Obamacare and you

[Jacob]

Yeah, it makes sense.

I'm just wondering if it's like $10/month, $100/month, $500/month or whatever... to get a sense of the depth of the rage.

[merithyn]

If you already have employer-provided insurance it shouldn't affect you at all.

Hmm, that's not how I've read it.

From what I understand, companies are now required to open their coverage to exchanges, allowing their employees to choose which insurance company they wish to use. I'm fairly certain that even my company, a health insurance company owned by a hospital, is required to do so.

Which makes me happy because our family doctor isn't in our current plan, but we'll have the option to choose another company on Jan 1 that does include him.

[Admiral Yi]

Hmmm.  I thought the exchanges were for individuals and employers who previously weren't purchasing insurance.

[Jacob]

Hmmm.  I thought the exchanges were for individuals and employers who previously weren't purchasing insurance.

Maybe it varies between states?

[merithyn]

Hmmm.  I thought the exchanges were for individuals and employers who previously weren't purchasing insurance.

Not according to my Director, but she could be wrong.

[Grey Fox]

This so...alien to me.

[garbon]

Hmmm.  I thought the exchanges were for individuals and employers who previously weren't purchasing insurance.

Not according to my Director, but she could be wrong.

I know that here we are getting the option of the exchange as well. They send us a million different files about it.  Yay more paperwork to read?

[mongers]

This so...alien to me.

Couple of days ago I got a letter about my recent 'emergency care', not a bill or receipt, but asking if I wished not to share the it's detail with the rest of the health service; why would I not want doctors to know all of my medical details in any future care ? 

[CountDeMoney]

Yeah, it makes sense.

I'm just wondering if it's like $10/month, $100/month, $500/month or whatever... to get a sense of the depth of the rage.

They were being raised long before Obamacare was even close to being law, for the last 10 years.

From PBS:

The employer survey found that 93 percent of firms with more than 50 workers offer coverage, down from 95 percent in the 2012 survey. Overall, 57 percent of all employers offer health insurance to their workers, down from 66 percent decade ago. The rate of coverage by employers with 200 or more workers remained steady, with about 99 percent offering insurance. Coverage drops off with firm size, with only 45 percent of the smallest companies offering insurance to workers, down from 55 percent in 2003.

Other findings include:

    Workers pay 18 percent of the premium costs for single coverage on average, and 29 percent of the premium cost for family plans, rates that have changed little in a decade.

    Health insurance premiums have risen 196 percent since 1999, with worker contributions growing 182 percent. Meanwhile, wages have grown an average of 50 percent since 1999.

    Thirty-eight percent of all workers with single health insurance had at least a $1,000 annual deductible, the amount they pay before most insurance coverage kicks in. At small firms, 58 percent of those covered workers had at least a $1,000 deductible, while nearly 31 percent had deductibles of at least $2,000, up from 12 percent in 2008.

"One of the changes in this report is the growth in deductibles," said economist Paul Ginsburg of the Center for Studying Health System Change, a nonpartisan research group in Washington. The deductibles were likely "a factor behind the premium increase being as low as it was."

Workers in small firms with three to 199 employees face an average annual deductible of $1,715 compared with $884 for those in larger firms.

Small businesses generally see more volatile insurance premium rates than larger firms. Scott Hauge, who runs an insurance brokerage firm in California, says his clients have seen increases averaging around 10 percent a year for the past seven years. He doesn't dispute the findings of the survey, but added that "small businesses are not seeing those minor increases."

Analysts say premium increases are cyclical, with periods of rapid increases, such as the double-digit hikes that marked the late 1980s and the early 2000s, followed by periods of slower growth. Since about the mid-2000s, rate increases paid by employers fell below 10 percent each year, with the smallest annual growth tracked at 3 percent in the 2009-2010 employer survey. In what surprised many analysts, rates jumped by 9 percent from 2010 to 2011 before moderating the past two years to around 4 percent.

Obamacare is just the latest convenient excuse to cut costs for the employer and increase profits for the healthcare industry.

Funny though...the GOP libertariantard critics will bitch about being "forced" into Obamacare (even though nobody is), but they won't mention how employer-mandated, fascist and mandatory "Wellness" programs can cut their costs and increase employer contributions.

http://www.kaiserhealthnews.org/stories/2012/april/02/employers-financial-rewards-penalties-health-tests.aspx

[The Minsky Moment]

Don't know off the top of my head.  I'll have to check the wife's pay advice since I'm on her Citi insurance.  I know people were going apeshit here last year when they announced the premium increase and mentioned that most of it was due to the Affordable Care Act.

But doesn't it make sense that premiums would go up with insurers being forced to cover more things than they used to?

The employer requirements have been suspended a year, and most of the insurer-related provisions kicked in three years ago. Prior law already prohibited denial of coverage in small group plans.
So the mechanism by which ACA is causing these premiums to go up is a bit obscure.
Perhaps "they" were mistaken or even (*gasp*) not entirely honest?

[crazy canuck]

This so...alien to me.

Couple of days ago I got a letter about my recent 'emergency care', not a bill or receipt, but asking if I wished not to share the it's detail with the rest of the health service; why would I not want doctors to know all of my medical details in any future care ? 

Its privacy laws run amok.

[merithyn]

Both.

How much are we talking, roughly, if you don't mind me asking?

Don't know off the top of my head.  I'll have to check the wife's pay advice since I'm on her Citi insurance.  I know people were going apeshit here last year when they announced the premium increase and mentioned that most of it was due to the Affordable Care Act.

But doesn't it make sense that premiums would go up with insurers being forced to cover more things than they used to?

That's actually kind of funny that they said that most of it was due to the ACA. My insurance company (the one that I work for) raised insurance rates for our members and groups drastically two years ago. The reason that they did it was because the cost of healthcare had gone up dramatically and the rate increases hadn't caught up. They did a full audit and found that they needed to do a massive rate raise to catch up.

Now, with the ACA going into affect, they're only having to raise the rates by about 4%.

[CountDeMoney]

And Jacob, if the estimates are anything to go by, my costs may go down 50%.

[merithyn]

Hmmm.  I thought the exchanges were for individuals and employers who previously weren't purchasing insurance.

Not according to my Director, but she could be wrong.

I know that here we are getting the option of the exchange as well. They send us a million different files about it.  Yay more paperwork to read?

In Illinois, you can do it all online.

Save the trees!

[merithyn]

The employer requirements have been suspended a year, and most of the insurer-related provisions kicked in three years ago. Prior law already prohibited denial of coverage in small group plans.
So the mechanism by which ACA is causing these premiums to go up is a bit obscure.
Perhaps "they" were mistaken or even (*gasp*) not entirely honest?

I thought the suspension was only for small and medium-sized companies.