Off topic stuff...Obamacare

[FetchMeAPepsi]

This is the chat section so I thought I'd see what you guys are doing with this Obamacare law for last year. Personally I think the idea they started with was great, free healthcare for everyone, but then it turned into this big "You must buy insurance and pay me $600/month and if you cant afford that then cut off your cell and cable bills plus tighten your fat-boy belt" kinda thing. (Obama actually said that!)

Heres what got me torqued.

2012 insurance: 422.00 for the family with Cigna and dang near everything was covered, $3000 deductible.

2014 insurance: 682.00 for the family with BCBS, $50 for office visits and nothing else is covered, even scripts. $12,700 deductible.

And we lost our main doctor. Thankfully the kids doctor grandfathered us in, but she won't take new insurance customers either.

How is that better? To top that off you have to guess what your income is going to be for the year. Who knows in advance how much they'll make? Raises? Good day on Ebay?

Anyway, I've had to re-file for insurance 3 times this year already because of changing data. This is getting ridiculous. And here's the kicker, I voted for the idiot the first time around. Not the second though. I had enough hope and change!

So are you guys seeing any differences? Problems? refiling? Is anyone just paying the penalty? For us the penalty is almost as much as insurance this year so that's not even an option.

[jrmunn]

Fetch,

I guess we can keep this up as long as the moderator lets us.

One of the reasons I enjoy working on old vehicles is that it helps get me away from government foolishness, which I know well from employment with the State of California for 25 years.

My daughters who are trying to make ends meet in the private sector have had similar health insurance coverage experiences to what you describe.

I have been more fortunate because public health insurance coverage was not (yet) affected by Obamacare, and I am now required to be in Medicare.

In California, what is going on looks like a shell game where payments for many indigent (meaning services for those unable or not needing to pay) medical services are now extracted before, to provide insurance subsidies, rather than after, in the form of inflated bills. The inflated bills, however, don't seem to have gone away. So it seems that money is being transferred from those paying for insurance and from taxpayers to the health care insurance and services systems. And I recall hearing that Obamacare is not really supposed to work in the long run so that we can, for better or worse and perhaps both, move on to Canadian style socialized medicine.

But this all makes my head hurt, and the cure for it is to go back to figuring out where to get brake line parts to reconnect the hydrovac on my old GMC truck.

JRMunn

[Andice]

Family of five with BCBS of Texas is $900/mo with vision, $10-20 copays, realistic deductibles, 80% coinsurance, dental. Don't like it but I'm glad I have it.
Been with same insurance for years. See no effects of ACA so far.

[GMCNUT]

Mine went from just under 400 monthly for BCBS family coverage to almost 700 monthly with higher deductables so I have strong feelings about Obama and the state of our government as a whole and I am burying my head in the truck hobby instead of watching Fox news and getting more angry - best to just forget about it and go on I think - that is what the government wants you to do

[FetchMeAPepsi]

Originally Posted by Andice

Family of five with BCBS of Texas is $900/mo with vision, $10-20 copays, realistic deductibles, 80% coinsurance, dental. Don't like it but I'm glad I have it.
Been with same insurance for years. See no effects of ACA so far.

You must make way more $$ than me If we (family of 6) had to pay $900/month I'd take the penalty instead or we'd have to move to a smaller (under 1000 sq ft) house. Crunch! Glad you're unchanged though. I wish we were in the same boat. We're using BCBS too.

Originally Posted by GMCNUT

Mine went from just under 400 monthly for BCBS family coverage to almost 700 monthly with higher deductables so I have strong feelings about Obama and the state of our government as a whole and I am burying my head in the truck hobby instead of watching Fox news and getting more angry - best to just forget about it and go on I think - that is what the government wants you to do

Tell me about it. I'm about ready to move to Fetch Island somewhere in the pacific so I can make my own rules. This healthcare crap is just crazy anymore.

Originally Posted by jrmunn

My daughters who are trying to make ends meet in the private sector have had similar health insurance coverage experiences to what you describe.

I have been more fortunate because public health insurance coverage was not (yet) affected by Obamacare, and I am now required to be in Medicare.

In California, what is going on looks like a shell game where payments for many indigent (meaning services for those unable or not needing to pay) medical services are now extracted before, to provide insurance subsidies, rather than after, in the form of inflated bills. The inflated bills, however, don't seem to have gone away. So it seems that money is being transferred from those paying for insurance and from taxpayers to the health care insurance and services systems. And I recall hearing that Obamacare is not really supposed to work in the long run so that we can, for better or worse and perhaps both, move on to Canadian style socialized medicine.


JRMunn

You might be right. Nothing surprises me anymore. I'd be happy if they just said "You want coverage? No? Ok. Move along." like it used to be. Some years we need insurance, others we dont. Back then I didn't have to spend 4-6 hours on HC dot gov trying to figure out how much it's gonna cost me and answering questions like "Is your 3 yr old married? Does she have a job?"

Come on, Supreme Court....My finances and sanity are begging for release.

[Culver Adams]

Hello Fetch and Old Truckers,

When we get the Legislative, Judicial, and Executive branch higher paid employees all on the same medical plan the rest of us live with, we'll see things worked out in no time. (Last I heard they had a key to the front door at Bathesda National Naval Medical Center and Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, or something similar.)

(I'd like to put a smiley face on that paragraph but think I'll wait till it happens.) :=)

Regards,

Culver

[tommr]

Obamacare was always going to increase the premiums of those that don't qualify for subsidies so that those who do qualify could have coverage at little to no cost. my individual private plan went from $245 to the new "better plan" for $427/mo so I didn't renew it. Blue Cross of PA assigned me the new plan anyway and I had a **** of time getting them out of my life. I made several phone calls. the past due bills were over $2k before they pulled the plug on me. sent them a strongly worded letter and it worked. had a 30 year relationship with them and it ended badly. at least I still get the newsletters. I don't have insurance now but I guess I have to say Obama is saving me over $5k/yr. LOL

[FetchMeAPepsi]

Originally Posted by tommr

Obamacare was always going to increase the premiums of those that don't qualify for subsidies so that those who do qualify could have coverage at little to no cost. my individual private plan went from $245 to the new "better plan" for $427/mo so I didn't renew it. Blue Cross of PA assigned me the new plan anyway and I had a **** of time getting them out of my life. I made several phone calls. the past due bills were over $2k before they pulled the plug on me. sent them a strongly worded letter and it worked. had a 30 year relationship with them and it ended badly. at least I still get the newsletters. I don't have insurance now but I guess I have to say Obama is saving me over $5k/yr. LOL

So what are you doing Just paying the penalty? We thought about that in hopes that they'd overturn it this year. I still don't see how they can FORCE me to buy something that sometimes I don't want or need.

Makes me wonder what's next.

[David R Leifheit]

I'm sorry to hear that some people are having problems with the Affordable Care Act.
The statistics are showing that it has been a benefit to most people.
The increase in policy costs is less this year, below the trend, saving people money.
More people are insured, so hospitals are saving money (hopefully that means prices won't go up). In fact Hospitals are reporting fewer charity cases overall, apparently those with insurance aren't going to the ER anymore.

I know some people have seen increases. Some are due to not looking into other policies and just accepting what the company replaced your current policy with. Others are likely to have just gone up regardless. Also places with the largest increases or the most problems have been the states which did not implement the provisions in the ACA.

The ACA was needed. It is about time something was done about insurance costs. Now if Congress had tried to refine the program instead of waste time, time we paid them for, maybe it would be a better program.

[GMCDAC]

I usually stay out of this kind of thread but a brief comment is in order. My son is an older college student at 28, can't be on our insurance anymore (to 26) and has been quoted about 600 bucks a month. He works a 10 dollar/hour job during the summer and even with that small income he can't get any assistance or subsidies. Pay the penalty and hope to stay healthy I guess.

Wife and I have decent insurance and got to keep our doctors, but the copays on our prescriptions have doubled and tripled on some and a couple have been dropped and we were told to buy them "over the counter" somewhere. More than canceled out our meager raises this year.

Yeah---what's next?!

DAC