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Obamacare: Is a $2,000 deductible 'affordable?'

Velvet Elvis said:
I don't know about you guys, but I'm learnin' SPANISH.

That way, if I ever really have to go to a hospital, I'll just pretend I'm an illegal alien. They'll waive my deductible then.
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Or you could learn to be nice enough the Canadians will accept you. :mrgreen:
 
Velvet Elvis said:
I don't know about you guys, but I'm learnin' SPANISH.

That way, if I ever really have to go to a hospital, I'll just pretend I'm an illegal alien. They'll waive my deductible then.
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Don't need to. All you need to do is go into the emergency room with no info, lie on the forms, get treatment, and walk out. I was talking to a emergency room nurse last fall and this happens all the time.
 
jmotivator said:
... are you being dense on purpose? The PENALTY for not having insurance will be $280 which is less than $500.
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I don't recall seeing the $280 figure here before.
That's the source of my confusion. Not sure why you couldn't've said so earlier. w/e

But we should adjust the break even incomes to reflect a cost of ~$500 bucks instead of $3850, yes?
jmotivator said:
($3852 - $695) * 40 = $126,280.00
So it is cheaper for 85% of all earners in the country to not get insurance and just apply for it if they do get sick.
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($500 - $280) * 40 = $8800

($500 - $695) * 40 = $-7800


It is cheaper for [what percentage] of all earners in the country California to not get insurance and just apply for it if they do get sick?
 
When will voters learn that democrats create a dependent society that can't afford basic needs. They wanted this, now they are getting what they deserve.
 
Erod said:
So when does the "Affordable" part of the Affordable Care Act kick in? High deductibles and high co-pays were not what Obama sold us.
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You know, that sounded a little bit high the first time I looked at that. The second time around I realized that this was just for an individual plan and about wet my pants.
 
Simon W. Moon said:
I don't recall seeing the $280 figure here before.
That's the source of my confusion. Not sure why you couldn't've said so earlier. w/e
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A previous post explained that the penalty for not buying insurance in the first year would be $95.00 + 1% of your income. For the example given, a person making $17k annually would pay $44 a month for insurance. But doing the math shows that that same person would pay a $280 penalty for not buying insurance.


But we should adjust the break even incomes to reflect a cost of ~$500 bucks instead of $3850, yes?
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No, because the subsidy cuts off at $45k annually, so there is no subsidy to apply at the mid to upper income tiers.


($500 - $280) * 40 = $8800

($500 - $695) * 40 = $-7800


It is cheaper for [what percentage] of all earners in the country California to not get insurance and just apply for it if they do get sick?
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The second number is for full implementation years down the road. My original point is that the health insurers will not be able to survive the early years of the program because they will lose a huge portion of their operating funds when people realize that it is cheaper and low risk to simply not buy insurance.
 
Samhain said:
I like my 3k/year deductable + HSA plan. my Premium is about 110 a month for family coverage. I also get quarterly rebates of 150/person
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Sounds very similar to my plan. According to the calculators for obamacare in California, for a silver plan a family should expect to pay a $13,000 premium, PLUS up to $13,000 in out of pocket - real out of pocket is $1000's more than what most people in this country make in a year!!!
 
I had to construct my own cost matrix examining the total out of pocket costs of various plans for my wife and son. If I bet neither will use very much health care, we should go with the highest deductible plan. If either or both end up needing a lot of health care in a given year, it hardly matters because the out-of-pocket max is essentially no different (what isn't paid in deductible is bled from you in premiums). If one or both need a moderate amount of health care, it's a little bit of a toss-up, but still hardly any different. The worst bet is probably the lowest deductible plan and then needing very little health care all year.

Long story short, people need to sit down and do the critical thinking, calculating, fill out their excel spreadsheets and cost matrices and realize that, a lot of times, you're not getting that good of a deal nor are you getting all that defrauded. If you think you're getting a screaming deal on health insurance, you better really do your homework and read the fine print, because skepticism is warranted. There's no free lunch in our health care system. Our health care is insanely expensive, the Affordable Care Act does not make care affordable, and so if you have money, you will pay. Unless you're old or poor and the DHHS takes care of you, of course.
 
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roughdraft274 said:
It's insurance. You can't just look at a single year and say "see you're over paying!" Because then you overlook that one year where you needed emergency surgery with a short stay in the ICU, where you shelled out a few thousand but didn't have to pay the other hundred thousand dollars of your bill. Do you really not understand that or are you being intentionally thick headed?
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You forget that he is a deadbeat and they don't worry about paying for the unexpected, they'll just use the emergency room. There will always be deadbeats gaming the system. They have nothing to lose so we really can't stop them entirely. The fines will increase in time and sooner or later it will dawn on them that it's better to have insurance than not.
 
iguanaman said:
You forget that he is a deadbeat and they don't worry about paying for the unexpected, they'll just use the emergency room. There will always be deadbeats gaming the system. They have nothing to lose so we really can't stop them entirely. The fines will increase in time and sooner or later it will dawn on them that it's better to have insurance than not.
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kinda like the deadbeat welfare queens that you liberals have forced the tax payer to support them and their children?

you have no right to tell anyone about deadbeat anything
 
trfjr said:
kinda like the deadbeat welfare queens that you liberals have forced the tax payer to support them and their children?

you have no right to tell anyone about deadbeat anything
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From Welfare Queens to Disabled Deadbeats
If you want to understand the trouble Republicans are in, one good place to start is with the obsession the right has lately developed with the rising disability rolls. The growing number of Americans receiving disability payments has, for many on the right, become a symbol of our economic and moral decay; we’re becoming a nation of malingerers.

As Jared Bernstein points out, there’s a factual problem here: a large part of the rise in the disability rolls reflects simple demographics, because aging baby boomers are a lot more likely to have real ailments than those same workers did when they were in their 20s and 30s. The Social Security Administration does a formal adjustment for this reality, and as Jared says, it looks like this:
From Welfare Queens to Disabled Deadbeats - NYTimes.com
 
jmotivator said:
A previous post explained that the penalty for not buying insurance in the first year would be $95.00 + 1% of your income. For the example given, a person making $17k annually would pay $44 a month for insurance. But doing the math shows that that same person would pay a $280 penalty for not buying insurance.
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Plus the costs of w/e Dr. visits cost vs the costs of the copay. So everyone signs up at their first Dr's visit? The difference between 280 and 500 isn't that great. It wouldn't take too many Dr visits to tip the scales.

jmotivator said:
My original point is that the health insurers will not be able to survive the early years of the program because they will lose a huge portion of their operating funds when people realize that it is cheaper and low risk to simply not buy insurance.
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How many years until health insurance agencies fail to survive?
 
sawyerloggingon said:
Because companies will drop private insurance and workers will be forced into Obama care.
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Weren't companies dropping insurance before reform? Do you really think those dropping need reform to make them drop? Really?
 
trfjr said:
kinda like the deadbeat welfare queens that you liberals have forced the tax payer to support them and their children?

you have no right to tell anyone about deadbeat anything
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You mean like corporate welfare YOU on the right support. You have no right to tell anyone about deadbeat anything.
 
Simon W. Moon said:
Have you included the subsidy for families making less that ~$90k?
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So it makes it way more expensive for those making over $90k, since they will be paying for their insurance and the subsidies? I didn't realize 2 married elementary school teachers were so well off that they could afford to pay for all that!
 
solletica said:
It's called the lemon package. Patients who get their daily dose of Vitamin C should never have to pay their full deductible.
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Many plans offered in employer based benefits packages now are like that....Many people don't understand what insurance is supposed to be these days, because they use it for everything from the standard office visit, to catastrophic care...Problem is, that many insurance plans are NOT true insurance of anything, including this Obama nightmare...They are standard visit discount plans.

It's not a sale. You are required to buy it. If you don't, you should be able to afford the penalty.
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Could you show me in the Constitution where it says that the federal government can force me to buy a private product?
 
Erod said:
So when does the "Affordable" part of the Affordable Care Act kick in? High deductibles and high co-pays were not what Obama sold us.
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Even with this... Leftists will never learn government intrusion always increases costs while making service worse. Never learn.

But I feel comfortable knowing the IRS will be there to ensure compliance for this rude little Leftist scheme.
 
zimmer said:
Even with this... Leftists will never learn government intrusion always increases costs while making service worse. Never learn.

But I feel comfortable knowing the IRS will be there to ensure compliance for this rude little Leftist scheme.
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Won't it be wonderful when we are in our 70s, or 80s, should we be so lucky, and need that hip replacement, only to be told that we need to tell some IRS goon what we pray?
 
Simon W. Moon said:
Plus the costs of w/e Dr. visits cost vs the costs of the copay. So everyone signs up at their first Dr's visit? The difference between 280 and 500 isn't that great. It wouldn't take too many Dr visits to tip the scales.
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For the poor the cost of the doctor's visits simply isn't a concern since the old adage remains that you can't squeeze blood from a turnip. At the higher income levels the the savings for not buying insurance are greater than the out of pocket expenses for a doctors visit.

Let's look at someone making $80,000. In the first year of the penalty she could either pay $3,800 for insurance, or $895 in penalties. If she chose to take the penalty she would have $2,905 free and clear to pay medical expenses that year. The average doctor's visit is about $300. She could see the doctor 9 times that year, pay out of pocket, and still come out even.

If people are chronically ill then obviously they would weigh their annual costs versus savings... but there in lies the critical flaw in the Obamacare system: It only makes sense to participate in the new system if you spend more on medical bills than the cost of insurance. But those people are a net loss for insurance companies to insure, so they can only afford to insure them because all the healthy people who don't go to the doctor also buy insurance, and are a net positive cash flow for the insurance companies. Under the Obama plan those people who are not chronically ill would be foolish to buy insurance.

How many years until health insurance agencies fail to survive?
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Without a change to the cost of the penalty I give them three years. The government will shell out hundreds of billions trying to keep the insurance industry afloat, but saving them in this stupid new system would break the bank.
 
sawyerloggingon said:
Comps will flee private insurance in mass leaving its employees with no options other than obammy care
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Holy ****.

You really think there's a government health plan I can buy.
 
jmotivator said:
For the poor the cost of the doctor's visits simply isn't a concern since the old adage remains that you can't squeeze blood from a turnip. At the higher income levels the the savings for not buying insurance are greater than the out of pocket expenses for a doctors visit.

Let's look at someone making $80,000. In the first year of the penalty she could either pay $3,800 for insurance, or $895 in penalties. If she chose to take the penalty she would have $2,905 free and clear to pay medical expenses that year. The average doctor's visit is about $300. She could see the doctor 9 times that year, pay out of pocket, and still come out even.

If people are chronically ill then obviously they would weigh their annual costs versus savings... but there in lies the critical flaw in the Obamacare system: It only makes sense to participate in the new system if you spend more on medical bills than the cost of insurance. But those people are a net loss for insurance companies to insure, so they can only afford to insure them because all the healthy people who don't go to the doctor also buy insurance, and are a net positive cash flow for the insurance companies. Under the Obama plan those people who are not chronically ill would be foolish to buy insurance.



Without a change to the cost of the penalty I give them three years. The government will shell out hundreds of billions trying to keep the insurance industry afloat, but saving them in this stupid new system would break the bank.
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You are aware that an insurance company doesn't have to pay for pre-existing bills, right? If I wait until I get sick, the insurance might not kick in until after I get myself a big fat bill. Even if I try to be sneaky and sign up for insurance during the ride to the hospital, I'd bet insurance companies will have a "your insurance starts next week" clause.

Anyone who thinks Obamacare threatens the insurance industry should keep in mind that the insurance industry wrote the bill.
 
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trfjr said:
ok so what if that happens let government and hospital eat the cost.
All my life i worked and my money went to someone else who made poor decisions.
i paid for that welfare mom who spits out kids every year because she made the decision to have unprotected sex. my money goes towards the idiot who dropped out of high school and now can only get a part time minimum wage job and i have to feed his kids
so what if i take a chance that might force someone else to pay my hospital bill, why are you concerned about me not getting insurance you are not concerned about that welfare mom or that high school drop out. why are you not giving them a hard time
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Good lord, didn't know you were so tenderhearted. I'll try to be more gentle next time.
 
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