So in the real world, the cost of healthcare – even for Obamacare enrollees – uses up at least 10% of people’s annual income. The Obamanistas blather about the low subsidized premiums, but NEVER talk about the $6,000 deductibles because that obliterates their false narrative of affordable healthcare for all.
Our friends at the BLS declare that medical costs only account for 7.7% of household costs and are only going up by 2.9% per year. Isn’t that precious? They underweight the expenses dramatically and then they have the balls to tell you your healthcare expenses are going up at 2.9% per year when you know they are going up by at least 10% per year. Obamacare is essentially a never ending proctology exam for the American people. Bend over folks.
WE OBAMACARED SOME FOLKS
You might not be reduced to living on Ramen noodles if you buy Obamacare coverage — but your bank account certainly could feel a bit leaner.
A new study reveals that many Obamacare customers pay more than 10 percent of their incomes toward coverage. And the share of income eaten up can be much greater for some people, particularly if they use a lot of health services under their plan.
One in 10 Obamacare customers who earn between just two and five times the federal poverty level will have coverage costs that exceed 21 percent of their incomes, an analysis by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the Urban Institute found.
And the median Obamacare customer who earns in that range spends more than 10 percent of their income on monthly premiums and out-of-pocket health expenses, the analysis found.
“Many who have modest incomes have high financial burdens even with average medical expenses,” the report said. “For those at the top of the [health] spending distribution, financial burdens are very high.”
“You start to get hit pretty hard,” said John Holahan, an Urban Institute fellow, and co-author of the report.
Strong sign-up activity
The study comes as Obama administration officials have touted relatively strong sign-up activity on the federal insurance exchange during the third open-enrollment season. Officials also have stressed the availability of financial assistance to help many consumers purchase coverage, and the value of having insurance to protect oneself from potentially crippling medical bills.
Still, the analysis also suggests that efforts to boost Obamacare enrollment dramatically above current levels is being hampered by the sticker shock that some would-be customers feel when they look at how much they would have to actually pay in plan premiums and deductibles relative to their incomes.
“I do think that it leads to less enrollment and certainly makes [the Affordable Care Act] less popular than it otherwise might be,” said Holahan.
“You basically have an individual mandate that requires you to pay a significant amount of income between premiums and out-of-pocket costs,” Holahan said. Those high costs, he said, “will make a lot of people think it isn’t worth it.”
Some people feel they don’t have a choice but to buy, despite the price.
“I love my family, and I’m not going to let them go without health insurance,” said Kevin Broyles, a 63-year-old insurance broker from Knoxville, Tennessee.
Broyles, who had been paying $629 per month for coverage from a long-standing Blue Cross plan for himself, his wife and their three children, recently got an an “eye-opener” when Blue Cross canceled his plan because it was not compliant with ACA standards. He learned the lowest-priced “bronze” plan in his area would cost $1,161 per month, or $13,932 annually to cover himself, his wife, and their two teenage children who will remain on the family’s plan.
“This is almost 14 percent of our pretax income,” said Broyles. “If we could afford the [second least-expensive] ‘silver plan’ in our area, that would cost $1,568 per month, or $18,816 per year. That would be almost 19 percent of our pretax income.”
After paying for his Obamacare plan, as well as his Social Security and Medicare withholding, “we then get to start paying income tax on the roughly 70 percent that remains. Then state and local taxes, and, finally, we can live on Ramen noodles after the mortgage, utilities and other living expenses. Is this a great system or what?” Broyles said.
Broyles’ annual income is about $100,000, which means he earns too much to qualify for a federal tax credit to reduce his monthly premium payments. But even people who get those subsidies can feel sticker shock.
Tom Thomas, a 62-year-old retiree from Ohio, said he was “pretty damn upset” to learn that his current Obamacare plan costs, if he had re-enrolled for 2016, would have risen from $68 per month to $252 per month after his subsidy.
Even after he switched plans to a cheaper option, Thomas will be paying $179 per month after his subsidy in 2016. His annual cost, from just premiums alone, will be more than 8 percent of his annual income of $24,000.
“Ouch!” he said.
Insurers are sensitive to such concerns. The New York-based insurer Oscar, which was started up to take advantage of the Obamacare market, just introduced a “Help Me Choose My Plan” feature on its website. The feature asks consumers four questions about their use of specialists, chronic conditions, plans for medical procedures and prescription drug use, and then presents plan options.
Mario Schlosser, CEO and co-founder of Oscar, said the tool was designed to deal with the “difficult and often overwhelming task” of predicting the “variables of your future health needs.”
Oscar wanted the tool to help consumers “minimize their out-of-pocket costs,” Schlosser said. It also is part of its attempt to provide customers with “a simple, transparent experience” so they will continue choosing Oscar, he said.
Cost biggest barrier to insuring more
While Broyle, Thomas, and millions of other people are biting the bullet and buying coverage because they value having health insurance, cost remains the biggest reason why the remaining 10 million or so eligible uninsured people in the United States have not signed up yet.
A recent Kaiser Family Foundation survey found that 46 percent of uninsured adults said they had tried to get health coverage in the past year, but found it too expensive.
A Commonwealth Fund analysis this week found that for most Obamacare enrollees who do not get federal assistance in for out-of-pocket costs, the co-payments, co-insurance and deductibles they pay under their plans are considerably higher than employer-based plans.
Obamacare plans also “are far more likely than employer-based plans to require enrollees to meet deductibles before they receive coverage for prescription drugs,” the report said.
Improving affordability
To counter such sentiment, the Obama administration had repeatedly noted that more than 80 percent of ACA customers qualify for financial aid to help pay for their monthly premiums, and that more than half get additional aid to offset out-of-pocket expenses.
And federal officials have pointed out that more than 7 in 10 returning customers this year will be able to buy a plan that would cost less than $75 per month in premiums.
The administration earlier this week revealed that HealthCare.gov, the federal insurance marketplace, through mid-December had seen 8.2 million people in 38 states select plans for 2016, a marked increase over the 6 million plan selections at the same time last year. That doesn’t include sign-ups on state-run exchanges, where interest is likely to be just as high as on HealthCare.gov.
The surge of sign-ups could mean that federal officials will easily beat their target of having 10 million paying Obamacare customers as of the end of 2016.
“Millions of Americans will start 2016 with the quality and affordable health coverage they want and need to keep their families healthy and financially secure,” Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia Burwell said Tuesday.
But not even the biggest ACA booster expects enrollment will hit the 21 million predicted by the Congressional Budget Office for 2016.
The Urban Institute/Robert Wood Johnson Foundation report concludes by noting that making several changes to the ACA could “improve the affordability of marketplace coverage,” and in turn boost enrollment.
One suggestion the report makes is to link the premium subsidies that most Obamacare customers get to the price of “gold” plans, instead of to the price of the less expensive “silver” plans. Obamacare plans are designated by metal tiers — platinum, gold, silver and bronze. Platinum plans cost the most in terms of premium, but cover the biggest share of health costs. The others cost less, but cover fewer health costs.
The report also suggests that low-income customers could get higher amounts of assistance paying their out-of-pocket costs.
A third suggestion is to put a cap on the percentage of income that people who earn more than four times the poverty level would have to pay for Obamacare plans.
“It’s not a great deal of money” to fund those suggestions relative to other federal spending, Holahan said. But it would be difficult to get Congress to appropriate more spending on Obamacare given the current political climate, he said.
“But it would be difficult to get Congress to appropriate more spending on Obamacare given the current political climate, he said.”
Disagree…with all the Rep. RINO’s in CONgress, it would be easy.
The ACA is a fraud. Democrats obviously were paid off by the big insurers to harness us with this evil crap. This is a good article but it only scratches the surface.
An acquaintance who was the Mayo Clinic’s first public spokesman against the ACA and I had several conversations over the last few years about this. Some may recall Obama claiming he had looked around the Mayo Clinic and Cleveland Clinic for his inspiration. This was a lie. As another Mayo surgeon told me, “If he was here, none of us ever saw or met with him.”
The ACA is a conspiracy between the Democrats and big insurance companies to force everyone to buy insurance. The fact it is not working will be unlikely to force anything but higher prices. It has succeeded in running all the small insurers out of business while political operatives have started exchanges to cash in on this stop on the Road to Serfdom.
Real reform would involve allowing people to form pools to get lower rates. It would end the state monopoly and allow interstate sales of insurance. It would allow people to shop nationally and use GEICO or Progressive type companies dealing in healthcare. It would allow the self employed to deduct insurance cost on their taxes. Real reform would allow doctors to deduct the costs of providing free services for the poor and indigent. Did many of you know doctors are prohibited from expensing charity work? It would promote Medical Savings Accounts. Since it does none of these and merely forces everyone into the system they told us was no good (Probably because there weren’t enough unions in healthcare) we can rightly assume it is a fraud and abuse and G.. Damn the Republican cowards and the Democrat wussies like Bart Stupak who allowed it to happen and allow it to continue.
Polosi, Wasserman Shultz wants to put people in prison and 5 thousand dollar fine.Time to opt out SECEDE!
Ideally, health insurance should be a high deductible policy. Where the ACA goes wrong, however, is that its designers didn’t want to be honest about it all. The targeted market, of course, wasn’t entirely stupid and has mostly declined buying in or paying the penalty.
This is their way to get the expensive ‘care’ that the sexual deviants require paid for by others. I’m convinced that was Obama’s motivation all along.
Trump should capitalize on this big issue to torpedo Hillary. But people! He also sees Prince Charles on the status of “recovering the Colonies.” This runs way deep as Charles has an “in” at places like the $28 trillion State Street Corporation in Boston representing old line dynastic families loyal to Mother England. When George Washington warned against “the insidious wiles of foreign influence” he was referencing our eternal adversaries—the British.
My family coverage (high option, $3000/individual, $6000/family deductible) went up from $840/month to $1120/month–a 33% increase. I do get $500/month subsidy from my employer toward the premium.
Tripe dogma… there is one, and only one, answer to the convoluted mess that is the US healthcare system.
A single pay system (the government from tax revenue) run by health professionals (not profit motivated corporate executives) is proven to provide improved (no one says it’s perfect) results at approximately half the cost.
But Americans are deluged with dogmatic propaganda that equates obscene corporate profits with “freedom”… and should that meme begin to wear thin, you can be sure the pillars of profit will waste little time introducing rainbows & unicorns to the narrative.
Hard to blame obama, he only views the world through his own experiences. And to him, getting fucked in the ass is why he gets out of bed in the morning.
Healthcare represents 20% of GDP. Therefore, within spitting distance, that is the cost per Family … 20% of the Family budget. Anyone who says it is substantially less, like in the 7-10% range, is lying.
It’s time to admit Ovomitcare is a complete, utter failure and repeal it. You can’t keep your doctor, just as many people are uninsured, and the premiums are SO high the people who have it can’t afford to use it. REPEAL.
Screw Obamacare- get chocolate: http://www.greenmedinfo.com/blog/chocolate-gives-statins-29-billion-run-their-money
Everyone here should be THRILLED to pay other peoples’ medical bills. Hasn’t religion taught us to be unselfish? Isn’t being unselfish the same as being moral?
You should all want to work yourselves into the grave for the benefit of the poor, the homeless, the disenfranchised. It’s what religions have taught for centuries and centuries.
SRV,
Mebbe you’d better take a gander at what is happening in England before you push that “single pay” route.
My tax accountant got me out of paying the penalty this year but he said in 2016 my penalty for not having insurance will be 2400 dollars give or take a few hundred. I’m going to find an insurance policy with a hundred thousand dollar deductible. He said that might work.
If at first you don’t Secede, try try again. Mr Starfcker: POTUS obviously likes to schlong Conservatives as much as can and his is really long and nasty (IRS, DoJ, NSA, EPA, DHS, BATF etc).
Bwahahahahahaha!
Native Americans are EXEMPT! Suck it, paleface.
How do you like white man’s treaties now that they apply to you? Whitey has never honored a treaty – never. What makes you think Obamacare would be different? How do you like that $2500 savings you all got in that treaty? Still got your doctor? Hmmm? Bwahahaha!
Real reform = single-payer, and it’s not just the Dems who bent over for the big insurance companies, the Gop is just the same or worse.
If this issue concerns you, check out Bernie Sanders. He has the right idea.
Big pharma, Obama and congress do Hitler type experiments with vaccines on Christian children?
It’s not just the cost of “insurance”, rather the considerable amount you HAVE to fork out before the “insurance” pays a penny. That is not insurance, it’s more of a very clever form of legalised extortion.
The risk is that being mindful of the sizeable “cost up front” the “insured” will elect to NOT use their “insurance” until they REALLY need to use it – i.e. the problem(s) become insufferable. The trouble with this approach is that things that “could” have been fixed easily (= cheaply) if caught early, will present at a more advanced stage, requiring more complex (= costly) interventions, and associated higher risks of morbidity (so ongoing “uninsured” costs) or mortality.
OK so emergency care is still “free at the point of use”, but they DO ask whether you are insured so it seems that if you “are” formally insured, you’ll be expected to pay for these visits too. I suppose you could “pretend” to be uninsured, but the risk (and consequence) of being caught out is very significant, especially since the data entry systems are designed to catch this type of “fraud”.
Westcoaster,
Bernie Sanders is an idiot that couldn’t run anything on a functional basis, much less an entire country.
Exactly where is all that money going to come from to finance his pipe dreams? There simply isn’t enough income to tax at a rate that doesn’t produce a negative return to do it. Take a quick look at Venezuela, that is what will happen here if Sanders were to get elected, but probably much more violently like is the usual situation in most socialist glory takeovers the have happened throughout the world.
Not wishing to suggest “getting out the pitchforks”, but you do know that whilst the “Insurance” cartel (and we KNOW this is a cartel – hence the disappearance of the smaller Insurers) live in their magnificent office spaces (built with your premiums of course), the entire US Healthcare system would be overwhelmed by the treatable casualties resulting from ONE nuclear device detonation over a reasonably – sized population centre.
First-wave event Cat 1 triage (immediately life-threatening injuries) would not make it to the healthcare facilities. Cat 2 & 3 would be the majority of attendees, since the devastation would be so great. Cat 4 would be in the minority(and would probably elect to use a home first aid approach). No idea how the second-wave Cat 2/3 casualties (radiation exposure delayed effects) will fare, since the system will already be beyond saturation point well before they turn up.
ONE, say, 150kt device, ONE population centre . .
Maybe storming the Pentagon might be a better survival option than occupying Wall Street?? 🙂
“Obamacare plans are designated by metal tiers — platinum, gold, silver and bronze.”
What a load of horse crap.
@ LLPOH I personally aint responsible for the broken treaties of the so called fed.gov .As well as the issue of slavery , or anything else THAT HAPPENED IN THE PAST. If you think that the sins of whoever’s ancestor’s are responsible for the here and now , um how do I say this politely ? Fuck off !
If you take happiness in someone else’s misfortune , then I am sad for you ,sir. On the other hand , why did a so called indian run off to another country ? If you have a legit fight over the PAST history of the world , then ,by all means pursue the courage of your convictions. I do not disparage American Indians of any tribe . That Blood runs thru my veins. Your new name is KENECKS ,
which I am sure you will figure out lol . I am in fear of something that bleeds for 5 days and does not die))))))))))))
@ westcoaster I downvoted you simply because you are saying that someone else or some other entity is responsible for my welfare .GROW the fuck up sir and negotiate with your doctor ,as it should be. A private transaction between 2 parties , not a government MANDATED transaction .
When you go to get an oil change for your car , you compare prices . Why can you not do the same with healthcare ? Why the secrecy on prices?
Just my thoughts but POCB’s are indeed at the root of both
whatever lol STM and lived to do so ))))))))))
gm
If Llpoh sees your thread …. prepare yourself for a SERIOUS ass kicking.
Just curious, why would you insult him by calling him a “so called Indian”??
Also, what’s wrong with leaving this God-forsaken place called Amerika? If I had the means and opportunity, I’d do likewise in a heartbeat.
Gm – you are one dumb motherfucker, I will give you that.
I will splain it to you: folks bought into the lies Obama told, and signed their side of the “treaty” by voting that asshole into office. He lied to the American people, The parallel to broken treaties is a good one I think. The fuckers cannot be trusted. They always lie. Always.
I did not run anywhere. I moved because i suited me.
What a maroon.
Thanks Stuck. Gm is an A grade dickhead.
@Westcoaster
Single payer? Are you fucking kidding me? You know why health care is so expensive? Third parties!
Insurance is for catastrophic expenses, nothing else. Think of your homeowner’s or car insurance. Now contrast that with your healthcare insurance; big difference. You don’t take your car to the repair shop or have the plumber come out and expect to give them a copay. You invoke that kind of insurance when the roof blows off in a storm, or you total your ride.
I liken it to a veterinarian. Requires just as much knowledge and skill; arguably more, since multiple species are involved. I have had several knee reconstructions done for family pets. The highest cost was $3k per knee. Includes x-rays, ortho surgeon, anesthesia, the works. Try that with the healthcare system, it’ll be more like $25-50k. Why the difference? Ability to pay. Vets can’t charge more than people can afford. Yes, there will be some reduced level of service because after all, these are animals, but the difference is huge. Same deal for office visits, prescriptions and so on. Why can drug companies charge so much? Because they bill your insurance.
It’s called the free market. It has a way of dealing with these issues. Anytime the government gets involved, the cost will skyrocket. It has to. The government stooges have to get their cut after all, right?
Well, the results are finally in; the old plan cost $126 / mo, the new one (relatively the same) is $237 / month. Guess I won’t be getting an Iphone anytime soon (not that I would have normally anyway). The deductible is up, there’s now a prescription deductible that wasn’t there before, the copays are up, anyting out-of-network went from $50 / each to $250 / each event; and that’s the good news.
I don’t see how we make it past next Christmas without some kind of major breakdown. The riots are going to be catastrophic, not just these mall rumbles like we’ve seen lately. And the “Korean shopkeeper” solution seen after the Rodney King riots will be coming to an urban area near you….