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Healthcare is still incredibly expensive for freelancers. ACA hasn't lowered costs the way it was intended to, but it has required that people who previously we

Healthcare is still incredibly expensive for freelancers. ACA hasn't lowered costs the way it was intended to, but it has required that people who previously went without insurance (because they couldn't afford it) purchase it. Depending on your political persuasion, this is either because 1) ACA didn't go far enough and was de-fanged before birth or 2) it was a bad idea and we should have gone in a different direction.

Retric 10y ago
Healthcare is getting more expensive faster than inflation. ACA did lower costs when you account for this long term trend. But, not if you compare costs now vs 5 years ago.
- jrs235 10y ago
  ACA addresses healthcare INSURANCE costs, not actual healthcare costs.
  - lotsofpulp 10y ago
    Since the probability that a person will need healthcare and thus utilize their health insurance, is basically 100%, increasing healthcare costs will necessitate increasing health insurance costs. ACA was simply a way to get healthcare costs to be spread out among more people by forcing them into the insurance pool, which was more politically viable than the option where all taxpayers pay for each other's healthcare (taxpayer funded healthcare).
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
  - JamesBarney 10y ago
    The majority of the ACA addresses healthcare insurance costs. But the ACA is a very large piece of legislation and some pieces were intended to reduce healthcare costs.
  - shard972 10y ago
    Then they should have called it the Affordable insurance act.
wutbrodo 10y ago
What the ACA did and was intended to do (as a first order effect) was provide reliable provision of insurance for those not tied to an employer. The pre-Aca system was riven with stories of people with (eg) diabetes losing their jobs under completely ordinary circumstances, and then finding themselves unable to get insurance anywhere. The ACA closed this gap, and most of its most famous provisions are based entirely around this. I don't even necessarily think it's a great law, I just hate misinformation. For young, healthy freelancers it raised costs even relative to trend, because prices had to flatten and accommodate the higher cost folks who would've been excluded due to existing health conditions. But afaict this isn't true in general.
- ghaff 10y ago
  I'm not sure you're even disagreeing with the parent. Personally, I think that pre-existing conditions/inability to be insured as an individual could have been handled in a much less painful and politically fraught way. But the parent is basically complaining that health insurance is still expensive for someone on a limited budget who isn't covered by a company. And it is. Because healthcare is expensive for the population average. (As, for comparable levels of care, it is everywhere even if it's arguably more expensive than it should be in the US for various reasons.)

Retric 10y ago

Healthcare is getting more expensive faster than inflation. ACA did lower costs when you account for this long term trend. But, not if you compare costs now vs 5 years ago.

jrs235 10y ago
ACA addresses healthcare INSURANCE costs, not actual healthcare costs.
- lotsofpulp 10y ago
  Since the probability that a person will need healthcare and thus utilize their health insurance, is basically 100%, increasing healthcare costs will necessitate increasing health insurance costs. ACA was simply a way to get healthcare costs to be spread out among more people by forcing them into the insurance pool, which was more politically viable than the option where all taxpayers pay for each other's healthcare (taxpayer funded healthcare).
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- JamesBarney 10y ago
  The majority of the ACA addresses healthcare insurance costs. But the ACA is a very large piece of legislation and some pieces were intended to reduce healthcare costs.
- shard972 10y ago
  Then they should have called it the Affordable insurance act.

wutbrodo 10y ago

What the ACA did and was intended to do (as a first order effect) was provide reliable provision of insurance for those not tied to an employer. The pre-Aca system was riven with stories of people with (eg) diabetes losing their jobs under completely ordinary circumstances, and then finding themselves unable to get insurance anywhere. The ACA closed this gap, and most of its most famous provisions are based entirely around this. I don't even necessarily think it's a great law, I just hate misinformation. For young, healthy freelancers it raised costs even relative to trend, because prices had to flatten and accommodate the higher cost folks who would've been excluded due to existing health conditions. But afaict this isn't true in general.

ghaff 10y ago
I'm not sure you're even disagreeing with the parent. Personally, I think that pre-existing conditions/inability to be insured as an individual could have been handled in a much less painful and politically fraught way. But the parent is basically complaining that health insurance is still expensive for someone on a limited budget who isn't covered by a company. And it is. Because healthcare is expensive for the population average. (As, for comparable levels of care, it is everywhere even if it's arguably more expensive than it should be in the US for various reasons.)