Dramatic Drop in Health Insurance for the Self Employed – ObamaCare Draws Cheers! (Just kidding)
by Jack
For the self-employed only five states have announced their new health-insurance premium rates and in all but one the rates are higher than what people pay now. Plan for a 15 percent increase in your health-insurance premium, says one self-employment expert.
Wait, wait, wait, … I thought ObamaCare was going to lower my insurance cost, what’s with the increase? Well Bunky, you see it’s like this, many people who previously didn’t have health insurance invariably had a major pre-existing medical condition that also made them unsuitable for conventional employment with health benefits, therefore they gravitated to being self-employed and it’s this pool of people with high healthcare costs that is driving up your insurance premium. This is the way it works, it’s always cost divided by the number of insured that equals the premium….even under ObamaCare.
P.S. This timely comment just came in from “More Common Sense: I certainly hope the GOP holds the line and does not compromise. This is a battle over an incredibly destructive law. I received a letter from Blue Shield yesterday. Beginning January 1 the health insurance plan I have will cease to exist. The plan that replaces it is not as good but will cost me 68% more per month.”
Jack: “For the self-employed only five states have announced their new health-insurance premium rates and in all but one the rates are higher than what people pay now.”
You’re mistaking correlation for causation. Premium have been going up for a long time, but since the ACA passed the rate of increase has actually slowed. In fact, many are saying it’s the smallest annual increase in the last 15 years.
http://hr.blr.com/HR-news/Benefits-Leave/Healthcare-Insurance/Health-Insurance-Premiums-Rise-at-Slowest-Rate-Sin
I won’t say that’s directly attributable to the ACA, because correlation is not causation, but it’s clear that the ACA has not caused a huge increase in premiums, because the increase that has occurred is much smaller than previous annual increases.
Chris, I’m not mistaking anything…I’m just reporting the news right from today’s headlines, followed by my opinion.
Jack, if you really got a letter that says that, you need to make a copy of it and send it to all your elected representatives. Then you could send a copy of it to the NYT and the WT and any other T you can think of.
And then, a month or two from now, when the dust has settled, you go onto the state insurance exchange and see if you just can’t do better.
I’m supposing its your “Medi-gap” coverage that’s being “modified”? I did hear that the oldsters were in for some serious trauma. But it has to happen.
(1) Your “coverage” never really covered. (2) The Medi-Industry over-prescribes to you for the purpose of generating revenue (and you let them). (3) There are “inefficiencies” in the delivery of care. (If you’re old, and chronically unhealthy, you gotta live close to care.) All these issues are about to be addressed, some via your coverage, and some otherwise … but it has to happen.
Nobody said this was going to be easy, but we are going to do it.
Libby please read that again you made a mistake, I didn’t say I got the letter. It was a comment that just came in from “More Common Sense.” He got the letter and he wrote us, please direct your comments to him.
Who’s “More Common Sense”, and why is the comment not in the comment section?
If it had been, I would have.
Only now I’m reasonably sure there is no letter.
PS: I do skim … its less painful.
Libby, I’m the one who received the letter. I currently pay $418.00 per month for just me and my 12 year old daughter. That policy disappears on January 1 because it does not meet Obamacare requirements. The new policy cost $702.00 per month and provides less coverage. I do not qualify for any of the subsidies. So, Libby, now what do I do! This whole thing is insane!
That doesn’t seem right. You should be able to get the silver plan for a lot less than that. My frustration comes from not allowing parents who have individual coverage through an employer buy for their kids on the exchange. I shouldn’t have to pay $1,000 a month for crappy insurance coverage for my kids just because my employer offers insurance that meets affordable guidelines for me alone.
I want to see insurance completely separated from employment. The fact that we make businesses insure employees is crazy. Since when should a business be in the healthcare market?
Princess, are you saying “That doesn’t seem right.” to say it is wrong for rates to increase that much or are you questioning the truthfulness of the statement. If it the first, I agree. It is insane. If it is the latter, accept it because it is the truth. I bet there are many people in California that are going to receive these nightmare letters in their mailbox over the next week. This is crazy. My daughter and I have no health problems. None! We are not on any medication. The only cost we have incurred over the last few years are just office visits for annual checkups. Yet, our insurance jumps 68%. This administration has been lying to American people about Obamacare from day one.
I’ve been in business in California using the same healthcare provider for quite a few years…my insurance has NEVER gone up as much as More Common Sense has described!
NEVER!
The excuse that insurance was going up anyway doesn’t hold water:
Obama, the sycophant media, and his minions sold the ACA on the idea that premiums would go down dramatically. The law would be written so brilliantly, by the smartest kids in the playpen, so that it would generate massive savings! They made a big show of it. It was a key part of the 2010 election campaign.
While campaigning (what else does he do) Obama slammed anyone who dared express concerns. He singled out FOX News as he told one group of people their employers could see premiums “go down by 3000%”…which means they’ll be able “to give you a raise.” (see video)
I heard someone call a talk show that had not been able to buy insurance due to pre-existing condition. The shock for this couple on the first day of enrollment was that yes they could get insurance but they had to pay a lot more.
If true, that’s not what people expected this law would do either.
Tina, can you imagine the horror stories we’re going to get in the coming months about this stupid ObamaCare? I hope the voters will remember who rammed it down their throats come the next election season.
Did you check on the Covered California website? https://v.calheers.ca.gov/apspahbx/ahbxanonym.portal
When I looked for my family of 4 we would have qualified for a subsidy that would have gotten us good coverage for a reasonable price. But because my employer offers the insurance to me I can’t get it on the exchange for my family. So I am stuck paying $1000 a month for total crap insurance that costs me another fortune if I need to use it.
Princess the website you gave us is down and has been for some time. I will keep trying.
I just checked my cost of insurance using an age of 61 for the bronze plan with a $5000 deductible and it was $687 a month for the premium. Yikes, thats high! However, the tax credit amount was $524 and that allegedly brought it down to $163 for my out of pocket cost. However that amount is close to what I would have paid for my old plan with a $5000 deductible, i think it was $225. What does it mean “tax credit of $524?” Does it mean I can deduct that amount off my federal taxes? If that’s it, then the plan sucks, it costs more and provides less. I don’t want anyone to subsidize me either.
Hi, Sense …
Unhappily, there are times when being a citizen requires some work. You gotta do what I said. You make copies of that letter and mail it to everybody. Make an appointment with Wally (it is still Wally, right?), and you ask him: “Can the Blues do this!!!?”
I suspect that they actually can’t … certainly not this year. I suspect a bogus and inflammatory campaign on their part to panic the citizens.
Don’t you fall for it. Tell on ’em!
And, in a month or so, I also suspect you will find you can do better on the exchange, without the Blues. (They have always been savage entities. I hope this brilliant strategy puts them out of business.)
“The shock for this couple on the first day of enrollment was that yes they could get insurance but they had to pay a lot more.”
The whole country’s in for a big, fat, kick in the pants … but this is a good thing. We’ve spent too long completely oblivious about what stuff costs. That’s number one.
Second, I’m hoping the citizens will come to a humbling realization of their personal limitations. I know I cannot do it. I cannot right a $300 check for a policy that covers nothing until I’ve spent $5000 out of pocket. If I had $300 of totally disposable income, maybe, but I need new pants, shoes and glasses. My creditors insist upon regular payments. This other thing … it’s just not going to happen.
But … and I know this … if the $300 disappeared from my paycheck in bits, I would permit it. I would live within this limitation.
So, if everybody is going to be covered, it’s going to be single-payer, or nothing.
“I don’t want anyone to subsidize me either.”
You really need to read that analysis Harvard did of the cost to society of the privately insured. You have always been subsidized. Ironically, your private insurance gives you much more access to facilities, products and services that are HIGHLY subsidized by your government.
“But because my employer offers the insurance to me I can’t get it on the exchange for my family.”
Princess, I’m putting you to work too. That is also something the powers need to hear and … if your feeling like a spate of unemployment … your employer.
What a load of garbage, Libby. the government picks winners and losers. Through corporatism politicians gets their sticky hands in the middle and the cost is shaved for some and other get gouged. Taxpayers also pay for a huge bureaucracy we don’t need. All of it pushes costs for care UP.
The truth is none of us knows what the cost of healthcare or health insurance is because the government is in the middle of it one way and another.
The cost for both would be more reasonable and affordable without government involvement because the people would demand it.
Libby, another left thinking friend, also loves to order people around…must be in the DNA!
Jack: “Chris, I’m not mistaking anything…I’m just reporting the news right from today’s headlines, followed by my opinion.”
Your opinion was that the increase in premiums, which is a smaller increase than usual, is due to Obamacare. Unless you can prove that, then yes, you are mistaking correlation for causation.
Also, the site Princess linked to worked just fine for me.
It worked fine on the research cost pages for me, did not work fine on the main sign up page.
Chris, my info is only annecdotal. We’ll both have to wait awhile to see the results to know for sure, but the examples I have found don’t look promising for a reduction in costs.
Libby are you seriously suggesting I quit my job to get better insurance? You must be a school teacher or some other public employee to suggest employers should offer family coverage. No, this crappy loophole shouldn’t exist in this crappy law. I am against having insurance tied to employment. We should get paid money to work, not health insurance.
Princess that was one of the proposal Republicans made for reforms that would help bring costs down…and you are absolutely right.
“What a load of garbage, Libby. the government picks winners and losers.”
Tina, this is paranoid.
“The truth is none of us knows what the cost of healthcare or health insurance is because the government is in the middle of it one way and another.”
No, people were rendered oblivious by the “employer provided” model … which was fine, as long as your employer provided. We (via our government) unhitching that and getting (someday) everyone provided for.
I really don’t see why you have to be paranoid about this either.
“Libby are you seriously suggesting I quit my job to get better insurance?”
No, I was being facetious. You really couldn’t tell?
Libby: “…this is paranoid.”
Oh really. that’s why big business got a delay in implementation but small business didn’t.
that’s why some insurance companies are being run out of business while others, in corproatist collusion, will financially benefit from the passage of Obamacare.
That’s why unions received stimulus money to save jobs and benefits while others have lost their jobs as this manipulation of the economy took place
That’s why staffers get a subsidy when working American that make a lot less money don’t.
That’s why two states got special deals so their representatives would vote yes to pass Obamacare and the other forty-eight got the shaft….
…cause I’m paranoid.
You are daft!
We (via our government) unhitching that and getting (someday) everyone provided for.
Government, the ultimate monopoly, will be extremely expensive, economy and job killing, and provide less than acceptable care.
You are not just daft; you are a communist fool!
Single payer as Libby describes was the goal of the Democrat Party. They love this chaos! But there’s isn’t a dimes worth of difference between the two parties…yeah right.
“that’s why big business got a delay in implementation but small business didn’t.”
I don’t know what you mean here. The “employer mandate” will not affect big business at all … as they already cover their employees, so I don’t understand what “delay” you’re talking about.
“that’s why some insurance companies are being run out of business while others, in corproatist collusion, will financially benefit from the passage of Obamacare.”
Again, I don’t understand how you can think this has happened when we’ve only just got started with this. Nobody’s gone out of business yet.
In fact, what has happened is that an alarming number of health insurance companies have formed, and signed themselves up on exchanges, offering very attractive rates, and heaven only knows whether they will ever actually pay claims.
Those capitalists … you just can’t keep ’em down!
“That’s why unions received stimulus money to save jobs and benefits while others have lost their jobs as this manipulation of the economy took place.”
Paranoid. With the survival entire American auto manufacturing sector at stake, I think GM would have got the bail-out, even if it’d been a non-union shop. How can you think such silly things?
“That’s why staffers get a subsidy when working American that make a lot less money don’t.”
This we will deal with, just as soon as the Congress passes a budget … no more CRs … an actual budget.
“Government, the ultimate monopoly, will be extremely expensive, economy and job killing, and provide less than acceptable care.”
And once again, you’ve got ideas about what’s going on here that bear no relation to reality. It will cost some money to run the exchanges, but people are buying coverage from private companies. The government’s not providing care, just the means to get care … theoretically.
LOL hearsay?
I own a business and in my case we will be saving money. Sorry but for most it is a good deal. If one does not like it they simply keep the Insurance they presently have.
We have bigger fish to fry than this he say, she says
The TPP is a real issue, The fact the koch brothers hope to demolish democracy is another
Ah, the Koch brothers, that mythical threat to democracy that exists only in the minds a tiny percentage of conspiracy theorists. Well, we know where Dewey stands now…virtually alone and in the dark.
A lot going on here, only have time to respond to one thing.
Tina: “That’s why staffers get a subsidy when working American that make a lot less money don’t.”
Nonsense. Congressional staffers have always gotten their health insurance coverage through the federal government, just as most employees get their coverage from their own employers. The ACA kicked staffers off of their employer-paid health insurance and onto the exchanges. That was a Republican idea that Democrats embraced. This left staffers without the subsidies they had previously been entitled to, so Congress negotiated (with overwhelming support from both Democrats and Republicans, including John Beohner, whose staff tried to keep his support a secret and who is now pretending to be against the subsidies) to give them a 75% subsidy, and only if they bought the most expensive plans. Far from being an “exemption” to Obamacare, Congressional staffers have a requirement that no one else does.
” …virtually alone and in the dark.”
Hardly. From the AtlanticWire earlier this year:
“The massive amount of outside political spending unleashed by Citizens United did not, as feared, make it easier for rich people to buy an election. Instead, it showed that rich people are pretty dumb about politics. Take the billionaire businessmen Charles and David Koch who are spending their 2013 figuring out why they the money they spent in 2012 was such a waste. They have already fired most of their 100 staffers at Americans for Prosperity, and they’re now conducting an audit.”
So, they clearly intended to subvert our democracy with their money. They was just too dumb to pull it off. But it would not be prudent to trust to the idiocy of the rich for the preservation of the republic. We gotta change the law.