations. That was it. That 6255, with no subsidies is still cheaper than either of the plans we were offered at work or what I could find on my own.

Oh and ALSO the last time we did have insurance was in NH. Premiums through my exhusband's work, insurance is cheaper in NH than SC btw, were 250 per pay period, or $500/ month. So looks like I'll still be able to get insurance for half of what we paid last time we had insurance.

No I don't care what people I don't know have to say about it. I take it with a grain of salt. I believe my own damn experience, and Angel has told us her husbands work is dropping the insurance they have now, getting other stuff AND it's cheaper. I believe people I know, and I believe my own experiences.
 
Insurance companies provide zero health care. The medical system provides health care.
The insurance companies provide paper. Lots of paper. A lot of that paper is money. Some of it is from me. They take paper from me and use it to buy politicians to make sure that I cannot have affordable health care even if I do have insurance, which I do because I give them paper I cannot really afford to give them in the first place.

Makes sense to me. They are thieves.
 
Before the minimum wage increase, my company provided health insurance to all employees. It was costing me (I was single then) $60 a month. I had to co-pay, **I think** $50 per visit. It did not cover emergency ambulance rides to the hospital ($500 out of pocket).

After the minimum wage increase, the company (which had minimum wage employees) laid off employees and cut benefits and hours. This was across the board. In other words, it was not just my company that did this. Home Depot, Publix, Kroger, etc.

So, I had no health insurance, but I kept vision and dental. Dental costs me $18 a month, vision costs me $15 a month (keeping fingers crossed it stays this way).

Well ... it started bothering me that I had my health insurance benefits cut. So, I decided to venture out and see what I could find on my own. And let me tell you ... it got outrageously expensive, real, real quick.

So .. BOTH political parties are correct when it comes to this ... health insurance companies were FLEECING people. I got an estimate for $650 just for me, being single. (have you ever checked to see how much those .50 cent IV bags are charged to a patient?)

There was no way I could afford that. Keep in mind that there were all across the board cuts in labor (most people forget this) as a result of corporations having to spend more money each hour for each employee they had. That adds up, and it drove prices up.

I am not kidding ... this is terrifying me. I have a newborn. I have financial obligations to my family.

So, I was out pounding the pavement looking for a second job today, and came to find out that the new FULL TIME is 32 hours a week. And guess what? Nobody is hiring full time. So I may need 3 jobs.

I really, really, really want to be around and watch my son grow up and not always be at work.

That is all.
 
Insurance companies provide zero health care. The medical system provides health care.
The insurance companies provide paper. Lots of paper. A lot of that paper is money. Some of it is from me. They take paper from me and use it to buy politicians to make sure that I cannot have affordable health care even if I do have insurance, which I do because I give them paper I cannot really afford to give them in the first place.

Makes sense to me. They are thieves.

You are absolutely correct, health insurance is not health care and shouldn't be confused. I posted a link a few months back that details everything that is wrong with health insurance. It's a wicked long read I'll try to find it anyway and post it again. I think they guy had a brilliant solution. It would take a long time to implement, like decades, but it would be a real solution. Too bad it would never happen.

Now I can't say I'm ecstatic about the ACA but it a step doing something about it.


Grrr I can't copy and paste the web address with my phone. I'll have to go upstairs to my laptop and edited it in.

Okay when I say this is a long read I'm not kidding. But it's very interesting, stick it out because he doesn't get to the solutions part of til towards the end.
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2009/09/how-american-health-care-killed-my-father/307617/
 
If all of this is true, well, Obama must drop it and start all over because nobody will buy non-affordable insurance through Affordable Care Act. That's ****ing crazy. I hope Obama will agree with House Republicans to delay Obamacare so Congress will open our govt ASAP. I am sure he's embarrassed right now.

ACA isn't fully executed yet and you don't know about success and fail with ACA after years of running. Just give ACA more years and healthcare cost may go down, as we get more insurance coverage from healthy people. The insurance needs a lot of healthy people to survive. If ACA is impractical so single payer insurance option may be next.

There is positive and negative about ACA.

I support ACA because change in my Medicare and help me to save money.
 
Before the minimum wage increase, my company provided health insurance to all employees. It was costing me (I was single then) $60 a month. I had to co-pay, **I think** $50 per visit. It did not cover emergency ambulance rides to the hospital ($500 out of pocket).

After the minimum wage increase, the company (which had minimum wage employees) laid off employees and cut benefits and hours. This was across the board. In other words, it was not just my company that did this. Home Depot, Publix, Kroger, etc.

So, I had no health insurance, but I kept vision and dental. Dental costs me $18 a month, vision costs me $15 a month (keeping fingers crossed it stays this way).

Well ... it started bothering me that I had my health insurance benefits cut. So, I decided to venture out and see what I could find on my own. And let me tell you ... it got outrageously expensive, real, real quick.

So .. BOTH political parties are correct when it comes to this ... health insurance companies were FLEECING people. I got an estimate for $650 just for me, being single. (have you ever checked to see how much those .50 cent IV bags are charged to a patient?)

There was no way I could afford that. Keep in mind that there were all across the board cuts in labor (most people forget this) as a result of corporations having to spend more money each hour for each employee they had. That adds up, and it drove prices up.

I am not kidding ... this is terrifying me. I have a newborn. I have financial obligations to my family.

So, I was out pounding the pavement looking for a second job today, and came to find out that the new FULL TIME is 32 hours a week. And guess what? Nobody is hiring full time. So I may need 3 jobs.

I really, really, really want to be around and watch my son grow up and not always be at work.

That is all.

32 hours has qualified as full time for forever, that's not new. Okay I don't know about forever, but I worked for Mobil for '99-06 and 32 hours was full time and eligible for health insurance benefits, which were crap even back then, vacation pay etc etc.
 
32 hours has qualified as full time for forever, that's not new. Okay I don't know about forever, but I worked for Mobil for '99-06 and 32 hours was full time and eligible for health insurance benefits, which were crap even back then, vacation pay etc etc.

It was 40 here. Now, 32, and on the horizon, 27. Funny how that works - when minimum wage increased, take home was less for everyone else and prices went up. Now, there is talk about another increase to $9.00 an hour.

Before I left for college, I was a sub contractor (home remodeling/construction) and I worked about 60 hours a week. Those kinds of jobs are long, long gone. No one can pay a single employee for 60 hours today (unless it is under the table, or it is to an illegal laborer at far below the minimum wage). E-verify, in my State, was an attempt to put an end to what has happened to the construction trade/skilled labor market (topic for another thread I suppose).

But yeah, f/t meant 40 hours a week. Time and a half was after 40 hrs. So, with having so many cuts in the private sector, and the government running out of money, and now, they are turning to the private sector to 'bail them out" ... dude. Overwhelming.

Reminds me of the story about boiling a frog. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boiling_frog
 
At Walmart - more than 32 is full time and less than 32 is part time.

They usually limit the overtime, you can work 40 hours, that it, but more than 40 hours so they will send you to home to knock the overtime off.
 
At Walmart - more than 32 is full time and less than 32 is part time.

They usually limit the overtime, you can work 40 hours, that it, but more than 40 hours so they will send you to home to knock the overtime off.

Foxrac, that is what I am trying to explain.

Hours are being cut ... you are taking less money home. Nationally, people are making less $$$ even though it "appears" that raising the minimum wage will allow people to make more $$$ (it doesn't).

All the talk about greedy capitalist corporations will never change this. You cannot draw blood out of a stone.

Let me try and explain it mathematically. Suppose a grocery store has 20 employees. Suppose 10 of those employees are making minimum wage. Before the minimum wage increase, f/t was 40 hours. 1 minimum wage employee makes $41.20 per day. $41.20 x 10 employees = $412 daily for payroll for each of these employees, in one 40 hour week it is $2,060.

Suppose the other employees have seniority and have gotten raises and they are getting $9.00 per hour. In one week, the payroll for them is $3,600. So the total payroll for the week for all 20 employees is $5660.

Now, the minimum wage increases to $7.25, so you have 10 employees who automatically get a pay raise, while 10 other store employees do not. The payroll jumps to $6,500 weekly. This is an increase of $3,360 per month and $40,320 per year.

You might think that a big grocery chain could afford to do this ... but they cannot. That $40,320 they are having to pay additionally per year ??? that was what was being set aside for employee benefit packages. So, the grocery store has to cut benefits (not because they are evil, not because they are mean, but because they want to survive in a competitive market).

However, every single other corporation out there has to make the same changes. they are suddenly having to pay more for hourly labor, so ... to save money, they cut hours and benefits and charge more for their goods and services.

With having hours and benefits cut, and prices going up, people spend less money. Spending less money further increases more cuts in labor ...

Recession ...
 
Foxrac, that is what I am trying to explain.

Hours are being cut ... you are taking less money home. Nationally, people are making less $$$ even though it "appears" that raising the minimum wage will allow people to make more $$$ (it doesn't).

All the talk about greedy capitalist corporations will never change this. You cannot draw blood out of a stone.

Except stones don't have multimillionaire CEOs and stockholders.
If adjusted fir inflation the median income today is less than it was in the 80s. I'm having a hard time working up sympathy for those stones.
 
Except stones don't have multimillionaire CEOs and stockholders.
If adjusted fir inflation the median income today is less than it was in the 80s. I'm having a hard time working up sympathy for those stones.

I am not talking about the multimillionaire CEO and stockholders. I am talking about good ol fashioned mom and pop businesses being driven into the ground via over-regulation.

You remember those don't you? Mom and Pop restaurants owned by a family? Family owned businesses?

What the hell happened?
 
I am dropping back to read Ambrosia's article but I do want to mention that... We are now competing with people overseas who as factory workers make a wide variety of low wages mostly a long ways south of a dollar an hour.
Value added jobs and goods are important to making a balanced economy function successfully.
There has always,, always been the possibility of cheep labor overseas taking our jobs. When Great Britain had Free Trade back in the early 1900's the result was the emigration of most of that country's skilled workforce. It was a disaster that still effects how that country operates.

Why would a country such as ours embark, knowingly, on a disastrous journey into economic destruction? Because it has allowed business to run the country. Business as business does not care about country. It does not care about human beings except as to how they can be used. Treason is as treason does. Business leaders have had a blast selling out America. Now they are pointing fingers everywhere but at themselves.

Placing profit before country is a choice. They made that choice as firmly and relentlessly as they could.

So in a way you could say Dad and his buddies are rich now but damn what happened at home?
 
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