It doesn't appear Obamacare is going to be fixed any time soon, if at all. When the GOP has a majority house, senate and the white house and they can't even agree with each other, we aren't getting anywhere with anything. I don't know why that surprises me.
$6132 a year for insurance (for one) with a $5550 deductible is outrageous. DH and I are seriously considering dropping it, paying the fine (it would be about $2000) and putting the rest in our own bank account. I heard a statistic the other day that 12 million people aren't buying insurance and are opting to pay the fine instead. I don't blame them. In fact, I know a couple of them and they aren't young folks, either.
Another thing I kept hearing on the tv the last couple of weeks is "people are just opting to not have insurance and just use the ER, where they then won't have to pay for their medical"......WHAT?! I don't think so. If I take my DH to the ER, and he doesn't have medical insurance, you can damn well bet they are going to send me a bill AND expect me to pay it! Where the heck is this "news" coming from? I've heard it numerous times, even from the president's press secretary.
The fact that we would owe medical bills is the only thing that has kept me paying this exorbitant rate for extremely crappy insurance (lowest priced Bronze Plan available). All's he's getting out of it is catastrophic insurance. Honestly, if it goes up again for next year (and of course it will) we probably will just not have health insurance anymore for him. If I was paying $511 a month for decent insurance with a low deductible, I'd be ok with it, but it's not even close to that, not to mention prescription coverage stinks too. Plus, with the Bronze plan, it only covers 60%. We're still going to have to cough up 40%, on top the the deductible - so if something major happens, we're going to owe a ton of money anyway......so it really doesn't make much difference in the grand scheme of things whether we have insurance or not, it seems. If we have it and have a big emergency or illness, we're going to owe way more than we can afford (apparently even a broken ankle can cost up to $117,000) - if we don't have insurance and have a big emergency or illness we're still going to have way more than we can afford.
We'll just start taking that monthly premium and putting it in a savings account for medical bills. If something major happens - well then the provider will get what we've saved up, along with a $500 a month payment until it's paid off, I guess. So, 10 million people who couldn't afford health insurance now have it (for free, or cheap) and 12 million now don't have it, because they can't afford it now. Ridiculous. I'll have to do more research, but I read that if you have insurance for at least 9 months out of the year, you don't have to pay the penalty. We should know by late October/early November what the 2018 rates will be. We could cancel it then, if we decide and possibly at least not have to pay the penalty for 2017. Maybe by 2018 something new will be in place.
As I was writing this blog out, I read a post that Cindi over at ThriftyatSixty recently made about the cost of healthcare. As always, she has a great perspective on things.
I am not sure what you religious views are, but there are some excellent Christian group plans. Just an idea. I am scared to death of the insurance that is out there should my husband lose his job. It is tough out there!
ReplyDeleteI have looked into those. It appears there are 3 that qualify, but also appears you need to attend a church and be signed of as doing so. We do not attend church. They sure seems like a great alternative, for those that qualify!
DeleteYes, we do not attend either! We thought seriously about it at one time.
DeleteI was just going to suggest a faith based option, but I see Jennifer beat me to it! Healthcare is a major mess that screwed many people over. Our premiums (via my husband's company) went through the roof. We also got hit with an enormous deductible which we never had before. I did indeed break my ankle and spent almost $7,000 OOP. Thankfully DH didn't have any medical needs, or that could have doubled. Insurance is also one of the reasons my DH changed jobs last year. Still a high deductible, but nothing like with his other company. The only winners with Obummer Care were those who didn't have insurance to begin with. The rest of us were truly negatively impacted.
ReplyDeleteThankfully, my company has continued to pay for and offer great insurance for me, at no cost to me, with a $250 deductible. I could add DH to it, but it would cost me over $1000 a month. I just can't afford that.
DeleteThanks for the mention.
ReplyDeleteIt's mindboggling that nothing has gotten done. And I don't blame Trump either. He has been sending out tweets telling We The People not to worry. He is going to address the Democrats personally and try to get something done. Trump doesn't care about party lines. He just cares about the people.
If nothing gets done, Obamacare is already in a death spiral and should implode by 2018. That's not much comfort to anyone right now, I understand that. Obamacare was based on tons of young people signing up and paying, thus floating the older folks who get the majority of health care needs met. That didn't quite work out. The younger set, once over the age of 26 (and on mom & dad's insurance) opted out of Obamacare altogether and just pay the fine. Should they need medical care, because of the no previous exemption clause, they can get medical insurance ASAP, get the medical care they need and once done, drop the insurance altogether and go back to paying the fine.
Obamacare didn't plan their rules very well, did they?
More and more insurance companies are dropping out of the govt marketplace....and that is how Obamacare is now in a death spiral. It's just a matter of time.
But again, that isn't helping any of us NOW.
All we can do now is hope and pray change comes soon enough. Trump says he's working on it and I believe him.
My state has 3 insurance companies to choose from (not sure what it was before, since we didn't live here). One company was $100 less a month than the other 2, for same Bronze plan, so of course I chose that company. I was logging into the company the other day and saw a note on their website: due to the popularity of their plan, then had over 10,000 enroll this year, so they had to stop taking new enrollees Dec 22nd! So, a company is getting business and they can't handle it. Oh brother. I'm glad I got signed up before then, otherwise I would have had to choose one of the other 2 plans and pay $100 more a month.
DeleteCindi, you are ever so wise! I truly, truly enjoy your perspective and am in total agreement that Trump will take care of the American people.
DeleteNot to get into a political debate, but how can anyone believe anything any politician says, Trump included. Apparently he isn't the next coming despite all the Tweets saying he had "plans, and they are great plans, the best plans, no one will ever be in need again type plans." They all need to get off their ego's, fix what isn't working, and stop the infantile behavior.
DeleteIt's all a pretty hopeless feeling, at least to me. I don't mind having to buy insurance (house, car, medical) but it shouldn't cost more than people's house payments.
DeleteHad Trump's plan passed insurance companies would have been able to charger older people 5+ times the premiums as younger premiums. I believe Obamacare caps it at 3 times.
ReplyDeleteit's pretty much to the point that no matter what plan it ends up being, it's unaffordable for the average person. Very disheartening, to say the least.
DeleteKay, my brother already pays five times what he did three years ago. They will pay five times because they will be pushed off company policies and have to take Obamacare insurance! At this point the only people I know who have insurance are teachers and military. Everyone else I know (most of my family is in farming or small business) chose to go with the "pay the tax and put the rest in savings" plan.
DeleteJanette - good point. I think most Americans are still covered under their company insurance, so most aren't feeling the pain of Obamacare. It's just life as usual. I know if DH was covered by an employer, as I am, we'd probably be pretty oblivious to how it is really affecting so many people. According to Kaiser Foundation statistics only 7% are covered by non-employee,non gov't(medicaid/medicare) insurance, but another 10% are those that are choosing to go uninsured, so add those 2 groups together and that's quite a bit of people affected by these costs.
ReplyDelete