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Many See I.R.S. Penalties as More Affordable Than Health Insurance

nytimes.com

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Re: Many See I.R.S. Penalties as More Affordable Than Health Insurance

#21

Post by vonmoltke »

clamprecht wrote: post #7
jhulla wrote: post #4

Personal experience with ACA: As of 2016, we're onto our 3rd insurer. Each prior one has dropped our local doctors, physicians groups and hospital. With each insurance change, our deductible has gone up, our premium has increased and our co-pay, co-insurance has increased. In effect, our ACA plan has become an extremely expensive catastrophic insurance plan.

You're not alone. In Texas, they cancelled almost all (or maybe all) individual PPO plans (affecting about 367k people), leaving us to choose HMO or EPO plans (the lesser of two evils). And about a 20% increase (per year) in insurance cost for the last 3 years. I at least hope some folks are benefiting from the ACA, I'm certainly not.

> In Texas, they cancelled almost all (or maybe all) individual PPO plans (affecting about 367k people), leaving us to choose HMO or EPO plans (the lesser of two evils).

I know Scott and White[1] is still offering PPOs, but apparently they only service 77 counties in Texas. A quick check of healthcare.gov tells me that none of the big insurers are offering PPOs, though. I don't know if there are other small-ism nonprofits like SWHP serving other parts of the state and providing PPOs.

[1] https://swhp.org/en-us/

Re: Many See I.R.S. Penalties as More Affordable Than Health Insurance

#22

Post by dpweb »

pmorici wrote: post #10
dpweb wrote: post #5

I'm against Obamacare, but if I was for it, I would peg the penalties at 2x the avg basic exchange coverage price. Also, people with high deductibles should make sure you take advantage of tax benefits, HSA for instance. The $6000 deductible may really only be a $4800 deductible once you figure in the tax deduction. If you're talking Obamacare coverage being 20% higher than the penality (I'm assuming the penalty is n…

My current plan has an has an HSA component but the company that administrates the account, BenefitWallet, has some fine print in the account agreement that they charge an account fee for balances less than several thousand dollars. Realistically I only spend several hundred dollars per year on healthcare stuff so I don't think it is to my advantage to lock up that much money in a non-interest bearing account or pay…

I called the bank and they stopped charging me their HSA monthly fee, and credited back the past months fees - FYI.

I won't say which bank it was, but it rhymes with Smells Smargo!

Re: Many See I.R.S. Penalties as More Affordable Than Health Insurance

#23

Post by brewdad »

pmorici wrote: post #10
dpweb wrote: post #5

I'm against Obamacare, but if I was for it, I would peg the penalties at 2x the avg basic exchange coverage price. Also, people with high deductibles should make sure you take advantage of tax benefits, HSA for instance. The $6000 deductible may really only be a $4800 deductible once you figure in the tax deduction. If you're talking Obamacare coverage being 20% higher than the penality (I'm assuming the penalty is n…

My current plan has an has an HSA component but the company that administrates the account, BenefitWallet, has some fine print in the account agreement that they charge an account fee for balances less than several thousand dollars. Realistically I only spend several hundred dollars per year on healthcare stuff so I don't think it is to my advantage to lock up that much money in a non-interest bearing account or pay…

One advantage to consider is that there is no time limit on when you spend the money. As you age, your health care costs will rise. How much interest are you really making on $5000 in today's environment? $50? $100?

Meanwhile, you save your marginal tax rate on any dollars contributed towards future medical expenses. That's a pretty good return on your money. $5000 at 28% marginal rate knocks $1400 off your tax bill.

Re: Many See I.R.S. Penalties as More Affordable Than Health Insurance

#24

Post by okbake »

pmorici wrote: post #10
dpweb wrote: post #5

I'm against Obamacare, but if I was for it, I would peg the penalties at 2x the avg basic exchange coverage price. Also, people with high deductibles should make sure you take advantage of tax benefits, HSA for instance. The $6000 deductible may really only be a $4800 deductible once you figure in the tax deduction. If you're talking Obamacare coverage being 20% higher than the penality (I'm assuming the penalty is n…

My current plan has an has an HSA component but the company that administrates the account, BenefitWallet, has some fine print in the account agreement that they charge an account fee for balances less than several thousand dollars. Realistically I only spend several hundred dollars per year on healthcare stuff so I don't think it is to my advantage to lock up that much money in a non-interest bearing account or pay…

I'm pretty sure that with HSAs you're not tied to a particular administrator. I think that you can get one from any administrator you want. If it's through an employer then they might only do direct paycheck deposits to a particular administrator, but you're able to opt-out of that and do the deposit yourself.

Don't listen to me though, I could be wrong, but it's worth looking into if you're considering an HSA.

Re: Many See I.R.S. Penalties as More Affordable Than Health Insurance

#25

Post by dibujante »

methodover wrote: post #17

> But plenty of healthy holdouts remain, and their resistance helps explain why insurers are worried about the financial viability of the exchanges over time. They say they sorely need more healthy customers to balance out the costs of covering the sicker, older people who have flocked to exchange plans. Ah, the tragedy of the commons at work. Healthy people don't buy insurance because it's too expensive. Insurance i…

As a Canadian, I am astonished at how expensive even the cheapest of these plans are. My monthly healthcare cost amounts to $178, once you factor in the taxes I pay that go to healthcare. That's cheaper than any of the plans in this article. How do people find these prices bearable?

Re: Many See I.R.S. Penalties as More Affordable Than Health Insurance

#26

Post by Avshalom »

methodover wrote: post #17

> But plenty of healthy holdouts remain, and their resistance helps explain why insurers are worried about the financial viability of the exchanges over time. They say they sorely need more healthy customers to balance out the costs of covering the sicker, older people who have flocked to exchange plans. Ah, the tragedy of the commons at work. Healthy people don't buy insurance because it's too expensive. Insurance i…

Health insurance is expensive because health insurance companies love money.

Re: Many See I.R.S. Penalties as More Affordable Than Health Insurance

#27

Post by tptacek »

jhulla wrote: post #4

Personal experience with ACA: As of 2016, we're onto our 3rd insurer. Each prior one has dropped our local doctors, physicians groups and hospital. With each insurance change, our deductible has gone up, our premium has increased and our co-pay, co-insurance has increased. In effect, our ACA plan has become an extremely expensive catastrophic insurance plan.

If you don't have preexisting conditions, you can still buy PPOs from the big insurers as non-ACA plans.

Re: Many See I.R.S. Penalties as More Affordable Than Health Insurance

#28

Post by marincounty »

gscott wrote: post #2

I work with someone who has health insurance from the California exchange. His assigned doctor is about a 2 hour drive away. Maybe he has picked the cheapest plan but such a situation shouldn't really happen if this was well run.

There's problems. We need health care for people though. Obama original plan was fine.

The republicans started in with the death squads, and the scare tatics. We ended up with a system that Insurance companies exploited.

I am waiting for someone to fix it, or offer a better solution. I have heard of nothing. Nothing feasible.

See--if I get sick I go to a doctor's office, or hospital. It might be the only industry that isn't required to offer a bill in advance? Doctors, and insurance companies can charge whatever they like, or at least that's been my experience.

I gave given this a lot of thought. I don't have an answer. My only plan would be to make medical bills bankruptable--for any amount, and at any time. There would be no ten year waiting. It's not feasible because it would clog up federal courts, unless we stream line the process. Made a medical related bankruptcy so easy you could send it in on a post card. I don't want to lose my shack because I get sick. Even now, people are losing their homes in municipal court because they got sick, and didn't have the ability to pay the outrageous bill. Hospital lawyers try to keep it quiet, but they sue.

A friend's wife is recovering from stage three cancer. I don't know the type, or wanted to ask. They were in Switzerland, and she got very sick. When they got hone they were expecting a huge bill--the insurance company would balk at. It was completely covered by the Swiss government. What a country?

We need a reform. We don't need a Blowhard in office who will make things worse?

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