Even More Obamacare Follies

#2,226
#2,226
Thrasher865 said:
Are there any legitimate studies that show the average American is paying more or that a significant amount of people have lost their coverage?

I don't feel that there's any actual hard factual data to support either side yet. Just a bunch of propaganda from both sides.
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Hard studies? Haven't seen any but personal experience and observations say only those receiving a subsidy or had PECs are paying less than before.

The big price jump for group plans will be for renewals this year going into '15.
 
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#2,227
#2,227
hog88 said:
Hard studies? Haven't seen any but personal experience and observations say only those receiving a subsidy or had PECs are paying less than before.

The big price jump for group plans will be for renewals this year going into '15.
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"personal experience and observations" are pretty biased.

As far as the big price jump, we'll just have to wait and see how much that is. All speculation at this point.
 
#2,228
#2,228
Thrasher865 said:
What hard data would you like from them? Are you talking about enrollment? If so, the deadline hasn't passed yet, has it?

I would think it would take unbiased, independent studies to determine if people are paying more or less overall now. The government doesn't know that, or shouldn't know that, because I wouldn't think they would have pre-ACA numbers. Then again, at this point, I wonder if there's anything the gov't doesn't know about us.
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enrollment should have ended. Doesn't matter since the number of people buying should be known at any point. Just making the claim that they amazingly made the initial goal doesn't cut it for me

if there was no way to track paying more/less then why did the Pres use that to sell the law? He used a very specific savings figure when talking about premiums.

in this day and age the lack of real numbers is a big red flag IMO
 
#2,229
#2,229
Thrasher865 said:
"personal experience and observations" are pretty biased.

As far as the big price jump, we'll just have to wait and see how much that is. All speculation at this point.
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Everything I'm hearing is a 25-35% increase this November when we renew and that's not bad compared to what I'm hearing from others. Of course that's on top of the 14% we had last year.

We're under 50 employees so we are entertaining dropping the company plan.
 
#2,230
#2,230
utvolpj said:
enrollment should have ended. Doesn't matter since the number of people buying should be known at any point. Just making the claim that they amazingly made the initial goal doesn't cut it for me

if there was no way to track paying more/less then why did the Pres use that to sell the law? He used a very specific savings figure when talking about premiums.

in this day and age the lack of real numbers is a big red flag IMO
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There is a way, I believe the insurance companies have had to, for years, report premiums to the states insurance regulatory authority.
 
#2,231
#2,231
hog88 said:
Everything I'm hearing is a 25-35% increase this November when we renew and that's not bad compared to what I'm hearing from others. Of course that's on top of the 14% we had last year.

We're under 50 employees so we are entertaining dropping the company plan.
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Our premiums remained flat last year. I don't remember what it was the year before, but I remember it being above average. I figured that was a big reason they didn't increase last year, because they already went up speculatively the year prior.

hog88 said:
There is a way, I believe the insurance companies have had to, for years, report premiums to the states insurance regulatory authority.
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Well, then you've got me. Maybe the numbers aren't flattering. I will wait and see.
 
#2,232
#2,232
hog88 said:
Everything I'm hearing is a 25-35% increase this November when we renew and that's not bad compared to what I'm hearing from others. Of course that's on top of the 14% we had last year.

We're under 50 employees so we are entertaining dropping the company plan.
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That could be a good move for your company and your employees. You could drop insurance, give employees a slight raise and still save money. The employees then could purchase through the Marketplace. It could be a win-win situation.
 
#2,233
#2,233
Gramps said:
That could be a good move for your company and your employees. You could drop insurance, give employees a slight raise and still save money. The employees then could purchase through the Marketplace. It could be a win-win situation.
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Unless you're one of the employees.
 
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#2,235
#2,235
Gramps said:
That could be a good move for your company and your employees. You could drop insurance, give employees a slight raise and still save money. The employees then could purchase through the Marketplace. It could be a win-win situation.
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All but a few would not come close to getting a subsidy.
 
#2,239
#2,239
DC_Vol said:
Thanks Captain Obvious.

Doesn't change the fact that's it's not a win win as previously stated.
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You never pointed out why it couldn't be a win/win, either.

Employer saves money on their portion of coverage, passes savings onto employees. Employees use this raise to subsidize their plan premiums on the exchange. If this works as planned, win/win. Especially if the exchange rates are similar or less than the group rates.

But then you reply with "but Obamacare premiums are up to 10x higher than previous numbers, as per this person in Idaho who says so on the Internet."
 
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#2,240
#2,240
DC_Vol said:
Thanks Captain Obvious.

Doesn't change the fact that's it's not a win win as previously stated.
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I said it COULD be a win -win and it very well could be .

Do you know the coverage the company is providing?

Does the company pay all of the premium or what percent do they pay?

Do you know the salary the employees are making?

Do you know how many of the employees would qualify for subsidies? You are aware a family of 4 qualifies for subsidies up to an imcome of $94,000.00

There are several factors to consider before you jump to a conclusion that it would not be a good move for the employer or the employees.
 
#2,241
#2,241
Thrasher865 said:
You never pointed out why it couldn't be a win/win, either.

Employer saves money on their portion of coverage, passes savings onto employees. Employees use this raise to subsidize their plan premiums on the exchange. If this works as planned, win/win. Especially if the exchange rates are similar or less than the group rates.

But then you reply with "but Obamacare premiums are up to 10x higher than previous numbers, as per this person in Idaho who says so on the Internet."
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In our case, we pay 100% of the employee premium, 40% for family (100% for principles/officers).

If we do away with our group plan and just give raises to cover the costs for Obamacare, we are then on the hook for the additional matching taxes that we currently do not pay on the premium. So our costs go up. The employee also has a larger tax bill including their premium. As stated earlier only a couple (maybe) would qualify for any subsidy.

Nobody wins.
 
#2,242
#2,242
hog88 said:
In our case, we pay 100% of the employee premium, 40% for family (100% for principles/officers).

If we do away with our group plan and just give raises to cover the costs for Obamacare, we are then on the hook for the additional matching taxes that we currently do not pay on the premium. So our costs go up. The employee also has a larger tax bill including their premium. As stated earlier only a couple (maybe) would qualify for any subsidy.

Nobody wins.
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I see what you are saying now, but wouldn't their premiums be deductible?
 
#2,248
#2,248
Thrasher865 said:
Are there any legitimate studies that show the average American is paying more or that a significant amount of people have lost their coverage?

I don't feel that there's any actual hard factual data to support either side yet. Just a bunch of propaganda from both sides.
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49-State Analysis: Obamacare To Increase Individual-Market Premiums By Average Of 41% - Forbes

There may be propaganda but the point of my post was that the ability to CHOOSE has been eliminated. And once more Americans are forced to throw taxes and money at another federal program. Please name efficient federal programs that have succeeded and are not in debt because I can name enough to prove that government run anything is crap.
 
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#2,250
#2,250
Goldie said:
49-State Analysis: Obamacare To Increase Individual-Market Premiums By Average Of 41% - Forbes

There may be propaganda but the point of my post was that the ability to CHOOSE has been eliminated. And once more Americans are forced to throw taxes and money at another federal program. Please name efficient federal programs that have succeeded and are not in debt because I can name enough to prove that government run anything is crap.
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As I suspected, and as is the case with 95% of these "studies," they aren't doing an apples to apples comparison. They're skewing the numbers:

Rate Changes

In order to document rate changes, we first gathered pre-ACA insurance rates using the federal government's finder.healthcare.gov website. Our pre-ACA dataset consists of the five least expensive plans (by monthly premium) for the most populous zip code in every county. To cover a significant age range we collected rates for 27, 40, and 64-year old male and female non-smokers. We adjusted these rates to take into account those who are denied health insurance coverage as well as those who receive a surcharge. Using the "denial rate" and "surcharge rate" from the federal government's repository, we assumed that those who are surcharged pay 75 percent more and those who are denied, find insurance elsewhere at three times the original rate. We used this to develop a weighted average of the five least expensive insurance plans for every zip code we identified. To develop a state-wide average, we took the state-wide average for every age-gender combination.
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So they are comparing low cost catastrophic care plans pre-ACA to higher coverage plans post-ACA. Because those super cheap plans that don't even kick in until you have a catastrophic illness aren't available under ACA, obviously the 5 "cheapest" plans pre-ACA are going to be cheaper than the 5 cheapest post-ACA.

Now you can make the argument that those plans should still be available, and that would be a valid point, but it does not detract from the fact that the Manhattan Institute study is a joke.
 
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