Family Insurance Under Obama

Welcome to the new "normal." As long as you don't get sick or need to eat or drive anywhere . . . everything's great! Didn't you get the memo?

Regarding the Calculator that is being discussed - it only shows a cost per year if you make under a certain amount of money.

The true horror of this law is they are going to create formulas to determine if your employer is passing too much along to you the employee. There are two sides to the equation that equal the amount the insurance company must charge to be able to provide the mandated services. They have not reveled this formula yet. Pretty much the government gets to determine how much the value insurance should be worth to the employee and the employer cannot pass more than that on to the employee.

So although that would reduce what you pay back down to what it was before, and this was the part they were selling, it ignores that the amount the insurance company charges is still the same and it is cheaper for an employer to stop offering insurance and pay the penalty.

So now you are in the pool, drowning most likely. You have a choice of buying from the pool, paying what your employer would have paid since you make too much to get a subsidy and now your costs really go up or you follow suit with your employer and pay the fine and go uninsured.

So you pay the fine which is no problem because the insurance company must take you back if you have something go seriously wrong. Thing is though to do this the insurance company will have to charge what catastrophic expenses are just to break even. They are not allowed to do that under the law so they will go out of business because no one can stay in business losing millions every month.

Oh and the part about the insurance must pay 80% directly started at the beginning of this year so those increases of 60% were increases in costs.
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Oh my god that calculator is hysterical!! but it doesn't actually tell you how much it will cost me. :-/
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Do you guys know how that provision works that allows you to keep your kids on the plan till 26? They cannot be offered insurance by their employer. So say it costs you 100 a month more to keep your child on your plan if the child's employer offers insurance at 800 a month the child MUST take that insurance. It doesn't actually do what people thought it did. It only helps if your child cannot find a job or is living in your basement playing WoW.

What I find funny about the people who are loving on Obamacare is they don't get that we could insure the uninsured for a very small change in our costs. I would be more than happy to pay 100 a month more for all people to get insurance now that I have worked my way to a place of stability.

Thing is that wasn't the reason for Obamacare, that was the excuse. The reason for Obamacare was to destroy the current heath insurance system. Now I won't have insurance either, how is that progress?

When did leveling the playing field become a matter of dragging everyone else down.
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Talkstotrees, the OP clearly states she has employer provided insurance, plug that variable in you will find it less than informative but highly amusing.
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See I know what my insurance will go up to initially when that travesty kicks in, I will go from 250 a month (max since that would be hitting the deductible and paying nothing after that) to 2,300 a month until my employers drop out of the game. Don't tell me how affordable this thing is! Why go after high deductible insurance when there are people who like it?

Why don't you libs get it? I don't mind paying for other people to have insurance! I just don't understand why you had to take away my affordable option? Why couldn't you just leave me alone and charge some stupid tax? I would have paid it, I don't mind supporting people who need help. What I do mind is when a law takes away my family's security, puts their health at risk, for what? This could have been done without hurting the middle class, why must the middle class always pay?
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Where did I say cryptic? I said laughable, which it is.

I can CLEARLY remember my insurance going UP 10% to 15% every year long before Obama was elected.

The cost of your health insurance has little to do with "Obamacare". It is just another excuse by greedy insurance companies execs to hike your rate. Once the affordable care act kicks in fully they MUST spend a certain amount on actual health care costs (I think it is 80% or 85%), so until then they try to rake in as much money as possible for themselves an their stockholders.

The only sad or wrong thing is that we let them get away with it...

Those who support Obamacare will say this is not because of that, it's called blinders.

It doesn't help those of us who make our payments and do what we are supposed to do as responsible adults. It does help those who want the free handouts in life.

Not sure if you're the only person getting raises, but in the last 2 years my husband has taken $4k in pay CUTS for the SAME job. I did not get a raise in the last year at all, despite obtaining an MBA and taking on more work in the same job. It's all because of the way the Government is being run. No, Obama is not the only person in office doing this, but he is the driving force behind all of the middle class suffering.

ETA: Obamacare is NOT leveling the playing field. It is making those who pay either pay more or lose what they have. I'm sorry you have struggled with insurance...I am not classist at all. My problem is the people who take free things when others have to work for it. I doubt that you work harder than I do - our lives are different, with different challenges, advantages, everything. So please don't tell me you work harder than me. Walk a day in my shoes and then we'll talk.

i have several friends who have absolutely benefited from the ability to keep their children on their employer plan till age 26.

I am not sure when the preexisting condition rule kicks in.. but we have had two times when my husband changed jobs and we had no coverage for a while for preexisting conditions..(high blood pressure etc))

I do not belive Obamacare has 100% of the responsibility for the price of health insurance rising.. the price of health insurance has been rising every year for a long time.. long before obama came on the scene.

I just wanted to let you know that I completely understand your frustration.

I've been teaching at the same school for 14 years, receiving the same benefits the entire time. My health has not changed, nor has my family's. Our insurance did increase a small amount each year prior to Obamacare, however this year I received a 4% raise, but our insurance ate up all of the raise AND went up an additional $900 this year. Because of insurance, I'm feeling a significant pay cut instead of the 4% pay raise they talk about in the media.

Frustrating . . .

I found this calculator to be simple to use to figure out how much it will cost you:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/special/politics/wha...#

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To those who believe that people like me who haven't had insurance for a long time are just looking for a handout:
I'd like you to live our life for one week and tell me I'm asking for a handout simply because our employers have never offered health insurance. We work just as hard if not harder to give our family a good life than anyone else. We also work in the restaurant industry, do you really want your food service workers to go without medical care? Are you so classist that our lower income that makes us eligible for lower cost healthcare somehow makes us less eligible for a certain quality of life? If you have insurance, you are already paying into a system that takes from those who are healthy and gives to those who are sick, and the fact that many of you have it partially subsidized by your employer is a privilege, not the result of working harder than the rest of us. The ACA is trying to level the playing field by giving access to everyone, not just those who are lucky enough to have an employer who offers it.

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Funny, the calculator tells me the range we will pay for health insurance for our entire family. The lowest number being the 'Bronze' policies, the highest representing the Silver and Gold. it also tells me up to what percentage of our income we are required to pay for a deductible. This is for a family of four currently with insurance making 50k/yr:
"Based on your income, your annual premiums for that plan would be no more than $3,150 to $4,025. Your maximum out-of-pocket costs for deductibles and co-payments would be capped at 27 percent of the total cost."
How is that not telling you how much it will be?
This chart tells me how much the penalty will be http://www.businessinsider.com/chart-this-is-how-much-oba...
It's pretty clear to me how much it will cost us. I even did a different scenario, with a higher income and fewer kids, and the cost was higher, but it was easy to see what the cost was.

Jo W....
What I quoted here was for a family of four currently with insurance, not for us (we are a larger family with no insurance and out cost was much less than what I quoted here). Not cryptic at all.

For those of us who have good insurance available through our employers, there's not a lot of benefit. Insurance costs continue to go up because the cost of medical care continues to increase. There are so many things they can treat now that used to be just stuff you lived with (restless leg syndrome, anyone?) or died from. But that doesn't come cheap, and those costs are covered by insurance.

The big benefits come for those people whose employers don't offer insurance and can't get private insurance that covers pre-existing medical conditions. Their employers will likely have to offer insurance, and they will also be able to shop the market for health insurance. That's a huge benefit for independant contractors and part-time workers. In theory, this should also drive down the cost of providing healthcare because people will be less likely to utilize the emergency room instead of a quick clinic or doctor when that's appropriate. Not sure those savings will show up for consumers, though.

Remember that most portions of the Affordable Care Act have not even been put in place yet, so it's not really fair to blame Obama for your situation (with which I sympathize enormously!). Because there was Congressional gridlock, a lot of provisions were eliminated, watered down or delayed.

I think an often-overlooked resource is your local representation: your state rep, state senator, and member of congress are required to provide constituent services and they often have tremendous insight into state resources available to you now. If you haven't been responded to by the appropriate person from a state agency providing medical coverage, you'd be astounded at how much a call from the state senator's office can grease the wheels for you. Start there - because there is no fully federal health care program yet, your state options are the best for you most likely.

And let your reps know that you find this current situation untenable. The more they hear from constituents, the more they respond. One call, no. A thousand calls from a variety of people, YES. And when your state rep has local "office hours" in your community - GO.

All I know is that I pay roughly $1300 a month for my family of 3 through our family owned business. It has gone up twice and we expect another increase wieh we renew in March. This does NOT include dental or vision.

If you go to the Dr. for preventative care and ask any question that is not considered within the umbrella of preventative care... Dr's here will charge you extra $20 per question and reclassify the visit.

I believe in personal responsibility.

TOO many people are just lazy and prefer to wait around for the free Obamaphone and insurance.

We, unfortunately, are on COBRA right now, so the rising cost of health care is blatantly apparent. It is going from a tight but manageable $847 a month for our family of 4, to an outrageous $1098. It is also a "high deductible" plan -- which means aside from one preventative visit per year, we have to meet a $4K deductible before the plan kicks in and pays anything. And heaven forbid we go "out of network" If we do, it kicks up to $12K (the $4k in network plus the separate $8K out of network). I struggle to see how I can keep it in the budget while my husband looks for a job when we haven't even met our deductible for this year. For the cost we have paid out of pocket for insurance, we could have just paid our medical bills. All of this on a plan that had pretty stable costs the last 3 years.... so I blame the ACA (affordable care act). The irony of what it is called and what it actually does to prices is almost enough to make me laugh.

If people thought 10-15% annual increases in their insurance premiums pre-Obamacare were bad, they have not seen anything yet. Even scarier, people who once qualified for coverage through employers are going to suddenly find themselves without any protection at all other than a state run exchange. Low wage earners (even those in the 12-15 hour range) who work 30-34 hours are going to be most affected as they suddenly see their employers cut their hours to 28 hours were week to avoid paying a huge penalty. Because it's the lowest wage earner's W-2 wages that will determine what is 'affordable' for all employees. The measurement period starts in 2013, with mandatory coverage levels beginning in 2014.

For the record, I have never had an issue with pre-exisiting condition coverage under the old rules. As long as I didn't have a gap of more than 90 days between jobs, pre-existing conditions were covered. If I Knew i'd be going more than the 90 days I picked up COBRA. This is a rule that's been around since COBRA passed in 1986 under the Regan administration.

So no, I know no one this has helped. Fore the few people I know with kids age 26 on the plan, the kids could get coverage elsewhere but chose not to.

As an employer, the ACA didn't change the 2 factors that are making insurance unaffordable for me to provide: Interstate Commerce laws and MEWA plans. If these 2 god forsaken regulations were stricken from the books my health care costs would drop a good 40%.

People who work from small businesses (under 50 employees?) This law does nothing for them. There are over 27 million small businesses in the US and somewhere between 60 & 80% of all new jobs created are in small businesses. That's a lot of people slipping through the cracks.

Private insurance companies are raising prices because that's what they DO. The Republicans abolishing the public option destroyed any chance of an affordable competitive option (which was their intention trying to squash all change). Supposedly, we will see costs adjust in 2014 when the bill has kicked in. Hopefully with SO MANY MORE customers, the private insurers will quit ripping everyone off and beefing up their prices (which are SUPPOSED to be partially so high due to the uninsured, so that shouldn't be an excuse anymore), but with a private system, we're really screwed.

What we are going through is the EXACT REASON EVERY OTHER developed nation implemented universal health care NOT CONTINGENT on employers.

I feel your pain. I have been uninsured my entire working adult life due to cost. We have paid all of our medical expenses out of pocket for 20 years, including all three child-births. Finally since we are having a decent year, we're going to buy some expensive, high deductible insurance that will do nothing but add a premium to our monthly costs and not cover anything below $10,000 per year.

It's HORRIBLE but it always has been. I feel for the people who can't afford any insurance who will suddenly HAVE to buy it? I hope the plans for this problem come to some successful fruition in the next couple of years. It will take a long bumpy road to get us off this crash course we've been on where people's only options for health care have been emergency rooms and bankruptcies after-words. Something had to be done to our criminal system. The Republicans made it super wimpy though.

Amen Amy J.!
Amen TalksToTrees!
Our coverage through our employer is some of the best available out there.
My husband has over 25 years with this employer and the premiums and co pays have increased EVERY year. 4% per year is nothing. And I creases are nothing new.
And yes, it's disgusting that this has been allowed for so long while ins companies cherry pick customers, deny coverage, etc.
Oh NOW everyone is willing to give to the uninsured? Sorry, too little too late.
Health care contingent on an employer is ridiculous.
Always has been.
But hasn't been an issue for those lucky enough to have access.
Right is right. Wrong is wrong.
Priorities must be straightened.
There will be growing pains all around, I'm sure.
Too bad the Republicans have watered down the original plan.
Would've been better.

This is because of Obamacare. After 2014 insurance companies can only increase rates by a certain amount. Not sure what the percentage is. My daughter is self employed and her insurance has not quite doubled since 2010. She will be paying $1400 a month for herself. So insurance companies are getting the increases in now. So people that could afford insurance now cannot thanks to Obamacare.

The calculator only told me how much I would pay if I was forced to get insurance through "a different plan through your state’s exchange with federal assistance". What in the heck does that mean?

What will the "new plan" I qualify for include? What are the co-pays, deductibles, are my current doctors in their system,? What about prescriptions? There are a million questions about this "plan" we now qualify for if we lose our insurance through my husband's work.

And really it is less money in premiums but for what coverage??

Our insurance went up 40% last year and will probably go up again this year...and we got no raise, not even 3-4% cost of living...our take home pay just keeps getting smaller, and everything else keeps going up in price.

Seems like there really are not any for sure answers other than "the maximum we can be charged" but what do we get for that money??

This is one of the ways that the fighting in congress negatively affected the entire plan. When they took out the "government option" it allowed insurance to remain privatized so there doesn't "have" to be an affordable option.... they way it was originally written.

I can tell you that I have had my insurance go up every year of my life. I haven't seen a change in the past 4 years that's any better or worse than the 4 before that.