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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 b

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?
    - temporary1312 13y ago
      "Insurance against a condition that already exists is not insurance," but I've twice had coverage for other unrelated conditions (rehab for a broken leg, and treatment for severe pneumonia) denied because I was hospitalized years earlier for a chronic illness having to do with the digestive tract.
      - hsitz 13y ago
        Sounds like you're extending intent of quote to be about "pre-existing conditions". Obamacare requires that health insurance policies cover pre-existing conditions, which is another difference from other types of insurance. The only way this could reasonably be required would be if all individuals are required to always carry insurance, which is what gives rise to the much-debated "individual mandate". All of this makes good sense, in my mind. You don't say why you were denied coverage for broken leg rehab and pneumonia treatment. It seems a stretch for it to have been denied as pre-existing condition, but one of the problems when insurance companies were allowed to deny for pre-existing conditions was that they did often make non-sensical stretches to deny. I think reason for denial in your case was probably for something else, perhaps something like an insurer's "annual cap" on coverage (but not that b/c your previous coverage was years earlier), another thing that now is gone thanks to Obamacare.
        temporary1312 13y ago
        Yes, I was straight up denied coverage for broken leg rehab and pneumonia coverage for having the intestinal issues, and only through fighting it was it covered. It was not anything other than insurance companies being dickish, hadn't reached the annual cap or anything like that. Other friends of mine with chronic illnesses have had similar issues. Needless to say, I'm looking forward to that provision of obamacare.
    - hsitz 13y ago
      "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?" In fact, Obamacare mandates that much preventive care be provided for free. Health insurance is different from many kinds of insurance, which you hope never to collect on. With healthcare insurance you're very likely to use at least some covered services every year. Preventive care is the kind of care everyone should have every year, and it is the kind of care that best reduces health costs, making it best for patients and for nation as a whole. That's why Obamacare requires that it be covered 100%, even in least expensive bronze plans. This encourages people to get preventive care and prevents bigger expenses for them later on. I'm not knocking Obamacare. Hardly, I'm a proponent of it. It makes sense.
  - hga 13y ago
    They also redistribute a LOT of money to the age 50-64 bracket. And the money for the subsidies has to come from somewhere, TANSTAAFL. Also look at the banding system. I don't know about Jayschwa, but __xtrimsky elsewhere in this discussion is one of the "young invincibles" who's buying of very expensive insurance is essential for the economics to work out; well, such as they were before 14 and counting last minute changes.
    - gaius 13y ago
      This is exactly how National Insurance works in the UK. It isn't really insurance per se; money coming in is paid straight out again.
  - rdl 13y ago
    My HSA-compatible HDHP which I had from 2010-2013 had no lifetime cap or annual cap, and since I'd had employer coverage before, no exclusion on pre-existing conditions. They actually reduced some benefits (for out of network providers) from 2013 to 2014, and the price went from $81 (2010) to $90 (2011) to $102 (2012) to $120 (2013). HSA Bronze HSA, the nearest equivalent, is $214 from another provider, or $250 from this provider. So I switched to a $41/mo short term plan for 2014.
  - f3llowtraveler 13y ago
    The problem with the new plans is the same as the problem with the old plans: there's no free market. People don't have any "choices" except what's forced onto them in a "market" where everything is all sewn up vertically. The insurance companies are writing the legislation. They were writing it before Obamacare, and they're writing it now. The only difference is, now they are writing more of it.
- rbritton 13y ago
  We're sort of in that boat. I've been grandfathered into my plan for some time now, but we switched over my wife from a $7500 deductible plan to a $3500 deductible plan in 2011 and that plan is going away. Only plans that were you were enrolled in prior to March 23, 2010 can be kept under Obamacare, which is unfortunate because a lot can change in 3-4 years, particularly when most people were unaware of the actual implications of the law.
tunesmith 13y ago
The thing about cheap catastrophic plans is that that is the price point where a lot of lousy plans would hang out. Lousy meaning, you get sick and all of a sudden find out that costs you thought were covered aren't actually covered. Or you get kicked off due to rescission. Or, the first $x is covered and then you're told you're on your own due to some fine print somewhere. A lot of plans relied on that, which is what made them cheap, and customers would regularly get screwed by it, and Obamacare makes all that illegal now. The downside for Obama is that if someone gets sick, and goes to the hospital and actually has their costs covered, they're not exactly going to be amazed that the plan works exactly as they would have expected. So in that sense, the law might never really get the appreciation it deserves.
- Jayschwa 13y ago
  I've heard this argument before, and I dislike the paternalism of it. I read the fine print and made tradeoffs that I thought were appropriate for my situation at the time.
  - andrewvc 13y ago
    I agree that it has the feel of paternalism, but I think there's another way to look at it.I think, that all things considered, obamacare makes society as a whole a better place. Paternalism and consumer protections are two sides of the same coin. The fact is that without some protections, you could wind up signing your life away due to some sleazy fine print. Dealing with insurance companies is asymmetric warfare. There's an entire industry built around maximizing the profits it makes on customers. The surest way to boost profits is to make people think they're buying more protection than they are. Charge more for less. That's one of the many reasons consumer protections exist.
    - malandrew 13y ago
      This. I'm extremely good with legalese, regulations, fine print, etc. More so than 99% of my peers, even some that have law degrees, and I have spent a lot of time explaining all the ways in with a specific contract might be trying to screw them. Most people simply aren't equipped to make those decisions. In fact, I'd go farther to say that the overwhelming majority are ill-equipped. A comprehensive cost-benefits analysis is hard enough for most people without also requiring them to sift through impenetrable legalese to figure out what the costs really are and what benefits they will actually get.

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?
  - temporary1312 13y ago
    "Insurance against a condition that already exists is not insurance," but I've twice had coverage for other unrelated conditions (rehab for a broken leg, and treatment for severe pneumonia) denied because I was hospitalized years earlier for a chronic illness having to do with the digestive tract.
    - hsitz 13y ago
      Sounds like you're extending intent of quote to be about "pre-existing conditions". Obamacare requires that health insurance policies cover pre-existing conditions, which is another difference from other types of insurance. The only way this could reasonably be required would be if all individuals are required to always carry insurance, which is what gives rise to the much-debated "individual mandate". All of this makes good sense, in my mind. You don't say why you were denied coverage for broken leg rehab and pneumonia treatment. It seems a stretch for it to have been denied as pre-existing condition, but one of the problems when insurance companies were allowed to deny for pre-existing conditions was that they did often make non-sensical stretches to deny. I think reason for denial in your case was probably for something else, perhaps something like an insurer's "annual cap" on coverage (but not that b/c your previous coverage was years earlier), another thing that now is gone thanks to Obamacare.
      - temporary1312 13y ago
        Yes, I was straight up denied coverage for broken leg rehab and pneumonia coverage for having the intestinal issues, and only through fighting it was it covered. It was not anything other than insurance companies being dickish, hadn't reached the annual cap or anything like that. Other friends of mine with chronic illnesses have had similar issues. Needless to say, I'm looking forward to that provision of obamacare.
  - hsitz 13y ago
    "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?" In fact, Obamacare mandates that much preventive care be provided for free. Health insurance is different from many kinds of insurance, which you hope never to collect on. With healthcare insurance you're very likely to use at least some covered services every year. Preventive care is the kind of care everyone should have every year, and it is the kind of care that best reduces health costs, making it best for patients and for nation as a whole. That's why Obamacare requires that it be covered 100%, even in least expensive bronze plans. This encourages people to get preventive care and prevents bigger expenses for them later on. I'm not knocking Obamacare. Hardly, I'm a proponent of it. It makes sense.
- hga 13y ago
  They also redistribute a LOT of money to the age 50-64 bracket. And the money for the subsidies has to come from somewhere, TANSTAAFL. Also look at the banding system. I don't know about Jayschwa, but __xtrimsky elsewhere in this discussion is one of the "young invincibles" who's buying of very expensive insurance is essential for the economics to work out; well, such as they were before 14 and counting last minute changes.
  - gaius 13y ago
    This is exactly how National Insurance works in the UK. It isn't really insurance per se; money coming in is paid straight out again.
- rdl 13y ago
  My HSA-compatible HDHP which I had from 2010-2013 had no lifetime cap or annual cap, and since I'd had employer coverage before, no exclusion on pre-existing conditions. They actually reduced some benefits (for out of network providers) from 2013 to 2014, and the price went from $81 (2010) to $90 (2011) to $102 (2012) to $120 (2013). HSA Bronze HSA, the nearest equivalent, is $214 from another provider, or $250 from this provider. So I switched to a $41/mo short term plan for 2014.
- f3llowtraveler 13y ago
  The problem with the new plans is the same as the problem with the old plans: there's no free market. People don't have any "choices" except what's forced onto them in a "market" where everything is all sewn up vertically. The insurance companies are writing the legislation. They were writing it before Obamacare, and they're writing it now. The only difference is, now they are writing more of it.
rbritton 13y ago
We're sort of in that boat. I've been grandfathered into my plan for some time now, but we switched over my wife from a $7500 deductible plan to a $3500 deductible plan in 2011 and that plan is going away. Only plans that were you were enrolled in prior to March 23, 2010 can be kept under Obamacare, which is unfortunate because a lot can change in 3-4 years, particularly when most people were unaware of the actual implications of the law.

tunesmith 13y ago

The thing about cheap catastrophic plans is that that is the price point where a lot of lousy plans would hang out. Lousy meaning, you get sick and all of a sudden find out that costs you thought were covered aren't actually covered. Or you get kicked off due to rescission. Or, the first $x is covered and then you're told you're on your own due to some fine print somewhere. A lot of plans relied on that, which is what made them cheap, and customers would regularly get screwed by it, and Obamacare makes all that illegal now. The downside for Obama is that if someone gets sick, and goes to the hospital and actually has their costs covered, they're not exactly going to be amazed that the plan works exactly as they would have expected. So in that sense, the law might never really get the appreciation it deserves.

Jayschwa 13y ago
I've heard this argument before, and I dislike the paternalism of it. I read the fine print and made tradeoffs that I thought were appropriate for my situation at the time.
- andrewvc 13y ago
  I agree that it has the feel of paternalism, but I think there's another way to look at it.I think, that all things considered, obamacare makes society as a whole a better place. Paternalism and consumer protections are two sides of the same coin. The fact is that without some protections, you could wind up signing your life away due to some sleazy fine print. Dealing with insurance companies is asymmetric warfare. There's an entire industry built around maximizing the profits it makes on customers. The surest way to boost profits is to make people think they're buying more protection than they are. Charge more for less. That's one of the many reasons consumer protections exist.
  - malandrew 13y ago
    This. I'm extremely good with legalese, regulations, fine print, etc. More so than 99% of my peers, even some that have law degrees, and I have spent a lot of time explaining all the ways in with a specific contract might be trying to screw them. Most people simply aren't equipped to make those decisions. In fact, I'd go farther to say that the overwhelming majority are ill-equipped. A comprehensive cost-benefits analysis is hard enough for most people without also requiring them to sift through impenetrable legalese to figure out what the costs really are and what benefits they will actually get.