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Do you know a large reason why premiums and deductibles hiked ? What I read, and I did read this online and haven't had the time to look for primary sources so

Do you know a large reason why premiums and deductibles hiked ? What I read, and I did read this online and haven't had the time to look for primary sources so please take with a grain of salt, but worth looking into is this: pre-existing condition check was a major risk to the insurance industry since nobody knew how much it was going to cost them. So the ACA told insurance companies we'll subsidize some of your costs until things settle down (this is different than subsidizing people's payments). However when it came time for the gov to pay, Republicans blocked most of the subsidy payments to health insurance companies (I think they only received 12% of the expected amount). And then because insurance companies didn't get that subsidy they obviously passed the cost onto consumers. And I'm sure whatever subsidy was further promised by the Gov they could no longer rely on so they priced that risk in as well.

rtpg 10y ago
an important sidenote to this: the taxes for the subsidy payments didn't disappear. The republicans could have used money earmarked for this exact purpose and instead decided that the government should keep the money. They chose that health care costs should rise and taxes should stay up. And despite all of that, health care cost growth still dropped
timr 10y ago
Moreover, health care costs have been rising for everyone in the same way over the same time period. I was paying for a small group plan (for my startup) for the last few years, and the per-employee cost was within a few dollars of identical to the equivalent-coverage ACA plans in California. Crazy, right? The GP comment is just another example of how there's a ton of uninformed anger on this issue. People are spitting mad because they're realizing that health care is becoming really expensive, and they think the ACA is to blame because they heard about the ACA last. The amount of actual understanding approaches zero, because few people pay for their own healthcare in the USA. I kind of want the GOP to just burn everything down and expose everyone to the full pain of this absurd system (in true, "free market" fashion). We'll have a political revolution overnight.
- kobeya 10y ago
  ACA had impacts on employer plans as well. It is not crazy to suggest that the excessive rise in health care costs across the board is due to the ACA in large part, even if your plan is employer sponsored.
  - timr 10y ago
    It's not a completely ridiculous theory, but it's pretty crazy. The data is clear that premiums are being driven by cost increases across the board. Moreover, employer plans are in completely different risk pools than individual plans. The only place they meet is in the insurer's balance sheet - they charge enough on all plans to cover their payouts plus the (regulated) profit margin. You can argue that cost increases are due to all of those previously uninsured sick people who are now insured and costing the rest of us money, but that's both wrong (costs have been going up faster than inflation for decades), and a pretty awful worldview.

rtpg 10y ago

an important sidenote to this: the taxes for the subsidy payments didn't disappear. The republicans could have used money earmarked for this exact purpose and instead decided that the government should keep the money. They chose that health care costs should rise and taxes should stay up. And despite all of that, health care cost growth still dropped

timr 10y ago

Moreover, health care costs have been rising for everyone in the same way over the same time period. I was paying for a small group plan (for my startup) for the last few years, and the per-employee cost was within a few dollars of identical to the equivalent-coverage ACA plans in California. Crazy, right? The GP comment is just another example of how there's a ton of uninformed anger on this issue. People are spitting mad because they're realizing that health care is becoming really expensive, and they think the ACA is to blame because they heard about the ACA last. The amount of actual understanding approaches zero, because few people pay for their own healthcare in the USA. I kind of want the GOP to just burn everything down and expose everyone to the full pain of this absurd system (in true, "free market" fashion). We'll have a political revolution overnight.

kobeya 10y ago
ACA had impacts on employer plans as well. It is not crazy to suggest that the excessive rise in health care costs across the board is due to the ACA in large part, even if your plan is employer sponsored.
- timr 10y ago
  It's not a completely ridiculous theory, but it's pretty crazy. The data is clear that premiums are being driven by cost increases across the board. Moreover, employer plans are in completely different risk pools than individual plans. The only place they meet is in the insurer's balance sheet - they charge enough on all plans to cover their payouts plus the (regulated) profit margin. You can argue that cost increases are due to all of those previously uninsured sick people who are now insured and costing the rest of us money, but that's both wrong (costs have been going up faster than inflation for decades), and a pretty awful worldview.