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>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

by 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.
    - hga 13y ago
      I wonder if there may be a perception cliff: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6947928 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6947928
- sxp 13y ago
  Using the Kaiser calculator linked on that site, it looks like the subsidies are properly phased out. Increasing my income causes the subside to gradually go down and I don't see any major inversion in that calculator. There might be some slight inversion when accounting for the marginal state & federal tax brackets, but the calculator doesn't support the math for those cases.
- hsitz 13y ago
  I went to site you link and see it purports to use the Berkeley calculator to calculate the "cliff" amounts. When I put numbers into Berkeley calculator (http://laborcenter.berkeley.edu/healthpolicy/calculator/ http://laborcenter.berkeley.edu/healthpolicy/calculator/ ) I see values that are similar to those I got from Kaiser calculator (in post I made in this same subthread). The way data is presented in your linked article seems intended to be misleading. E.g., they talk about raw dollar amounts, not percentages. I don't know whether there is some case in which the dollar amounts could come out to those in their charts, but if there is it's not for the usual "silver" policy. Maybe the percentage subsidy for a whacky expensive gold policy could get you to those dollar values for the cliff, but I doubt even that.
hsitz 13y ago
I think there must be some mistake. The author seems to have no idea of how the subsidy amounts are rolled back as a participant's income grows. You can use something like the Kaiser calculator to do a quick check: http://kff.org/interactive/subsidy-calculator/ http://kff.org/interactive/subsidy-calculator/ In Kaiser calculator I put a family of 4 in Concord, NH (zip 03303), making $100k a year, adults 40 and 42, 2 kids under 20, and get annual premium of $10,522. With income of $90k/year they get a subsidy of $1,972, or 19% of the premium. With income of $80k/year they get a subsidy of $2,922, or 28% of the premium. With income of $70k/year they get a subsidy of $3,928, or 37% of the premium. With income of $60k/year they get a subsidy of $5,609, or 53% of the premium. And so on. You get a larger subsidy the closer you are to poverty level.

by sxp 13y ago

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.
  - hga 13y ago
    I wonder if there may be a perception cliff: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6947928 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6947928
sxp 13y ago
Using the Kaiser calculator linked on that site, it looks like the subsidies are properly phased out. Increasing my income causes the subside to gradually go down and I don't see any major inversion in that calculator. There might be some slight inversion when accounting for the marginal state & federal tax brackets, but the calculator doesn't support the math for those cases.
hsitz 13y ago
I went to site you link and see it purports to use the Berkeley calculator to calculate the "cliff" amounts. When I put numbers into Berkeley calculator (http://laborcenter.berkeley.edu/healthpolicy/calculator/ http://laborcenter.berkeley.edu/healthpolicy/calculator/ ) I see values that are similar to those I got from Kaiser calculator (in post I made in this same subthread). The way data is presented in your linked article seems intended to be misleading. E.g., they talk about raw dollar amounts, not percentages. I don't know whether there is some case in which the dollar amounts could come out to those in their charts, but if there is it's not for the usual "silver" policy. Maybe the percentage subsidy for a whacky expensive gold policy could get you to those dollar values for the cliff, but I doubt even that.

hsitz 13y ago

I think there must be some mistake. The author seems to have no idea of how the subsidy amounts are rolled back as a participant's income grows. You can use something like the Kaiser calculator to do a quick check: http://kff.org/interactive/subsidy-calculator/ http://kff.org/interactive/subsidy-calculator/ In Kaiser calculator I put a family of 4 in Concord, NH (zip 03303), making $100k a year, adults 40 and 42, 2 kids under 20, and get annual premium of $10,522. With income of $90k/year they get a subsidy of $1,972, or 19% of the premium. With income of $80k/year they get a subsidy of $2,922, or 28% of the premium. With income of $70k/year they get a subsidy of $3,928, or 37% of the premium. With income of $60k/year they get a subsidy of $5,609, or 53% of the premium. And so on. You get a larger subsidy the closer you are to poverty level.