to give you a subsidy! But the deductibles will eat you alive."
The administration insists most uninsured young people will be able to buy plans for less than $50 per month. Sounds great, right? The GAO offered statistics that show the catch. A non-smoking woman, age 30, buying the plan with the lowest possible premium in the state of Virginia would pay $564 per year, or $47 per month. Affordable! . . . Until you realize the deductible is $7,500. That’s how much she has to pay out of pocket before her insurance pays anything. Maybe in a terrible year, full of ailments, she’ll hit it in autumn.
And that’s a bargain compared to some other states. In Vermont, a 30-year-old non-smoking woman can find a plan with a monthly premium of just $56 per month! Except that the deductible is $100,000, according to the GAO report. Sure, you can get a plan with a $3,500 deductible . . . for $292 per month.
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UPDATE: People seem to enjoy this. In Oregon, land of the music-video promotional campaign . . . that 30-year-old, non-smoking woman can get an insurance plan with a premium of just $52 per month! Of course, the deductible is $10,000. In Washington, D.C., it’s $53.50 for a plan with the same $10,000 deductible. In Maryland, she can pay $65 per month for that deductible. In Illinois, $68 per month. In Connecticut, $99 per month.
In Maine, that same woman can pay $127 per month to enjoy a $12,000 deductible!
In Minnesota, that same woman can pay a monthly premium of just $56.92 with a $15,000 deductible. What a bargain!
2 comments:
Divide the deductable by 12, add that number to the monthly premium and you get the REAL monthly premimum.
High-deductible plans aren't the problem. Without all the crap Obamacare loads onto them, high deductibles would be a _good_ thing, moving us towards actual health _insurance_ rather than 3rd party payment of most expenses. They would give people in need of non-emergency health care a reason to shop around and compare prices. But with Obamacare, you also get 3rd party payment of many routine and predictable expenses, such as contraception, and the quite predictable out of control costs that result from that. You can get the pill for $84/year at Walmart, or you can somehow pay $3,000 per month like Sandra Flake - but if your "insurance" that isn't really insurance is paying, who cares what it costs?
Your insurance company has to care; either they have a bunch of clerks attempting to practice medicine over the phone in an attempt to make their customers choose the low-cost options, or they raise premiums a lot. The first option tends to screw anyone for whom the lowest cost generic drug doesn't work. It's expensive (paid for in your premiums) for the time both insurance company personnel and your doctor spend arguing about your treatment. And it's probably often barred under Obamacare regulations - but they're so unclear that it's going to repeatedly wind up in court, and if you think doctors are expensive you haven't paid a lawyer yet.
So if you're buying individual insurance, you're now going to pay more for a plan that will actually cover less for anyone whose typical annual health expenses are low. And if you're in an employer plan, it doesn't do a damned thing about being locked into whatever your HR department picked, it doesn't do a damned thing about the factors that keep driving costs higher, and you'll be paying more out of pocket for higher deductibles - unless your employer cuts you back to part-time and cancels your insurance...
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