Tag Archives: Health Insurance

News

Americans shocked by high deductibles of Obamacare health plans

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The Wall Street Journal reports.

Excerpt:

As enrollment picks up on the HealthCare.gov website, many people with modest incomes are encountering a troubling element of the federal health law: deductibles so steep they may not be able to afford the portion of medical expenses that insurance doesn’t cover.

The average individual deductible for what is called a bronze plan on the exchange—the lowest-priced coverage—is $5,081 a year, according to a new report on insurance offerings in 34 of the 36 states that rely on the federally run online marketplace.

That is 42% higher than the average deductible of $3,589 for an individually purchased plan in 2013 before much of the federal law took effect, according to HealthPocket Inc., a company that compares health-insurance plans for consumers. A deductible is the annual amount people must spend on health care before their insurer starts making payments.

[…]That means some sick or injured people may avoid treatment so they don’t rack up high bills their insurance won’t cover, according to consumer activists, insurance brokers and public-policy analysts—subverting one of the health law’s goals, which is to ensure more people receive needed health care. Hospitals, meantime, are bracing for a rise in unpaid bills from bronze-plan policyholders, said industry officials and public-policy analysts.

How high are the deductibles? The article says that “Total out-of-pocket expenses under bronze plans are capped at an annual $6,350 for individuals and $12,700 for families of four”.

Is the government really helping people with a plan that has that high of a deductible?

More:

“They’re seeing sticker shock” in transitioning to the more-comprehensive coverage, and “once they start to use the policy, they will see a second sticker shock” of high deductibles, said Jamie Court, president of public-interest group Consumer Watchdog in California.

For example, the patient’s typical share of the cost of having a baby through normal delivery—$6,150, according to one insurer’s estimate—would be almost entirely an out-of-pocket expense for a person holding a bronze policy with the average $5,081 deductible.

“The anger is going to grow, because people are really stretched to buy these policies, then they’re going to have to reach into their pocket for another five grand before it does anything for them,” Mr. Court said.

[…]The average insured American spent $1,241 on out-of-pocket health-care expenses in 2012, according to Truven Health Analytics Inc., which analyzed medical claims from employers.

This article from the radically leftist New York Times explains that the Obamcare web site did not even DISPLAY the deductibles to the people who were shopping for plans.

Excerpt:

For months, the Obama administration has heralded the low premiums of medical insurance policies on sale in the insurance exchanges created by the new health law. But as consumers dig into the details, they are finding that the deductibles and other out-of-pocket costs are often much higher than what is typical in employer-sponsored health plans.

Until now, it was almost impossible for people using the federal health care website to see the deductible amounts, which consumers pay before coverage kicks in. But federal officials finally relented last week and added a “window shopping” feature that displays data on deductibles.

[…]In El Paso, Tex., for example, for a husband and wife both age 35, one of the cheapest plans on the federal exchange, offered by Blue Cross and Blue Shield, has a premium less than $300 a month, but the annual deductible is more than $12,000. For a 45-year-old couple seeking insurance on the federal exchange in Saginaw, Mich., a policy with a premium of $515 a month has a deductible of $10,000.

In Santa Cruz, Calif., where the exchange is run by the state, Robert Aaron, a self-employed 56-year-old engineer, said he was looking for a low-cost plan. The best one he could find had a premium of $488 a month. But the annual deductible was $5,000, and that, he said, “sounds really high.”

My guess is that most of the people who have been buying plans would have been comparison shopping based on  the premium. They have no idea about this high deductible. So what they’ve really signed up for is to pay $300 a month or so for what amounts to no health care coverage whatsoever – they will probably not reach the limit of the deductible. Is it any wonder that the Democrats voted to exempt themselves (and their political allies) from their own health care policy?

News

Obamacare health plan cancellations and premium increases delayed to just after 2014 election

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Fox News reports.

Excerpt:

Republican lawmakers are pushing back hard against the Obama administration’s decision to delay next year’s open enrollment season for health coverage under ObamaCare until after the 2014 midterm elections.

The Department of Health and Human Services announced Friday it would allow consumers to start signing up for coverage under ObamaCare on Nov. 15, 2014, a month later than originally scheduled. The change does not affect those trying to enroll this year.

Congressional Republicans accused the administration of shifting the dates for political reasons, to hide a spike in 2015 premiums, though information may already be available about 2015 premiums before the elections on Nov. 4.

“That means that if premiums go through the roof in the first year of ObamaCare, no one will know about it until after the election,” Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, said in a statement. “This is clearly a cynical political move by the Obama administration to use extra-regulatory, by any means necessary tools to keep this program afloat and hide key information from voters.”

Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., accused the White House of moving next year’s open enrollment date to shield Democrats up for reelection next year who supported the law.

“The only American consumers this change will help are Democratic politicians who voted for Obamacare, because it delays disclosure of some of the law’s most insidious effects until after the election,” Alexander said in a statement.

He said he plans to introduce legislation that would require insurers to provide Americans with “proper notice” of premium increases before open enrollment period on the exchanges starts.

I don’t think that the Democrats are doing this to sway conservative voters, because we know what to expect from round two of Obamacare – loss of health care plans and higher premiums for those with employer-based health insurance. The delay is being done to influence low-information voters, i.e. Democrats. People who don’t follow politics because they are too busy watching Dancing With The Stars and Oprah Winfrey. They are the ones who cannot think beyond the moment, and sway their votes because of deliberately staged events, e.g. – Al Gore kissing his wife (whom he’s now divorced) just before an election. Two weeks is far beyond the time horizons of most Democrat voters.

What the Republicans should do is pass a law requiring all cancellations and premium increases be communicated before the elections and have the Democrats in the House and Senate go on record voting against it. Then they can use that in the 2014 campaigns. Uncertainty will be even more effective when dealing with independent voters who are paying attention to policy issues instead of staged photo-ops.

News

Obamacare success story revised to become Obamacare failure story

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Investors Business Daily explains.

Excerpt:

The woman who got a shoutout from President Obama last month for her fan letter for ObamaCare finds out her exchange quote was a computer mistake and she doesn’t qualify for a tax credit after all.

In one of his famous photo-ops in the Rose Garden last Oct. 21, with an array of touted beneficiaries of the Affordable Care Act behind him, President Obama read a letter from Jessica Sanford of Federal Way, Wash., to explain why the Affordable Care Act, with all its rollout flaws, was still needed.

The letter told a sad tale of a grateful single mom with a son that had ADHD.

But now, like so many of ObamaCare’s false promises and outright lies, the safe and secure future which Sanford thought she had found and which the president boasted of has crumbled into dust — just like that health care Potemkin village called the Affordable Care Act.

As the Washington State Wire reports, the Washington state exchange and enrollment website, like its national cousin, had problems. It had told Sanford originally she and her child would get a whopping tax credit that would reduce her total premium to $169 a month for an ObamaCare “gold” plan.

Then she got letters from the state telling her — just like so many others who have had their plans canceled after being told they could keep them — what she had been promised was not true.

Four days after President Obama made his address, the state health exchange publicly revealed a grievous error — its tax-credit calculations were all wrong.

Washington state had been submitting monthly income information to the federal data hub when it was expecting yearly data. Oops!

So everyone who bought a subsidized health insurance policy through the Washington state exchange prior to Oct. 23 was being quoted too low a rate.

[…]Brokers had been informing the state for three weeks that the calculations were screwy but the state, like the proverbial Department of Motor Vehicles, was slow to respond. When it informed Sanford of the mistake, knocking her tax credit down to $110 a month, she went back to her broker and signed up for a “silver” plan with higher deductibles and co-pays.

Then she got another letter from the state saying it had goofed a second time and she didn’t qualify for a tax credit at all. Her income was, in fact, too high.

The website had told her that her income was low enough that she could enroll her son in the state Medicaid program for children of low-income families. That was no longer true, either.

Her 14-year-old son Ryan requires a special prescription medication. Without a tax credit, she had to consider the cheapest “bronze” level plans, but the deductibles are so high that she couldn’t afford to pay for her child’s prescription medication.

So now Sanford faces the prospect of having no insurance at all. Not only does she not get a tax credit, but she may have to pay an IRS-imposed penalty.

That’s a bad situation, but at least no one is dying because of Obamacare. Oh wait, this 7-year old child is dying because of Obamacare. Well, I guess this is no big deal to our elite leaders. After all, what are a few lives lost in pursuit of equality? I suppose that once we switch entirely to a single payer system that little boys dying of cancer can have free contraceptives and free abortions and free in vitro fertilizations and free breast enlargements and free maternity care and free sex changes and free hormone treatments to delay puberty until they decide if they want to be girls. Isn’t that better for everyone?