Obamacare is worthless

Politics and religion
1

Just finally got in to Healthcare.gov. $500/month with a $14,000 annual deductible for a family of 2. Are you kidding me? This is what all the fighting was about? Worthless. Healthcare costs are absolutely bankrupting this country. Is this a joke?

Without a public option, getting individual health insurance is now mandated and costing us twice as much as before. How can we claim to be such a great country with such a terrible system? I’m outraged. It feels like a giant scam has been pulled on us.

2

We’re currently paying $1,157 / month for health insurance for 2 people for Blue Cross / Blue Shield. Or rather, my wife’s employer is paying that much. Deductible is $500 / person, which is of course considerably less than $14,000, but not $600 / month less.

It’s not Obamacare. It’s our healthcare costs, period.

EDIT: To which I would add, “the ACA also clearly doesn’t go nearly far enough.” Doing something about rescission and excluding pre-existing conditions is a start, but just a start.

3

You are not alone in that.

4

Another thing… with health insurance costs so high, it absolutely kills innovation and entrepreneurship. Health care costs are so high it’s prohibitive to form a startup or go out on your own without insane returns. You become a slave to your employer, which flies in the face of all of the big talk from any politician about job creation and small business. It’s really a serious problem. I cannot afford to give anyone health insurance, which makes them not want to work for me and stick with a large, slow, stagnant company. It’s depressing. I want to help people out but just can’t afford it.

5

Is that number your calculator number? How far did you get into the application process to pull that quote? I went through the “Gold” plans available in my state and i already have the best Gold plan available, and it’s quoted at the same price i’m paying now (it’s basically the same plan from the same provider)… so, hard to see the point here.

6

There’s a lot of truth to this. Our employment-based health insurance system is fundamentally flawed in this regard.

7

Worthless? Are you sure? 1.2 million people don’t agree.

8

RichVR…got some metrics on that? How much are those 1.2 million people paying? What’s the ROI? Unmitigated disaster.

9

This is so stupid.

You don’t HAVE to use healthcare.gov. You’re aware of that, right?

You can go get yourself private insurance at the same price you were paying before if you like, as long as it meets minimum coverage standards. Then you can compare the prices. $500/month for an individual policy covering two people at the mandated coverage levels a pretty low premium.

10

Oh, and we’re paying less than you, for more coverage.

11

This I agree with. I hope it’s a first step on a long and winding process of reform that results in single payer coverage.

12

For a family of two 40-year old non-smokers living in Marin, County California earning $1.5m yearly, they’ll pay $7,924 annually for “silver” level coverage purchased through the exchanges, according to this:

In McLean, VA, you’d be paying $6,260 at that income level, silver coverage.

The deductible for silver coverage is much, much lower than $14k.

13

Triggercut, I call bullshit on that. Wait, what?. 1.5 million annually? Who earns that? That’s a huge outlier.

And you call $8000 a year a good deal? In what world are you living in?

14

It’s an odd figure to choose, I agree, but that’s not a reason to call bullshit. The calculator he linked is for subsidies, which reduce the cost if your income is low. Obviously $1.5m is way above the level where subsidies kick in.

He quotes a couple of figures, and I don’t doubt they are accurate. While I currently have insurance, I wanted to check on the figure you quoted originally, and I got figures in the same ballpark when I looked around. I can’t use my home states of Massachusetts because that sends you to the MA page, which won’t tell you figures unless you’re actually applying.

$8000 a year is a lot less than I’m paying. So I guess it sounds like a good deal to me, in that sense. I think it sucks in the grand scheme of things, but I’m not comparing it to what I think health care should cost me, I’m comparing it to what it does cost me.

15

Our system, shone in the light, is a joke and embarrassment compared to every civilized country in the world. It’s sickening how much it costs to remain healthy and raise children. Just an ugly, ugly thing. It makes me embarrassed and ashamed to be American, frankly.

16

You don’t need to take my word for it, use the calculator yourself.

Wait, what?. 1.5 million annually? Who earns that? That’s a huge outlier.

Exactly. I don’t know many, if any people who earns that. I deliberately checked an outrageous, non-subsidize-able income to see what the highest rate I could pull would be.

And you call $8000 a year a good deal? In what world are you living in?

It’s about $660/monthly, or $330 individually. For Marin County, California, where the median housing price is $875,000 and the median household wage is about $155k.

And, of course, it varies by locale. If you’re a family of two school teachers living in my old midwestern hometown of St. Charles and making $65000 yearly combined income (which ain’t much), you’re paying $465 monthly–or 232 monthly–for silver coverage.

By comparison:

When I had full health coverage through my employer, I paid a payroll deduction–just for myself, a non-smoker–of $39 weekly. That’s $160 coming out of my pocket monthly for good health insurance that’s employer-subsidized.

When I went on COBRA for six months, I was paying $288 monthly, out of pocket.

Last year I began an individual policy which was absolutely horrid for which I paid $275/monthly for coverage that was likely to leave me begging in the streets should I have ever needed overnight hospitalization. I knew when I bought the policy it was bad, and would be abolished by the ACA.

I am now signed up on Healthcare.gov here in Virginia. I will not be subsidized in any way. I’ll pay $284 monthly, and my extra $9 per month gets me an actual deductible I can survive, along with actual benefits like reasonable copays and prescription drugs.

I honestly don’t think you knew what individual health insurance policies (ones that offer real coverage) cost out in the private market. I’d be paying $700 monthly or more for this coverage before Obamacare.

17

A Silver Plan (no deductible) was quoted at ~$250/month for a single 40 year old in my county.

Is that a lot? I guess it’s a lot compared to $0 for no insurance. Then again, I pay about $250/month for my internet, TV, and cell phone. What’s more valuable?

18

Sadly, that’s very inexpensive, especially with no deductible.

The ACA isn’t going to fix the exhorbitant price of healthcare in the US overnight or by itself…but it is better than just watching the costs go up and up and up.

I hope that it ends up edging to single payer and forcing our healthcare companies into competition where they have to actually offer pricing that makes sense.

19

How is ACA going to fix the price of healthcare at all? It increases demand and does nothing to increase the supply of health care. Non rhetorical question: When has that kind of recipe ever lowered the costs on anything? Best case scenario its going to eventually force rationing and eventually the horrible single payers system which, as we can see by the examples in Europe, will not lower costs (tax increases) and will not increase supply, which leads to more rationing.

You say single payer would force healthcare companies into competition… but how? And if you truly believe competition in the industry would lower costs, why not push to remove the barrier on selling insurance across state lines?

20

carltonbauheimer - You mean the European systems which are half and less the costs? Yea. Incidentally, the UK isn’t the model you should be looking at. Try…say…the Netherlands.

Also, rationing? Oh, you mean the poor will get some healthcare. Same type of “rationing” as the UK had during WWII, where poorer kids finally got a decent diet (and yes, the very rich could still buy more if they wanted)