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What would premiums have been witbout Obamacare?

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CriticalThought

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If Obamacare had not passed, I suspect that premiums and deductibles would have been the same or more than they are now, but for far less comprehensive coverage. This is the primary reason I don't get in a huff about the failings of ACA but I would like to see the evidence to the contrary. The CBO has said a straight repeal of ACA would double premiums, which seems to suggests that as bad as ACA has been in some instances, it could have been far worse without it.
 
CriticalThought said:
If Obamacare had not passed, I suspect that premiums and deductibles would have been the same or more than they are now, but for far less comprehensive coverage. This is the primary reason I don't get in a huff about the failings of ACA but I would like to see the evidence to the contrary. The CBO has said a straight repeal of ACA would double premiums, which seems to suggests that as bad as ACA has been in some instances, it could have been far worse without it.
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That sounds like a lot of assuming to justify a total change of the structure of finances of 17 percent of the economy. ;)
 
joG said:
That sounds like a lot of assuming to justify a total change of the structure of finances of 17 percent of the economy. ;)
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Yes, it'd be better to just have no plan whatsoever for the 17% of the economy and to start making radical changes based purely on gaining political points with the base.
 
RabidAlpaca said:
Yes, it'd be better to just have no plan whatsoever for the 17% of the economy and to start making radical changes based purely on gaining political points with the base.
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That does not seem to be the problem. But you know that and just want to be difficult.

ACA was a stupid solution and fixing it is the problem. How to do it is only the secondary problem that needs solving desperately.
 
CriticalThought said:
If Obamacare had not passed, I suspect that premiums and deductibles would have been the same or more than they are now, but for far less comprehensive coverage. This is the primary reason I don't get in a huff about the failings of ACA but I would like to see the evidence to the contrary. The CBO has said a straight repeal of ACA would double premiums, which seems to suggests that as bad as ACA has been in some instances, it could have been far worse without it.
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Premium growth slowed under ACA, so they would have been hire.. err higher ffs.. I blame the very late night I had. Deductibles would also have been higher.

The present "repeal" bill favoured in congress will see premiums jump 20%, have millions less insured and have deductibles go up to 18k.

There is no easy solution as long as you dont clamp down on the industries involved.
 
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joG said:
That does not seem to be the problem. But you know that and just want to be difficult.
ACA was a stupid solution and fixing it is the problem. How to do it is only the secondary problem that needs solving desperately.
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Yes, it IS a problem that the GOP has absolutely no plan whatsoever, but wants to torpedo our current healthcare system. We can all agree that we need to improve the system, but that's not what one side of the aisle wants to do.
 
joG said:
That sounds like a lot of assuming to justify a total change of the structure of finances of 17 percent of the economy. ;)
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Aren't a lot of people assuming that ACA has made the situation worse than it otherwise would have been?
 
joG said:
That does not seem to be the problem. But you know that and just want to be difficult.

ACA was a stupid solution and fixing it is the problem. How to do it is only the secondary problem that needs solving desperately.
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So...what is your evidence that it wasn't the least stupid option available out of all the other options?
 
PeteEU said:
Premium growth slowed under ACA, so they would have been hire.. err higher ffs.. I blame the very late night I had. Deductibles would also have been higher.

The present "repeal" bill favoured in congress will see premiums jump 20%, have millions less insured and have deductibles go up to 18k.

There is no easy solution as long as you dont clamp down on the industries involved.
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It seems like that is the kind of thing the Dems should be educating people about.
 
CriticalThought said:
If Obamacare had not passed, I suspect that premiums and deductibles would have been the same or more than they are now, but for far less comprehensive coverage. This is the primary reason I don't get in a huff about the failings of ACA but I would like to see the evidence to the contrary. The CBO has said a straight repeal of ACA would double premiums, which seems to suggests that as bad as ACA has been in some instances, it could have been far worse without it.
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My premiums went up and my coverage went down, as did many folks. you can speculate on how big or little of a failure obamacare is, but the fact is it was indeed a colossal failure.
 
I started paying premiums on my Employer HI in the mid 90's. And those premiums went up every single year until I retired in 2009. This was going on loooong before Obama and ACA.

Actually now my ACA plan and premiums are cheaper that any HI plan I would be able to get under my ex-employer's retirement plans.

That said the whole system needs fixing, from top to bottom. When everyone and every Corporation in the Health Care chain needs to be millionaires and make billions in profits the system is going to be expensive. Simple as that.
 
CriticalThought said:
It seems like that is the kind of thing the Dems should be educating people about.
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Well, the thing is... it is a negative.. It is like saying.. congrats you dont have cancer so you wont die of cancer... the AIDs is another matter..
 
What the GOP healthcare plans basically boil down to is offering options with very low premiums but with exorbitant deductibles.

Healthcare will be affordable ... as long as you don't get a serious illness/condition or have a pre-existing condition.

At that point the GOP healthcare is unaffordable and useless for the poor/middle class.
 
The question was: What would premiums have been witbout Obamacare?
There is more to the question than that simple one. Before the ACA, there were all kinds of plans including junk policies, which were cheap but provided little coverage. Those plans were not complaint with the ACA and couldn't be bought. If you had a junk plan and now had to have a compliant one, you might be one of those people who complained, "my premiums doubled under Obamacare" -- not realizing that your new plan actually covers hospitalization and other services omitted from your old plan.

So, to answer the question, one needs to compare like premiums of like policies before and after. If we compare the average price of premiums, those prices will be up, because the policies now are more comprehensive.

Then, we need to know if one is talking about before subsidies and after subsidies. We've heard a barrage of anecdotes: 'I kind of know this man who is being told that he has to buy a policy he can’t possibly afford;' 'I read this sad story in the Wall Street Journal...'; 'I heard this tale on the radio...' Last night, I watched a Senator telling arguing how Obamacare is a failure, but using a sad story about a couple who applied for the subsidy and after they had completed their income taxes, the IRS told them that they made too much money and weren't eligible for the subsidy and the IRS wanted $15,000. How has that a failure of the ACA? These people made too much money for a subsidy. Suppose that someone tells you about a struggling worker who had adequate coverage but is now being confronted with unaffordable premiums. You should immediately ask, what about the subsidies? Because the Affordable Care Act has subsidies that are there specifically to keep premiums affordable for lower earners. If we are including after subsidies, premiums have dropped radically.

Then, we need to know whether employer provided health insurance, of which 80% of Americans get their insurance, are included.
“There was nothing fundamentally large about the ACA overall which had a noticeable effect” on employer plans’ premiums, Gary Claxton, vice president and co-director of the Program for the Study of Health Reform and Private Insurance at the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation, told Factcheck.
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And as we’ve pointed out, that market has seen much higher average premium increases than the employer-sponsored market. The average increase for the second lowest-cost silver plan on HealthCare.gov — which encompassed 38 states over the past two years — was 25 percent from 2016 to 2017; it was 7.2 percent the year before. The average increase for an employer-provided family plan in 2016, meanwhile, was 3 percent — marking the fifth straight year of 3 percent or 4 percent premium growth.


When Sen. Ted Cruz recently pointed to the increase in employer-sponsored premiums under the ACA as evidence of how it has “driven up the cost of health care,” we said that was misleading, since the growth has been at such low rates that the Obama administration touted it as a positive. (That was misleading, too. Experts have said the economy was the main reason, not the ACA.)
Still, the slow rate of growth was good news for premiums: The total average family plan cost increased by 43 percent from 2008 to 2016, but it went up more than double that rate — 97 percent — from 2000 to 2008.


There has been some impact on premiums of employer-sponsored plans because of the health care law, however.
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Rogue Valley said:
What the GOP healthcare plans basically boil down to is offering options with very low premiums but with exorbitant deductibles.

Healthcare will be affordable ... as long as you don't get a serious illness/condition or have a pre-existing condition.

At that point the GOP healthcare is unaffordable and useless for the poor/middle class.
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Fortunately, Sen. McCain for once, lived up to his maverick label and added his vote to kill the GOP plan.

Let's see if vindictive Trump will sabotage the nation's health system. It seems like it from his Tweet:

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/890820505330212864
 
PeteEU said:
Premium growth slowed under ACA, so they would have been hire.. err higher ffs.. I blame the very late night I had. Deductibles would also have been higher.

The present "repeal" bill favoured in congress will see premiums jump 20%, have millions less insured and have deductibles go up to 18k.

There is no easy solution as long as you dont clamp down on the industries involved.
Click to expand...

It seems like if the goal is to provide healthcare to the uninsured, then the plan should have something to do with providing healthcare to the uninsured.

Right now, that is not the plan and the proposals do not offer that as a plan to enact.

Another government boondoggle advertised as one thing that is something completely different that provides a great vehicle to launder money.
 
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