Affordable Care Act Woes (Obamacare)

[Bean]

Anyone else enjoying your annual benefit enrollment?  I haven't even dug into it that much, but here are some of the items I am currently encountering:

1. I have lost my Company supplied Life Insurance (6x Salary)
2. I can't cover my Spouse anymore because more than 100 people work at her employer
3. I have to jump through a hoop of getting my gym membership tracked for a discount (this one is crazy)
4. My costs have gone up 2x+ up, even when going from my middle of the road plan to the crappy plan
5. I don't even know yet how much more it will cost my wife and I being on separate plans
6. I lost glasses and contacts, it is now glass or contacts

[Kshartle]

Anyone else enjoying your annual benefit enrollment?  I haven't even dug into it that much, but here are some of the items I am currently encountering:

1. I have lost my Company supplied Life Insurance (6x Salary)
2. I can't cover my Spouse anymore because more than 100 people work at her employer
3. I have to jump through a hoop of getting my gym membership tracked for a discount (this one is crazy)
4. My costs have gone up 2x+ up, even when going from my middle of the road plan to the crappy plan
5. I don't even know yet how much more it will cost my wife and I being on separate plans
6. I lost glasses and contacts, it is now glass or contacts

Wait until the complete federal takeover of Healthcare coming. You'll be lucky if you see a doctor within 6 months of being sick.

Capitalism = unequal sharing of wealth
Socialism = equal sharing of misery


Thanks Socialism!!!!!

[Xan]

My premiums will be going from $145/month to $537/month.  Affordable™ for the win!

[MediumTex]

My premiums will be going from $145/month to $537/month.  Affordable™ for the win!

Is that because of a reduced employer subsidy or a higher total cost of coverage?  If it's a little of both, can you break it out a bit?

[RuralEngineer]

You must not have liked your plan that much...or you would have been able to keep it.  B.O. promised and much like fabled George Washington, he too has been known to never tell a lie.

[Reub]

"If you like your healthcare plan you will be able to keep your healthcare plan."

This is Obama's equivalent of "Read my lips, no new taxes."

It is a soundbyte that will haunt him (and his party).

[Xan]

My premiums will be going from $145/month to $537/month.  Affordable™ for the win!

Is that because of a reduced employer subsidy or a higher total cost of coverage?  If it's a little of both, can you break it out a bit?

I'm self-employed; this is individual coverage for me and my wife.  Humana told me that they could keep going with my current plan until December 31, 2014, at which time they'll be moving me to a new plan, which is almost the same, but which costs almost four times as much.

[iwealth]

My premiums will be going from $145/month to $537/month.  Affordable™ for the win!

Is that because of a reduced employer subsidy or a higher total cost of coverage?  If it's a little of both, can you break it out a bit?

I'm self-employed; this is individual coverage for me and my wife.  Humana told me that they could keep going with my current plan until December 31, 2014, at which time they'll be moving me to a new plan, which is almost the same, but which costs almost four times as much.

I'm also with Humana, self-employed, and was given the option to extend my plan until December 31, 2014. Similar coverage + the new "essential" (for others..) benefits, although my max out-of-pocket co-insurance went UP from $2500/yr to $6350/yr which is rather significant. My rate rose from $141.01 to $238.25. Clearly I'm lucky my wife is covered by her employer. I'd be on her plan but adding me is more expensive than my individual coverage.

Can't help but to feel bitter about it all. This greater good stuff sounds good and all, but between the tax rate increases, the 3.8% investment tax, and now this little extra dig at my wallet...when does it end?

[ns2]

You all just need to be patient. There are bound to be growing pains in transitioning to a new system of this magnitude. For those of you who have lost your existing health insurance plans and it is going to cost you hundreds if not thousands of dollars to replace what you had in the short term, remember that as a PP'er you believe in long term investing. Eventually the costs are going to come down not just for you but for every one. And the oceans will quit rising and the earth will begin to heal.

Barack Obama

[I Shrugged]

Blue Cross sent us a letter saying we can keep our existing plan, or choose one of their new 2014 plans.  But if we choose a new plan, we will not be able to go back to the old one.  They don't say anything about costs of our old plan so I don't know what to think.

Our current plan is a high deductible plan suitable for an HSA, which is what we have.

I'm very interested in the anecdotes about what is happening to others, and why.

[iwealth]

Blue Cross sent us a letter saying we can keep our existing plan, or choose one of their new 2014 plans.  But if we choose a new plan, we will not be able to go back to the old one.  They don't say anything about costs of our old plan so I don't know what to think.

Our current plan is a high deductible plan suitable for an HSA, which is what we have.

I'm very interested in the anecdotes about what is happening to others, and why.

Maybe you are grandfathered. Has your insurance gone unchanged since 2010? You can keep a plan established before a certain date in 2010 as long as it has not been modified since inception.

[clacy]

Speaking as an employer, this has been a complete cluster f*ck.  We started prepping for the employer mandate and started reducing the number of employees working 30+ hours.  The look back period was supposed to be the last 6 months of the year to determine whether someone was "full-time" (30+ hours). 

Then a couple months into our "prep", they say..... "Forget the employer mandate for 1 year".

Planning for 2014 is hard.  Planning for 2015 is impossible.

Our costs skyrocketed in the two previous years.  I suppose that was the "prep period" for the insurance companies, so they could get SOME of the sticker shock out of the system.

[Bean]

The working stiffs at my work (very large company) are going nuts. For a lot of folks this is literally going to break their budget.

New gem just found, I am pretty much guaranteed to lose a couple of doctors I have seen for years and trust.

What is the point of working so hard, when everything costs more and I get worse care.... 

[Pointedstick]

Sincere question: has anyone here been positively affected by Obamacare or know anyone who has? Anyone with a pre-existing condition who's now insurable? Anyone under 26 without much money who's been able to stay on their parent's insurance? Anyone gotten a rebate check from their insurer that wasn't dwarfed by premium increases? Anyone who previously couldn't afford health insurance and now can?

In my extended social network, the only two people I know who have benefited from Obamacare are two starving artists who've been able to stay on their parents' insurance. That's it. Several very liberal uninsured relatives have remarked that insurance is not only still too expensive for them, but more expensive than it was the last time they checked.

If only a very very small number of people are actually benefiting from this thing and everybody else is getting reamed, where's the political will to defend it coming from? I mean, we live in a representative republic. A law that helps 5% of people (generously) and shafts the other 95% should be the most unpopular thing ever and legislators should be falling all over themselves to repeal it, deluged by angry letters from their constituents... right? What am I missing? Am I living in a weird bubble? Does my network simply not include enough people too sick to previously be eligible for health insurance, but wealthy enough to afford it now that it has to be issued to them?

you probably just don't hang out with enough congressmen, and other members of the exempt class.

[Benko]

If only a very very small number of people are actually benefiting from this thing and everybody else is getting reamed, where's the political will to defend it coming from?

Many factors.

Lets say the earth totally stops getting warmer i.e. over the next 10 years it does not get any warmer.  Where will the political will to continue defending global warming (as you know they will) come from?

"A law that helps 5% of people (generously) and shafts the other 95% should be the most unpopular thing ever and legislators should be falling all over themselves to repeal it"

How many legislators care about what their constitutents want? 

[Pointedstick]

If only a very very small number of people are actually benefiting from this thing and everybody else is getting reamed, where's the political will to defend it coming from?

Many factors.

Lets say the earth totally stops getting warmer i.e. over the next 10 years it does not get any warmer.  Where will the political will to continue defending global warming (as you know they will) come from?

That's not something you can personally observe though. It's hard to ignore something like your health insurance premiums doubling. I get what you're saying though. My still-too-poor-for-Obamacare liberal relatives have not managed to muster up any anger over it. I don't get it.

How many legislators care about what their constitutents want?

The ones who want to keep their jobs?

[dragoncar]

Sincere question: has anyone here been positively affected by Obamacare or know anyone who has? Anyone with a pre-existing condition who's now insurable? Anyone under 26 without much money who's been able to stay on their parent's insurance? Anyone gotten a rebate check from their insurer that wasn't dwarfed by premium increases? Anyone who previously couldn't afford health insurance and now can?

In my extended social network, the only two people I know who have benefited from Obamacare are two starving artists who've been able to stay on their parents' insurance. That's it. Several very liberal uninsured relatives have remarked that insurance is not only still too expensive for them, but more expensive than it was the last time they checked.

If only a very very small number of people are actually benefiting from this thing and everybody else is getting reamed, where's the political will to defend it coming from? I mean, we live in a representative republic. A law that helps 5% of people (generously) and shafts the other 95% should be the most unpopular thing ever and legislators should be falling all over themselves to repeal it, deluged by angry letters from their constituents... right? What am I missing? Am I living in a weird bubble? Does my network simply not include enough people too sick to previously be eligible for health insurance, but wealthy enough to afford it now that it has to be issued to them?

Yes, I know someone working a low-paying job without health benefits that is benefiting.

I'm personally neutral.

I see universal care as a long-play on preventative and routine care that should keep the nation healthier.  When you have a significant portion of the population that only gets care when having a medical crisis or emergency, that drives costs through the roof.

[Benko]

How many legislators care about what their constitutents want?

The ones who want to keep their jobs?

Don't you remember constituents giving congress critters a hard time (was it over Obamacare?) at town hall meetings?  The remedy?  They started avoiding doing town halls (perhaps they did the same thing over immigration).

[RuralEngineer]

Polls show there's a sizable percentage of the population that hates Obamacare because it's not the single-payer Nanny State solution they were initially promised.  Be careful when hunting for outrage over this disaster.  I think most people of a liberal bent are probably laying most of this blame on all the compromises that they had to make in order to get it passed.  If only they could have gotten an even bigger an more pervasive system in place, things would be great.  We'd all have a personal unicorn with wings to fly us around while we ate cotton candy but didn't get fat.  Oh yeah, and free Viagra.

[smurff]

We'd all have a personal unicorn with wings to fly us around while we ate cotton candy but didn't get fat.

Now what could possibly be wrong with that?

[Kshartle]

Sincere question: has anyone here been positively affected by Obamacare or know anyone who has? Anyone with a pre-existing condition who's now insurable? Anyone under 26 without much money who's been able to stay on their parent's insurance? Anyone gotten a rebate check from their insurer that wasn't dwarfed by premium increases? Anyone who previously couldn't afford health insurance and now can?

In my extended social network, the only two people I know who have benefited from Obamacare are two starving artists who've been able to stay on their parents' insurance. That's it. Several very liberal uninsured relatives have remarked that insurance is not only still too expensive for them, but more expensive than it was the last time they checked.

If only a very very small number of people are actually benefiting from this thing and everybody else is getting reamed, where's the political will to defend it coming from? I mean, we live in a representative republic. A law that helps 5% of people (generously) and shafts the other 95% should be the most unpopular thing ever and legislators should be falling all over themselves to repeal it, deluged by angry letters from their constituents... right? What am I missing? Am I living in a weird bubble? Does my network simply not include enough people too sick to previously be eligible for health insurance, but wealthy enough to afford it now that it has to be issued to them?

The point of power is to retain and grow power and enrich the rulers. Its never to improve the lives of those ruled. Since the people cannot vote to be free, they can only vote to choose their master. The two political parties will pretend to not like each other in public, like a WWE act. Behind closed doors they are surely fast friends at the top. Just a bunch of actors and front men for the people backing them. Look at Obama...he is truly pitiful. Would you think he could manage even a medium size business or even a small one? Look at Bush Jr.  This is scam.

The point of Obamacare is not to improve the health of the nation. Just a basic understanding of economics gives a person the tools to see RIGHT AT THE PROPOSAL of the legislation it would be a disaster. If someone denied that it's either because they're a liar or ignorant. This is not something that wasn't obvious. I would like to think the guys at the very top were just incompentent. They are not. They are at the top of the food chain for a reason. If they do something that fails on the scale Obamacare is going to fail it's because it's designed to fail.

Obamacare will be such a disaster that the next sales pitch willl be a complete Federal takeover of all health care. The rulers have dreamt of this for a long time. They will now control your money, what you can buy or sell, what you eat, where you get medical care....the list goes on and on. There is nothing they don't want to control on the plantation. They will be able to jack your taxes up to 50% -60% all the while claiming it's for "the greater good". Half the people on this forum will buy it. What do you think the gen pop will do? The old? The sick? The poor. With government in charge of health care and "charity" there will be hordes of sick and poor.

Read Harry Browne's "Why Government doesn't work". He explains perfectly why everything the government does results in the opposite of it's stated goal. Now do you think they don't have guys at the top as smart as Browne? They are there. Not Obama, but the ones who selected him to sell slavery to the slaves.

[Benko]

This should produce a landslide for the Rs in next year's election, but there's always a way to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory...

Republicans are not known as the stupid party for nothing

[Pointedstick]

Yes, I know someone working a low-paying job without health benefits that is benefiting.

Is this person benefiting because they had a pre-existing condition and could not previously get insurance prior to Obamacare, or because insurance was too expensive before and Obamacare has made it affordable? Also, is this an old person, a young person, or a somewhere in between person?

[I Shrugged]

Blue Cross sent us a letter saying we can keep our existing plan, or choose one of their new 2014 plans.  But if we choose a new plan, we will not be able to go back to the old one.  They don't say anything about costs of our old plan so I don't know what to think.

Our current plan is a high deductible plan suitable for an HSA, which is what we have.

I'm very interested in the anecdotes about what is happening to others, and why.

Maybe you are grandfathered. Has your insurance gone unchanged since 2010? You can keep a plan established before a certain date in 2010 as long as it has not been modified since inception.

I don't think our plan has changed since 2010.  Because of my wife's and my ages, it's pretty expensive.  But it might turn out to be a bargain of sorts compared to what we'd have to choose from.   

[iwealth]

Recently, I had someone close to me indicate the plan cancellations are the result of everybody hating the law and not wanting it to work. And the insurance companies aren't helping because they don't like the law either. Some very basic concepts are lost on people such as the reason for premium increases - I've heard it said the insurance companies just want to make more money.

I also continue to hear it makes sense I pay for health care I don't need like maternity care, mental health and addiction services, pediatric care, etc. It's for the greater good.

So I ask how they'd feel if they had to pay car insurance based on average car specifications deemed suitable for all Americans as opposed to paying for the car they own. Or paying home insurance on an average home deemed suitable for all Americans. Or heck, why not just pay income tax based on an average salary deemed suitable for all Americans. This tends to stump a bit, but I still hear the generic "it..it's just different, it's health care" response. Maybe they are right.