Guest Post by Duane Norman
Sometime in 2011 I realized that it was a better deal for me to deal directly with a health insurance company and purchase my own plan. As a thirty-something healthy male, I don’t use my health insurance often. My employer’s plan was expensive, and had coverage I didn’t really need. I ended up saving a couple hundred bucks a month. The best part about the insurance plan? It was ACA compliant, so it wasn’t susceptible to cancellation when the insurance exchanges rolled out in 2014.
I spoke with many friends and acquaintances, mostly young males, who had their plans axed that year. The policies were very similar to mine in every aspect; coverage, deductible, and premium, and their new plans were sometimes over triple the price. President Obama, ignorant of how his own insurance reform worked, initially blamed “bad apple” insurers for cancellations. As owners of cancelled policies became more vocal about not just their cancellations, but the higher rates of new plans, Obama was forced to apologize for lying to Americans about being able to keep their health plans. So after the rollout, I constantly wondered to myself… given my comparably low premiums, why hasn’t MY Plan been cancelled yet? Only recently did I realize the truth.
I’m reasonably certain the only reason why my insurer hasn’t cancelled my policy despite similar policies being much more expensive is that they will lose me as a customer. They figure a young, healthy male will either find a cheaper, inferior policy, or forgo coverage entirely. All those friends and acquaintances of mine with non-ACA complaint insurance that had their policies cancelled? A lot of them didn’t even bother to repurchase insurance; they paid the penalty because it was cheaper. If they get hurt or sick, they could THEN sign up for health insurance, because Obamacare made pricing on pre-existing conditions illegal. They figure they’ll just pay the price of a policy whenever they actually need it, not a second before.
This is a genius way to game the system, if you’re willing to do it. Plenty of liberal outlets will say sicker customers simply a result of the rollout, but none of them can explain the number of people forgoing coverage, or the fact that a massive percentage of those who aren’t covered are young, healthy males. But it is only one way people are gaming Obamacare; insurers are losing big time on exchange policies. The majority of the policyholders are sick or injured, and a high percentage of people aren’t paying their premiums despite using their coverage. For years, health insurance companies have been behaving like Popcopy and giving customers a raw deal on their products, so no one feels bad if the health insurance company is the one getting screwed this time around.
I already see my insurance premiums as “dead money” and really only have it in case of emergency. I’ve only had to visit the doctor a couple times with this insurance, have always walked out with a fat pre-deductible bill, and never hit my deductible. In other words, my health insurance has provided me with almost nothing. Think of everyone like me who had a similar policy that was cancelled; who would want to pay 200-300% or more in premiums for a “service” they hardly use? And of course, this doesn’t even factor in the number of young who are poor or underprivileged, who never had health insurance, and have no idea how to buy a product in which they oftentimes don’t even want, subsidized or not.
And there you have it – the exact age group that is needed to buy insurance to keep the exchanges afloat has more reason than ever to not purchase insurance, even when facing a financial penalty. Worse yet, the sicker individuals, who are more expensive to insure, pay the same premiums as a comparably-aged healthy individual. Who really expects any healthy individual in my demographic to think this is anything but a terrible deal?
It all makes Obamacare just another in a long line of failures of government-sponsored private enterprise. My recent article on the rolldown of private prisons is an example of where the private entity profits, bilking the state for every dollar it can get at the expense of the taxpayers. Written in part by the insurance companies themselves, Obamacare was expected to function in a similar fashion, but it seems that everyone who wrote the ACA didn’t factor in rational self-interest, or people opting not to purchase insurance into its pricing. Even the insurance companies had to “pass it to find out what was in it”.
I’m currently satisfied with my pre-2014 insurance policy and the rate I pay, but I will also not be surprised if it is cancelled in the near future. My policy can no longer be replaced on an exchange (my insurer is one that dropped its policies from the exchanges). Even if it could, it would be at least double the price. If and when my plan is cancelled, I will have to calculate whether it is worth it or not for me to purchase health insurance or “purchase” my right to not purchase health insurance (pay the penalty).
And that is the shocking part of my whole ACA experience: the fact that a thirty-something healthy male, who can afford his premiums, is even considering going without health insurance. My demographic’s willingness to pay its premiums and receive nothing in return is essential to the exchange’s survival. This pricing structure that Obamacare has created will be what ultimately dooms the exchanges and all privately purchased health insurance.
One more shocker? That it took me this long to realize why my policy hadn’t been cancelled yet.
Note: Mike Krieger at Liberty Blitzkrieg has published excellent content on the recent failures of Obamacare – I strongly suggest you read his most recent article on the ACA’s unraveling.
As long as they can keep putting more on the people and we don’t rise up there will be another heaping of something else coming down the pike for us to pay. Eat it up and ask for moreeee!!!
Someone actally paid a penalty?
Who?Whats his or her name?
I call bullshit :I’m so sick and tired of people who say Obama didn’t know what he was doing. Obama care has worked just like that lying piece of shit knew it would. Bankrupt the insurance companies or take away their Incentives and we end up with single payer health insurance.In other words socialized medicine. He even admits this on a video.
When you know he a faggot , a socialist and hates white middle class Americans then his behavior makes sense.
My daughter’s health insurance will be going up from $865 per month to $1,300 per month on the next hike in premiums for her family of four. That will exceed her house payment, this is insanity. When does it stop?
I’m positive she won’t pay that for health insurance, she will either pay the penalty or enroll in her plan at work. Either way they are being bent over.
That cost is crazy and unsustainable.
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The single payer system hides the problem for now but eventually the chickens will roost here as well.
The wisdom of paying the penalty depends upon income.
Hey Meathead , I have paid the penalty every Damn year. Next year it will be 925 dollars for me.Beats paying six thousand for nothing.
You must be another Jack ass liberal . A thief , a liar and a moral subversive degenerate .Good news is I can help you. Let’s start with your sex life. Now tell me everything.
bb- Who paid all of those hospital bills you ran up this year?
I did .I’ve been paying taxes for 38 Damn years.So this whole system can go to hell . If 38 years of my life is not enough then pray tell me what is…bbbbbbea
You did out of pocket?
Or you’re saying the previous 38 years of taxes did?
I was wondering the same thing anon.
It should have been obvious the ACA would fail after all the president and every bat shit crazy lefty in congress still keeps calling it a success . That bat shit crazy goes out to republicans too after all they failed to stop it and as for the Supreme Court well most of them are at the age where you wouldn’t let them have the remote , you never know where it could end up ! But as it continues to fail nationwide Obama and his minions still label it a success . I guess they will now refer to rape victims as unwilling sperm reciepients , takes the sting out of thinking about how we all got fucked against our will and how quickly certain groups “SPECIAL PIGS” were declared exempt yes we are all equal but not you or you but I am special oh ya well the final defiant act of a neutered population FUCK YOU
In the middle of that strange yet intriguing rant, this gem! …and as for the Supreme Court well most of them are at the age where you wouldn’t let them have the remote.
Fab comment BG!
Doctors are like the cops, they just clean up the mess, after the fact.
They can’t cure you, they can only write a scrip, that might allow you body to heal it self a little faster, or get a boner.
Take all the doctors and lawyers and cops, put them in an inflatable boat, and see how long it takes for a cop to shoot a hole in the boat, or a doctor to stick a needle, or a lawyer to try to get one of the other two to do the work for him.
This whole thing stinks to high heaven and I am suspect that we are not only paying for the Merikan free shitters like bb but also the EU,Mexico and other areas of the world. We are being gang raped by these bastards.
We pay over $1,200 a month for a healthy family of three. It’s already insane, and I shudder to consider what it will be after the year-end increase.
A capitalist supply system, and with severe restraints on competition is not compatible with a socialized payment system.
Most other “model” systems have some sort of rationing mechanisms and price controls.
Having unrestrained demand on a socially paid for system is a recipe for failure and every increasing costs.
You guys don’t get it.
The ACA – which is not “affordable”, nor is it about “care” – is a rousing success!
If you use the metric that is was designed to fail from the beginning, on purpose, then by all accounts it has succeeded. I doubt any actual medical doctors were involved in crafting this piece of shit – they recruited super-smart guys from MIT and insurance goons, but actual doctor doctors? Heh… yeah, okay…
I think if I ran into an actual DOCTOR doctor who had a significant hand in crafting that piece of shit bill, I’d likely end up having a pulmonary embolism out of sheer shock…
This is the way I see it:
One of the Holy Grails of the cultural Marxists and other collectivists has been Government funded health care. I think they have been pushing for that shit for as long as I have been alive. Longer. They’ve tried before, and it has gone down in flames.
The problem is: if they propose their government-funded health care schemes to the people, it will ALWAYS be shot down. It’s too big a leap to go from a more-or-less free market to a socialist one in one shot…
So, pulling a page from the Fabian Socialists over 100 years ago, they tried incrementalism.
Waiting until they had a super-majority, they crammed their dog-shit bill through Congress. Thanks, Pelosi.
And now we have a hybrid system: part government, part free market.
But, it was destined to fail – spectacularly. Which is what we are seeing now as the majors pull out of market after market, leaving people high and dry.
Into this steps…. Bernie.
He says the problem with health care is that “it cannot be left up to the vagaries of the market”, and so the government must take over the business of health care…
Ta-daa… government run health care. Instead of one-step from free market to socialism, now you have a two step.
The problem with their thinking, is when was the last time you heard of anything that the government got involved in that did not turn into a grabasstic, gold-plated clusterfuck? I mean, fucked beyond all recognition?
This is what they intended to have happen the entire time… I mean come ON! You have to pass the bill to find out what’s in it? REALLY? And people fell for that shit?
Fucking buttplugs in DC should be disposed of… maggots, every one of them.
Yup
Agreed Billy.
The single payer system that is supposed to be the panacea according to the left is like a zero emission car. Everyone stands around talking about how free it is but forget to notice the power plant in next valley belching smoke into air to produce the energy to run it.
Out of site and out of mind will never fix the underlying problem.