Obamacare... 'Affordable'???

@Walter Hinteler,

Walter Hinteler wrote:

... including all and everything.

Including in this sum are
- all university/college costs, but not private tutoring,
- costs for housing and food, but not frequent restaurant visits and boozing,
- public transport and private driving,
- health insurance,
- clothes, internet and other media.

I just spoke with my niece, who's expenses are a higher - that's due to the rent she pays with her friend for a first class flat in an upscale neighbourhood and to her/their private expensive hobbies (e.g. travelling and going to football ["soccer"] matches every weekend.

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@IRFRANK,

$25K/yr is about average for a full-time in-state student at a public school (including room and board). It's twice that at a private school. Mr B's MS at a private school was close to $4K per class. I've got two girls finishing up college now, but we never could have done it if I hadn't treated the college savings accounts as a monthly obligation from the time they were born. We did the same with retirement savings -- treated it as a bill that had to be paid every month before figuring out how much house we could afford, etc.

glitch is far from alone in coming out of school with a debt load that results in a loan payment higher than a mortgage. Taking on that kind of debt isn't something I'd ever do, but a whole lot of folks do it.

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@JPB,

I sent you a message JPB... in case you didn't see it.

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@glitchgov,

Quote:

Reading the reply to you stupid shits... I won't be coming back. I'm wasting my time chatting with people that are dumber than dirt ...

Are your pants on fire?

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@glitchgov,

Didn't get it so I sent you one just now.

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@JPB,

No idea if you've been having contentious PMs with others, but there's a different level of tolerance to tenor and tone in PMs than on the open forum. If someone reports you being abusive in your PMs then it's possible to lose that function. The forum posts are moderated to a slight degree. PMs aren't moderated, per se, but the function does have an on/off switch which can be turned to off if the mods get complaints on your PM habits. No idea if this applies to you, but if you can't reply to my PM then you might try the "Contact Us" button at the bottom of any page.

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What's with all this HMO and PPO nonsense on the exchange? They aren't going to offer traditional insurance where you can get service with any doctor, without worrying about who is "in your network"??

And what's with the high out of pocket maximums? The lowest out of pocket maximums I see are $1,000/year, and that is only in an HMO (ugh). To get a PPO you have to accept out of pocket maximums around $5,000/year.

I'm not terribly impressed. The rates are certainly cheap, but this all looks like a big exercise in "you get what you pay for".

I suppose it is nice that they do away with recisions. But would it be too much to ask for them to offer a plan that offers traditional insurance without a network, and that has low out of pocket costs once the bills start flowing in?

Sad

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@oralloy,

I don't know what kind of traditional insurance you have, but PPO and HMO have been part of my insurance for 20 years. The out of pocket maximums are consistent with what my insurance offers also. And I have been with Cigna and Blue Cross, some of the biggest. They go to PPO and HMO because those doctors agreed to the negotiated rates.

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@IRFRANK,

IRFRANK wrote:

I don't know what kind of traditional insurance you have, but PPO and HMO have been part of my insurance for 20 years. The out of pocket maximums are consistent with what my insurance offers also. And I have been with Cigna and Blue Cross, some of the biggest. They go to PPO and HMO because those doctors agreed to the negotiated rates.

I currently have a $250 deductible, then the insurance picks up 100% of the bills after that first $250.

I don't think I've ever exceeded that deductible in all the years I've had that policy, come to think of it. So the insurance company has made some good money off me over the years.

Anyway, I'm more irate at the network nonsense than I am about the out of pocket costs. If they offered a traditional plan with a $5,000/year out of pocket maximum, I'd be happy with it.

But it looks like I'm going to have to move to a PPO (I will NOT take an HMO). I've been notified that my plan is being canceled at the end of the year and I have to go to the exchange.

I will admit that I like the part about no more recisions. I've always wondered at the back of my mind if the insurance company was planning to cancel my policy as soon as I really needed it. So this isn't all bad.

But I do not like this "network" nonsense.

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@oralloy,

As long as your primary care physician is in the network, there should not be much change. Most doctors are. If you haven't used insurance, you've been healthy, which is a good thing. I don't know how old you are, but as you get older that will change.

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@chai2,

chai2 wrote:

Kolyo wrote:

But where do you have to go to study finance?
College!

Not necessarily.

Oh, don't worry, I know. Smile

(I knew enough about the cost of college to choose to go to school in Canada and save money.)

My "Catch-22" argument was a fake argument intended to amuse, although I don't think people cared for it. Some people, mostly Math majors, find that sort of fake-logical BS funny. What you do is string words together in way that sounds "logical", and "prove" something completely absurd.

For my next trick I'm going to settle the question of whether women are evil or not, using math and logic. (Hint: you are.)

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Year October 16 2023, Year October 16 2033, Year October 16 2043

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@kobereal24,

If that's the answer, what was the question?

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@JPB,

I currently purchase my own insurance and have for some time. I pay about $500 a month for my husband and I (mid-late 40's). $1500 deductible for each of us, then 80/20-no medicine coverage. I don't want to be bankrupted on an appendicitis, but I can pay for my own Dr's visits and occasional antibiotic. These Obamacare deductibles are INSANE. The closest plan in per month expense would nearly bankrupt someone in deductible alone should a major medical expense occur
!!

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@tlk,

how much does insurance that you cant afford to use help you? what is hilarious is that in the selling of ObamaCare high deductible cheapy insurance was used as an example for why we needed ObamaCare. we did not do away with these plans, we just increased the premiums 100-200%. the government paying some of it for a few years on the kids charge card is not going to help make the medicine go down better, that is an immoral act and when it is done I will pay more but not get more than I did before Obama pulled this disaster out of his ass.

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@tlk,

tlk wrote:

I currently purchase my own insurance and have for some time. I pay about $500 a month for my husband and I (mid-late 40's). $1500 deductible for each of us, then 80/20-no medicine coverage. I don't want to be bankrupted on an appendicitis, but I can pay for my own Dr's visits and occasional antibiotic. These Obamacare deductibles are INSANE. The closest plan in per month expense would nearly bankrupt someone in deductible alone should a major medical expense occur
!!

In Michigan at least, nearly all the plans will result in a roughly $5000 out of pocket expense if you have a sky-high medical bill.

But they come in various forms, from plans where all of it comes in one giant deductible at the beginning, to others where there is no deductible but a large maximum co-pay.

There are some plans in Michigan that have a $1500 deductible and then a 80/20 co-pay. But if you have a really huge bill, your 20% will be big enough to hit the maximum co-pay, resulting in your total out of pocket expenses that year being about $5000.

You didn't say what state you are in, but you might want to check and see if any of these "multi-state plans" are available in your state:

http://www.opm.gov/healthcare-insurance/multi-state-plan-program/

http://www.opm.gov/healthcare-insurance/multi-state-plan-program/opm-multi-state-plan-program-fact-sheet/

The "multi-state plans" are what everyone called "the public option" during the debate. If you can't find a decent plan from the private sector, the government-backed plans might have something you like.

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@hawkeye10,

hawkeye10 wrote:

when it is done I will pay more but not get more than I did before

In my case, I'm going to both pay less and get less.

But in one respect we are both getting more: Recisions are being outlawed.

Before there was always a risk that if you got really sick, your insurance company would find an excuse to cancel your policy. Now there is no longer any possibility of your policy being canceled.

That's a welcome change in my view.

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In Texas, from the little I've investigated, the out of pocket is more like 6,000.

Taking that into consideration, unless you have a chronic illness or situation coming up that is going to result in definately meeting that cost, it seems like logically it makes more sense to pick the bronze over silver and go ahead and take the lower premiums as unless you're going into the hospital, are on a lot of meds, it's not likely you're going to meet that out of pocket if you're in good health.

Let's say you become ill or have expensive tests or whatever, if it was the very beginning of the year when this happens, you might meet your out of pocket, then gain the benefits of 100% overage.

What if that happens a quarter, a third, three quarters of the way through the year, or in the last quarter, and your condition is going to carry over into the new year?
If you don't quite get up to the $6000 by Dec 31, you'll be back at square one on Jan 1, owing another $6000 if you're still laid up.

Of course I know anything can happen, like a hospitalization, but I personally have never spent $6000 in any year, and it wouldn't have been that even if I had to pay all the cost.
It makes sense to take the one w/ the lower premium, if you think about it critically and not let emotions come into play.

I took about a half hour today and looked over the differences in the plans, and it felt very similar to me to when I'd have to do the yearly insurance choices at a job. Personally no big deal. Weigh all your options and pick the most likely path.

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@chai2,

chai2 wrote:

In Texas, from the little I've investigated, the out of pocket is more like 6,000.

In Michigan there are some $4,000, some $5,000, and some $6,000. I just said "about $5,000" because it was easier to type and still reasonably accurate.

There is also a platinum HMO with a maximum out of pocket of only $1,000. But you have to limit yourself to only what the HMO consents to let you have (sounds like a trap to me).

chai2 wrote:

Taking that into consideration, unless you have a chronic illness or situation coming up that is going to result in definately meeting that cost, it seems like logically it makes more sense to pick the bronze over silver and go ahead and take the lower premiums as unless you're going into the hospital, are on a lot of meds, it's not likely you're going to meet that out of pocket if you're in good health.

If you are just comparing plans with deductibles that you don't expect to meet, that is mostly true.

But there are some medium-sized bills (say if you had to spend $10,000 in one year) where the silver would possibly be better than the bronze.

What about the gold plans? In Michigan most of the gold plans have low deductibles, so you move pretty quickly into the part where the insurance starts picking up the costs.

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@oralloy,

I wasn't arguing with you about the out of pocket cost, simply stating what it is in Texas. Important to me, as I live in Tx.

As far as having a $10,000 dollar bill......assuming you meant all at once, one bill....what difference does it make if your out of pocket max is $6000?

And, if it's a charge that consists of a few bills over a few months period, like going back for more therapy, etc.....you better hope it happens early enough in the year that you don't get slammed from both ends, meaning $6000 at the last quarter of one year, $6000 starting fresh in the new year.

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Obamacare... 'Affordable'???

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