Health Care Hurts

Most people who aren’t in the individual market, which is the one most affected by ACA, have no idea what the plans look like. It is a market where the costs of the bill’s mandates are more visible, even when subsidized. When I cite exorbitant deductibles, folks tell me to suck it up and pay $3,000. I laugh at a $3,000 deductible. What in the old system was considered a very high deductible is now among the lower available, and premiums for any kind of deductible are high, even with subsidies. Many families have to hit $12,700, and they’re paying a mortgage-sized premium. For many, the purchase becomes hard to justify or supplants an actual mortgage or similar outlays…

My family may be the trade-off that was worth it for you to implement ACA. And I’m actually fine with you thinking that, as long as you don’t pretend we and the rest of the people like us don’t exist. We’re probably never going to stop arguing about this, but arguing responsibly and empathetically is better.
By coincidence, I just today worked out next year's health care insurance -- since I'm losing last year's plan again this year, and yet again need a new one. This one has premiums of only a thousand dollars a month more than my pre-ACA plan, for roughly similar coverage except that the out of pocket max is now around ten grand a year.

Good times, good times. I love to see these Democratic politicians cheering and celebrating on TV. It lets me know how much people like me matter to them.

7 comments:

raven said...

Came across this gem recently. Describes democrat policies perfectly.

"The real destroyer of the liberties of the people is he who spreads among them bounties, donations and benefits."

Plutarch

Assistant Village Idiot said...

Thank you Plutarch, via Raven.

I was talking with friends who have $6K deductible and are paying $30K/year who said something similar. "I don't mind help other people. I just don't like to see Democrats so happy that they are taking our money."

Anonymous said...

I bailed. I now have a non-ACA mutual-assurance plan. It costs less than a quarter of my pre-ACA plan and about half my ACA plans (both of which were cancelled). Mine is a cafeteria sort of thing, and has an age cap and a total claims cap (over three million dollars). But it does what I need and has a $2500 deductible. I can live with it. I'm very, very fortunate my insurance man found it, and that I qualified for it.

I liked my pre-ACA coverage, but I'd opted out of the obstetrics side, and so the plan "did not meet the new Federal guidelines."

Agree with the thoughts above. I'd rather give my money to the local community clinics to help people than have it processed through the federal government.

LittleRed1

raven said...

We caved and took the subsidy. Only way to afford a "plan", and the damned thing is just , essentially, a catastrophic policy. With a $ 350 a month premium (our payment) and a 6000 buck a year deductible.
Now of course we have to watch our income like a hawk, because if we go over the cliff, we need to come up with 12K more. Fortunately we don't have small debt, so a small cash flow works OK. So the net effect is to have a self imposed limit on what a small biz makes.

This hits the ones who need an individual plan, and make between $65,000 and $250,000 a year hardest- ie, they don't qualify for the dole and they don't make enough to make it irrelevant. Small (tiny) biz owners are the worst hit, I think. This is also my customers demographic, and I think it is translating to lower sales all over- most people have a hard time coming up with another one or two thousand a month, to pay for an imposed expenditure.- and that leaves a much smaller pie for all other expenditures. In our case, it would have meant using ALL our income after other normal bills just to meet the premium, leaving nothing to pay deductibles.

After this I will never vote for another democrat, regardless of any other qualifier. That bridge got burnt. They are determined to destroy the middle class white guy and replace them with a sea of poorly educated people with hands out.

Here is the real rub, which they ( the dole recipients) don't and won't ever realize- If their only value to the state is as a vote, they better damned well hope the state does not revert to authoritarian rule- because if it does, the state does not need their vote anymore and they just turned into a liability instead of an asset. What is going on in Venezuela right now is a real time illustration of that.

IMO, stay healthy as you can. It is the only real defense against the health care fiasco.

raven said...

An extremely interesting dissection-

http://www.investors.com/politics/policy-analysis/obamacare-fines-nailed-the-working-class-in-2017-and-other-unpopular-truths/

particularly the part where the average of the 4 million fines was $708. And the minimum mandated fine was $695, or 2.5% of taxable income. Looks like those fines slammed the low earners hardest, you know, the ones this POS legislation was supposed to help.

Texan99 said...

1322 counties will be single-payer in 2018. Forty counties will be zero-payer: no exchange policies available there of any kind. Thank Heaven for the mutual-assistance non-compliant policies.

I sure know how M.K. Hamm feels trying to persuade people she's not making this up. That's one aspect of the ACA I didn't see coming: that nearly all the damage would fall on the 3% or so of the market that depended on individual policies. People who don't happen to know anyone in the individual market tend not to believe this is happening to them. Politicians don't much care about losing the votes of that 3%. If the ACA ever were really implemented in the broader market, it might be different. What I'd love to see more than anything else is sticking Congress and its staff with the treatment that the individual market gets.

douglas said...

Everyone in the individual market needs to take the chance and walk. We did. The problem right now is that it's not dying fast enough. The long, slow death is just making things worse, and prolonging the exposure window. IF everyone starts to walk (even if it's only 3% of the market, obviously it's a needed 3% to make things work), then things will have to change because it will then affect more, and more powerful, people/groups.