15 ms·

New Health Law Frustrates Many in Middle Class

34 points by kareemm 13y ago

msandford 13y ago
Anytime there is a strict cutoff rather than a gradual roll-off there will be people who are artificially disadvantaged. That tends to create a substantial income cliff which people have to climb in order to actually benefit from their increased income. If you're a salaried employee it might matter little, but if you're self-employed or a small business owner it's a billboard saying "don't work too much harder unless you're willing to work MUCH harder" to overcome the income cliff. I don't have even a clue as to how many small business owners this will affect, but it seems likely that it will be more than a few hundred thousand. I'd guess millions. It's really unfortunate.
- robrenaud 13y ago
  Can employers/employees work around this stupid cliffing kind regulation with optional deferred compensation? Let's say the cliff is 50k. You earn 55k/year. So you get paid 50k and opt to keep 5k in a deferred compensation stash that gets paid out sometime in the future (maybe when your baseline is sufficiently higher than 50k that's worth it?).
  - twoodfin 13y ago
    Yes, it's apparently possible: http://www.irs.gov/Businesses/Corporations/Nonqualified-Deferred-Compensation-Audit-Techniques-Guide-(02-2005) http://www.irs.gov/Businesses/Corporations/Nonqualified-Defe... Interestingly enough, the employer is required to withhold FICA taxes as soon as the deferral is made, if it's truly guaranteed future income.
- jdlshore 13y ago
  I'm a small business owner. Small business owners were screwed by the previous health care regime. Individual plans are hella expensive. Small group plans are also expensive, and extremely sensitive to the health issues of who you had on staff. Both were going up by double-digit percentages every year. My income is over the subsidy limit, but with careful shopping, I've found a plan (with the same carrier as before) that's substantially cheaper and has better coverage. Of course, when my carrier cancelled my plan, they "recommended" a much more expensive one. If I hadn't shopped around, I would have thought that the ACA was causing my premiums to skyrocket, but the opposite is actually true. Bottom line: don't believe everything you read about the costs of ACA.
rdl 13y ago
New trick I just learned for 2014 (and maybe 2015): you can get 12 month "short term health insurance") for about $50/yr. This isn't great coverage, but does have a $750k lifetime limit, which is probably enough for a single year. Short term insurance is not covered by ACA; it's more like disability insurance in that it's an indemnity. You basically keep the plan for catastrophic insurance, and use it if necessary. If you get sick in 2014 and need more medical care in 2015, you switch in the next open enrollment period to an ACA compatible plan. You have to pay the penalty due to not being covered by an approved plan, but $95 and $695/yr isn't huge compared to the premium increase. (in extremis, you can also engineer a qualifying event for enrollment; if I discovered I had cancer of the soul or something in mid-2014, I'd move states, and as a new resident, be eligible for an ACA Gold plan...or get a job at a bigco, of course.) I'm looking at doing this for 2014; $41/mo vs. $250/mo would be nice, even with a penalty. Extra bonus: if you had an individual plan in 2013 (like I did) which got cancelled due to ACA, you don't have to pay the penalty in 2014, either.
- msandford 13y ago
  This is one of the reasons that I'm not optimistic that AHA will work. It makes gaming the system too tempting. And because it's a national system it's quite likely that as loopholes are found the knowledge will spread and undermine the whole thing. EDIT: And because it's hitting middle to upper middle class folks it seems likely that they'll have the time and knowledge to successfully perform said gaming. All the more reason to build in some kind of gentle transition from full to some to zero help.
  - Casseres 13y ago
    The AHA bill is 1,990 pages long [0]. From what I can tell, there are anywhere between 10,000 and 30,000 pages of regulations. The Tax code had about 400 pages in 1913, about 19500 pages in 1974, and about 74000 pages today. A lot of people complain about tax loopholes. I wonder how long it will take for the AHA regulations to double. There sure is a lot of room for loopholes and exceptions to hide in there. [0] http://docs.house.gov/rules/health/111_ahcaa.pdf http://docs.house.gov/rules/health/111_ahcaa.pdf (3.3 MB)
Jayschwa 13y ago
I bought cheap, catastrophic health insurance during my past year of funemployment. I eventually got a letter that the plan would not be offered in the future because it does not meet all provisions of the Affordable Care Act. Personally, it doesn't matter because I've got insurance through a job again, but it struck me as funny (or sad) that the law was strangling the cheapest plans. I have friends who are basically going without insurance now because the cheap bare-bone plans are drying up.
- gaius 13y ago
  As I understand it, the new plans are expensive because they cover all sorts of things regardless of whether you want them or not. You might never want kids, but that's covered. Also you may not believe in acupuncture or aromatherapy, but they're covered. Of course the real problem is that Obama stood up and said "you can keep your existing plans" and people believed him, and now the chickens are coming home to roost.
  - milesskorpen 13y ago
    You point out some of the ridiculous things they cover, which isn't wrong. However, these plans ALSO don't have lifetime benefit caps, are available whether or not you have pre-existing conditions, and offer (almost always) much better preventive care coverage. I don't think many people realize just how bad the old, cancelled, catastrophic care plans were/are.
    - rbritton 13y ago
      Not all of them were bad. Health insurance varies wildly by state, which is another topic that's being ignored, and we had a reasonable catastrophic plan that covered all preventative care visits with just a small copay.
    - ams6110 13y ago
      There must be some kind of Yogi Berra-ism to describe "how bad" the insurance is that so many people wish they could still buy. Insurance against a condition that already exists is not insurance. Preventive care should not be something you look to insurance to pay for. Do you expect to be insured against your weekly grocery shopping bill? Your utilities? Your rent?
__xtrimsky 13y ago
Quick question, I'm in the same middle class, and am self employed. I'm thinking of not having an insurance at all, and if I get really sick long term, I'll switch to an Obama care insurance. Is this something possible ? (now that they can't check for preexisting conditions). Or will I get screwed somehow. I'm 26 so I went to the doctor maybe twice in 6 years, I only want coverage in case of emergency. PS: I can pay 5000$ out of pocket if needed.
- maxerickson 13y ago
  A new insurance plan won't retroactively cover the costs of some emergency hospitalization. At 26 you should be able to limit your out of pocket to less than $20,000 for a few grand a year, you have to compare that to what it would cost you to declare bankruptcy.
- w1ntermute 13y ago
  > Is this something possible ? (now that they can't check for preexisting conditions). Or will I get screwed somehow. There's a fine for doing this, precisely to stop people from doing what you're suggesting. But I think the fine is so small that it's actually worth doing it (rather than having insurance).
  - __xtrimsky 13y ago
    yes, I think its less than 100$. If I take a plan for me and my wife, the cheapest plan is 660$, which makes it 7920$ a year. I also have a child, but I can take a plan just for her, which would be 280$.
  - bmelton 13y ago
    It's $95, $325 the second, and $695 the third, and for every year after. For what it's worth, the penalties, as currently planned out, are only 'paid' by capturing tax returns. One could effectively, and legally avoid paying those penalties by changing their tax documents such that no returns are expected, or so that they would owe each year. The IRS currently cannot demand payment on those penalties, but if you were due $1000 refund, they can withhold the $95 from it. If, however, you owe $10 in taxes, they cannot make you pay $105, as you might otherwise suspect.
_random_ 13y ago
Can you remind me again, why did you vote for Obama second time?
- camus2 13y ago
  because the other side was a joke,and between 2 evils one should always chose the lesser.
  - moron4hire 13y ago
    How about they don't choose either? I chose to not be involved in a sham of a process that purports to give "two" options.
    - afterburner 13y ago
      Hopefully not too many people follow your example.
      - moron4hire 13y ago
        Neither Mitt Romney or Barack Obama were good choices for President, regardless of their comparison to each other. If more people refused to vote for a bad candidate, then the margin to win would be much smaller. Egads, if people voted for who they actually wanted, rather than vote against who they want the least, then maybe we'd get someone who actually, you know, represents the people! The only reason you can be upset about me not voting against my principles is that I'm not helping your favored candidate over your disfavored candidate.
        afterburner 13y ago
        I disagree that both main candidates were not good. The winning presidential candidate does roughly represent the majority preference of the people. You make it sound like everyone is being disenfranchised. If you support proportional representation, or ranked voting, or some other change, I'd agree to that. If you went around telling everyone that would vote for my preferred candidate to vote for candidate X that has no chance of winning, I might be annoyed if you succeeded. Unless I liked candidate X even more and knew you could succeed with everyone (or a majority anyways); but that's very unlikely.
FrankenPC 13y ago
Well. Under the old regime, my family was paying about $2000 a month for premium blue shield/cross for three. 44, 46, and 17 years old. BUT, my work was subsidizing my insurance so I only paid $800/month. Without subsidy, $1000, in fact, costs the family more. So, my partner and I "split up". We stopped filing a domestic partnership in California and now, I pay 175$ a month. She pays $100 a month. And her son pays nothing (Medical). By breaking up the logical family unit, we saved over $500 a month because my partner makes around $20K a year. I'm not so sure this is working out.
- hga 13y ago
  Yes, people have run the simulations and the ones I read said they could find absolutely no scenario where being married doesn't cost more. Often a LOT more, as you're found out. "I'm not so sure this is working out." Well, that might depend on your objectives. E.g. many can't help but notice that in general married women vote Republican, single Democrat.
  - FrankenPC 13y ago
    What I'm specifically pointing out is that, if my partner is officially married to me, her 20K is added to my salary (let's say 100K for arguments sake) And now, according to the government, we make 120K. We are placed in that 120K married bracket which is NOT a whole lot different that say someone making 80-100K individually. But, if you divide by two: 120 becomes 60K each. Being married in the USA has very little financial advantage.
sxp 13y ago
>The cheapest insurance plan they can find through the new federal marketplace in New Hampshire will cost their family of four about $1,000 a month, 12 percent of their annual income of around $100,000 and more than they have ever paid before. Even more striking, for the Chapmans, is this fact: If they made just a few thousand dollars less a year — below $94,200 — their costs would be cut in half, because a family like theirs could qualify for federal subsidies. Is this accurate? It sounds like bad math on the part of NYT similar to people who believe that make a few hundred dollars more and shifting to a higher marginal tax bracket means less net income. Aren't taxes & subsidies normally structured to avoid these sort of discontinuities?
- toufka 13y ago
  I kinda hesitate to link here, it seems like a pretty non-authoritative site, but it does point out that this law did a bad job of that standard gradation [1]. They wrote in 'cliffs'. Justified in the article ridiculously: >To avoid creating such steep cliffs, federal officials would have had to spend more money on the subsidies, said Larry Levitt, an executive with the Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonprofit research group that is closely following the health care law. Subsidies would have been higher, and could have been more gradually phased out, he said. The design “was largely driven by budgetary decisions,” Mr. Levitt said. [1] http://obamacarecliff.com/Index.html http://obamacarecliff.com/Index.html
  - hga 13y ago
    Don't know about the site, but the Kaiser Family Foundation has been one of the best and most solid sources of info on Obamacare. E.g. see their subsidies calculator: http://kff.org/interactive/subsidy-calculator/ http://kff.org/interactive/subsidy-calculator/
    - toufka 13y ago
      Definitely a much better resource. Kinda weird - I really didn't know how to find such a resource. After the weird link above, I actually spent a good bit of effort digging around. It's not easy. And as others noted as well, it looks like there is a fair bit of a slope to the phase-out of the subsidies, and not an (obvious) cliff.
baldeagle 13y ago
Did anyone do the math here? If a family making 100K pays 12K for insurance, and a family making 94K pays 6K for insurance, that is the exact same amount at the end of the year. Wonder how long they had to search to find this clean of an example. Seems the best solution for the family is to either ask for a raise (all take home profit) or take a sabbatical every year (more time to enjoy life).
- hga 13y ago
  And just how many 100K earning families will think that's "fair"? Sure, this is insult vs. injury, but perceptions count for a lot. And perhaps there's some minimally objective measure of pain in writing checks twice as large, even if the end result is the same....
OldSchool 13y ago
I've never found much to like about policies pitched by any of our leaders left or right, but ObamaCare surprisingly seems to be something that is positive. It may not be much different for single people or those under 30, but if you have a family, keeping them in an acceptable PPO was running $1200-$1500/month (total corporate or individual) - and for individual, that's if you don't get rejected for something as ridiculous as someone having been treated for allergies. Plugging in some numbers on healthcare.gov, I'm seeing comparable PPO's for $700/month and if you play with the numbers you can see that the tax credit drops the plan cost as income drops below 4x the poverty level, so for example a family making $50K/yr would only pay $200/mo for the same plan. This seems like a step in the right direction in so many ways. I think most negative publicity is coming from polarized sources who would reject anything, and their paid media outlets.
- hga 13y ago
  Are you factoring in the mid-4/low-5 figure deductibles and total out-of-pocket caps? You think that famous Albuquerque artist couple making 24K a year with 100% subsidized premiums are going to be able to afford to pay their caps, which could be up to $12,700, if something really bad happens one year? (http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/04/business/under-health-care-act-millions-eligible-for-free-policies.html?pagewanted=all&_r=1& http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/04/business/under-health-care...).
  - OldSchool 13y ago
    From what I've seen, corporate plans are becoming more and more like what was once called major medical insurance. So yes, coverage for anything below a small crisis is non-existent under these new plans, but it's about the same under the old plans. I'd rather bank the 50% monthly savings and know that my family can stay insured no matter what comes along. As for the artist couple, they've got to be better off than having no insurance at all under the previous situation.

34 points by kareemm 13y ago

Anytime there is a strict cutoff rather than a gradual roll-off there will be people who are artificially disadvantaged. That tends to create a substantial income cliff which people have to climb in order to actually benefit from their increased income. If you're a salaried employee it might matter little, but if you're self-employed or a small business owner it's a billboard saying "don't work too much harder unless you're willing to work MUCH harder" to overcome the income cliff. I don't have even a clue as to how many small business owners this will affect, but it seems likely that it will be more than a few hundred thousand. I'd guess millions. It's really unfortunate.

robrenaud 13y ago
Can employers/employees work around this stupid cliffing kind regulation with optional deferred compensation? Let's say the cliff is 50k. You earn 55k/year. So you get paid 50k and opt to keep 5k in a deferred compensation stash that gets paid out sometime in the future (maybe when your baseline is sufficiently higher than 50k that's worth it?).
- twoodfin 13y ago
  Yes, it's apparently possible: http://www.irs.gov/Businesses/Corporations/Nonqualified-Deferred-Compensation-Audit-Techniques-Guide-(02-2005) http://www.irs.gov/Businesses/Corporations/Nonqualified-Defe... Interestingly enough, the employer is required to withhold FICA taxes as soon as the deferral is made, if it's truly guaranteed future income.
jdlshore 13y ago
I'm a small business owner. Small business owners were screwed by the previous health care regime. Individual plans are hella expensive. Small group plans are also expensive, and extremely sensitive to the health issues of who you had on staff. Both were going up by double-digit percentages every year. My income is over the subsidy limit, but with careful shopping, I've found a plan (with the same carrier as before) that's substantially cheaper and has better coverage. Of course, when my carrier cancelled my plan, they "recommended" a much more expensive one. If I hadn't shopped around, I would have thought that the ACA was causing my premiums to skyrocket, but the opposite is actually true. Bottom line: don't believe everything you read about the costs of ACA.

rdl 13y ago

New trick I just learned for 2014 (and maybe 2015): you can get 12 month "short term health insurance") for about $50/yr. This isn't great coverage, but does have a $750k lifetime limit, which is probably enough for a single year. Short term insurance is not covered by ACA; it's more like disability insurance in that it's an indemnity. You basically keep the plan for catastrophic insurance, and use it if necessary. If you get sick in 2014 and need more medical care in 2015, you switch in the next open enrollment period to an ACA compatible plan. You have to pay the penalty due to not being covered by an approved plan, but $95 and $695/yr isn't huge compared to the premium increase. (in extremis, you can also engineer a qualifying event for enrollment; if I discovered I had cancer of the soul or something in mid-2014, I'd move states, and as a new resident, be eligible for an ACA Gold plan...or get a job at a bigco, of course.) I'm looking at doing this for 2014; $41/mo vs. $250/mo would be nice, even with a penalty. Extra bonus: if you had an individual plan in 2013 (like I did) which got cancelled due to ACA, you don't have to pay the penalty in 2014, either.

msandford 13y ago
This is one of the reasons that I'm not optimistic that AHA will work. It makes gaming the system too tempting. And because it's a national system it's quite likely that as loopholes are found the knowledge will spread and undermine the whole thing. EDIT: And because it's hitting middle to upper middle class folks it seems likely that they'll have the time and knowledge to successfully perform said gaming. All the more reason to build in some kind of gentle transition from full to some to zero help.
- Casseres 13y ago
  The AHA bill is 1,990 pages long [0]. From what I can tell, there are anywhere between 10,000 and 30,000 pages of regulations. The Tax code had about 400 pages in 1913, about 19500 pages in 1974, and about 74000 pages today. A lot of people complain about tax loopholes. I wonder how long it will take for the AHA regulations to double. There sure is a lot of room for loopholes and exceptions to hide in there. [0] http://docs.house.gov/rules/health/111_ahcaa.pdf http://docs.house.gov/rules/health/111_ahcaa.pdf (3.3 MB)

Jayschwa 13y ago

I bought cheap, catastrophic health insurance during my past year of funemployment. I eventually got a letter that the plan would not be offered in the future because it does not meet all provisions of the Affordable Care Act. Personally, it doesn't matter because I've got insurance through a job again, but it struck me as funny (or sad) that the law was strangling the cheapest plans. I have friends who are basically going without insurance now because the cheap bare-bone plans are drying up.

gaius 13y ago
As I understand it, the new plans are expensive because they cover all sorts of things regardless of whether you want them or not. You might never want kids, but that's covered. Also you may not believe in acupuncture or aromatherapy, but they're covered. Of course the real problem is that Obama stood up and said "you can keep your existing plans" and people believed him, and now the chickens are coming home to roost.
- milesskorpen 13y ago
  You point out some of the ridiculous things they cover, which isn't wrong. However, these plans ALSO don't have lifetime benefit caps, are available whether or not you have pre-existing conditions, and offer (almost always) much better preventive care coverage. I don't think many people realize just how bad the old, cancelled, catastrophic care plans were/are.
  - rbritton 13y ago
    Not all of them were bad. Health insurance varies wildly by state, which is another topic that's being ignored, and we had a reasonable catastrophic plan that covered all preventative care visits with just a small copay.
  - ams6110 13y ago
    There must be some kind of Yogi Berra-ism to describe "how bad" the insurance is that so many people wish they could still buy. Insurance against a condition that already exists is not insurance. Preventive care should not be something you look to insurance to pay for. Do you expect to be insured against your weekly grocery shopping bill? Your utilities? Your rent?

__xtrimsky 13y ago

Quick question, I'm in the same middle class, and am self employed. I'm thinking of not having an insurance at all, and if I get really sick long term, I'll switch to an Obama care insurance. Is this something possible ? (now that they can't check for preexisting conditions). Or will I get screwed somehow. I'm 26 so I went to the doctor maybe twice in 6 years, I only want coverage in case of emergency. PS: I can pay 5000$ out of pocket if needed.

maxerickson 13y ago
A new insurance plan won't retroactively cover the costs of some emergency hospitalization. At 26 you should be able to limit your out of pocket to less than $20,000 for a few grand a year, you have to compare that to what it would cost you to declare bankruptcy.
w1ntermute 13y ago
> Is this something possible ? (now that they can't check for preexisting conditions). Or will I get screwed somehow. There's a fine for doing this, precisely to stop people from doing what you're suggesting. But I think the fine is so small that it's actually worth doing it (rather than having insurance).
- __xtrimsky 13y ago
  yes, I think its less than 100$. If I take a plan for me and my wife, the cheapest plan is 660$, which makes it 7920$ a year. I also have a child, but I can take a plan just for her, which would be 280$.
- bmelton 13y ago
  It's $95, $325 the second, and $695 the third, and for every year after. For what it's worth, the penalties, as currently planned out, are only 'paid' by capturing tax returns. One could effectively, and legally avoid paying those penalties by changing their tax documents such that no returns are expected, or so that they would owe each year. The IRS currently cannot demand payment on those penalties, but if you were due $1000 refund, they can withhold the $95 from it. If, however, you owe $10 in taxes, they cannot make you pay $105, as you might otherwise suspect.

_random_ 13y ago

Can you remind me again, why did you vote for Obama second time?

camus2 13y ago
because the other side was a joke,and between 2 evils one should always chose the lesser.
- moron4hire 13y ago
  How about they don't choose either? I chose to not be involved in a sham of a process that purports to give "two" options.
  - afterburner 13y ago
    Hopefully not too many people follow your example.
    - moron4hire 13y ago
      Neither Mitt Romney or Barack Obama were good choices for President, regardless of their comparison to each other. If more people refused to vote for a bad candidate, then the margin to win would be much smaller. Egads, if people voted for who they actually wanted, rather than vote against who they want the least, then maybe we'd get someone who actually, you know, represents the people! The only reason you can be upset about me not voting against my principles is that I'm not helping your favored candidate over your disfavored candidate.
      - afterburner 13y ago
        I disagree that both main candidates were not good. The winning presidential candidate does roughly represent the majority preference of the people. You make it sound like everyone is being disenfranchised. If you support proportional representation, or ranked voting, or some other change, I'd agree to that. If you went around telling everyone that would vote for my preferred candidate to vote for candidate X that has no chance of winning, I might be annoyed if you succeeded. Unless I liked candidate X even more and knew you could succeed with everyone (or a majority anyways); but that's very unlikely.

FrankenPC 13y ago

Well. Under the old regime, my family was paying about $2000 a month for premium blue shield/cross for three. 44, 46, and 17 years old. BUT, my work was subsidizing my insurance so I only paid $800/month. Without subsidy, $1000, in fact, costs the family more. So, my partner and I "split up". We stopped filing a domestic partnership in California and now, I pay 175$ a month. She pays $100 a month. And her son pays nothing (Medical). By breaking up the logical family unit, we saved over $500 a month because my partner makes around $20K a year. I'm not so sure this is working out.

hga 13y ago
Yes, people have run the simulations and the ones I read said they could find absolutely no scenario where being married doesn't cost more. Often a LOT more, as you're found out. "I'm not so sure this is working out." Well, that might depend on your objectives. E.g. many can't help but notice that in general married women vote Republican, single Democrat.
- FrankenPC 13y ago
  What I'm specifically pointing out is that, if my partner is officially married to me, her 20K is added to my salary (let's say 100K for arguments sake) And now, according to the government, we make 120K. We are placed in that 120K married bracket which is NOT a whole lot different that say someone making 80-100K individually. But, if you divide by two: 120 becomes 60K each. Being married in the USA has very little financial advantage.

sxp 13y ago

>The cheapest insurance plan they can find through the new federal marketplace in New Hampshire will cost their family of four about $1,000 a month, 12 percent of their annual income of around $100,000 and more than they have ever paid before. Even more striking, for the Chapmans, is this fact: If they made just a few thousand dollars less a year — below $94,200 — their costs would be cut in half, because a family like theirs could qualify for federal subsidies. Is this accurate? It sounds like bad math on the part of NYT similar to people who believe that make a few hundred dollars more and shifting to a higher marginal tax bracket means less net income. Aren't taxes & subsidies normally structured to avoid these sort of discontinuities?

toufka 13y ago
I kinda hesitate to link here, it seems like a pretty non-authoritative site, but it does point out that this law did a bad job of that standard gradation [1]. They wrote in 'cliffs'. Justified in the article ridiculously: >To avoid creating such steep cliffs, federal officials would have had to spend more money on the subsidies, said Larry Levitt, an executive with the Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonprofit research group that is closely following the health care law. Subsidies would have been higher, and could have been more gradually phased out, he said. The design “was largely driven by budgetary decisions,” Mr. Levitt said. [1] http://obamacarecliff.com/Index.html http://obamacarecliff.com/Index.html
- hga 13y ago
  Don't know about the site, but the Kaiser Family Foundation has been one of the best and most solid sources of info on Obamacare. E.g. see their subsidies calculator: http://kff.org/interactive/subsidy-calculator/ http://kff.org/interactive/subsidy-calculator/
  - toufka 13y ago
    Definitely a much better resource. Kinda weird - I really didn't know how to find such a resource. After the weird link above, I actually spent a good bit of effort digging around. It's not easy. And as others noted as well, it looks like there is a fair bit of a slope to the phase-out of the subsidies, and not an (obvious) cliff.

baldeagle 13y ago

Did anyone do the math here? If a family making 100K pays 12K for insurance, and a family making 94K pays 6K for insurance, that is the exact same amount at the end of the year. Wonder how long they had to search to find this clean of an example. Seems the best solution for the family is to either ask for a raise (all take home profit) or take a sabbatical every year (more time to enjoy life).

hga 13y ago
And just how many 100K earning families will think that's "fair"? Sure, this is insult vs. injury, but perceptions count for a lot. And perhaps there's some minimally objective measure of pain in writing checks twice as large, even if the end result is the same....

OldSchool 13y ago

I've never found much to like about policies pitched by any of our leaders left or right, but ObamaCare surprisingly seems to be something that is positive. It may not be much different for single people or those under 30, but if you have a family, keeping them in an acceptable PPO was running $1200-$1500/month (total corporate or individual) - and for individual, that's if you don't get rejected for something as ridiculous as someone having been treated for allergies. Plugging in some numbers on healthcare.gov, I'm seeing comparable PPO's for $700/month and if you play with the numbers you can see that the tax credit drops the plan cost as income drops below 4x the poverty level, so for example a family making $50K/yr would only pay $200/mo for the same plan. This seems like a step in the right direction in so many ways. I think most negative publicity is coming from polarized sources who would reject anything, and their paid media outlets.

hga 13y ago
Are you factoring in the mid-4/low-5 figure deductibles and total out-of-pocket caps? You think that famous Albuquerque artist couple making 24K a year with 100% subsidized premiums are going to be able to afford to pay their caps, which could be up to $12,700, if something really bad happens one year? (http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/04/business/under-health-care-act-millions-eligible-for-free-policies.html?pagewanted=all&_r=1& http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/04/business/under-health-care...).
- OldSchool 13y ago
  From what I've seen, corporate plans are becoming more and more like what was once called major medical insurance. So yes, coverage for anything below a small crisis is non-existent under these new plans, but it's about the same under the old plans. I'd rather bank the 50% monthly savings and know that my family can stay insured no matter what comes along. As for the artist couple, they've got to be better off than having no insurance at all under the previous situation.