Many See I.R.S. Penalties as More Affordable Than Health Insurance
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Re: Many See I.R.S. Penalties as More Affordable Than Health Insurance
#2I 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.
Re: Many See I.R.S. Penalties as More Affordable Than Health Insurance
#3Kind of a contentless article - of course there will always be people who choose the penalty instead of coverage. Some will be rational choices, some will be short-sighted. It looks like the overall forces, though, are good for the ACA - the penalty is going up, more healthy people are signing up for coverage, the risk profiles are stabilizing, etc. All of this should theoretically help create more choice in the exchange over time.
Re: Many See I.R.S. Penalties as More Affordable Than Health Insurance
#4Personal 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.
Re: Many See I.R.S. Penalties as More Affordable Than Health Insurance
#5I'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 not tax deductible) that may end up being a wash and you're better off with the coverage.
Now consider the guy paying the $1800 penalty instead of the $2900 coverage. The coverage being effectively $2175 (considering a 25% tax break). He pays $1800 for nothing instead of $2175. Passing up $375 coverage. Again, Obamacare - pretty much a debacle as far as costs - but that guy maybe not be the wisest choice.
Re: Many See I.R.S. Penalties as More Affordable Than Health Insurance
#6Kind of a contentless article - of course there will always be people who choose the penalty instead of coverage. Some will be rational choices, some will be short-sighted. It looks like the overall forces, though, are good for the ACA - the penalty is going up, more healthy people are signing up for coverage, the risk profiles are stabilizing, etc. All of this should theoretically help create more choice in the exch…
I don't know. I think the stories from people who are actually trying to use the ACA should bear a lot of weight.
Re: Many See I.R.S. Penalties as More Affordable Than Health Insurance
#7Personal 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.
Re: Many See I.R.S. Penalties as More Affordable Than Health Insurance
#8Personal 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.
Same here. Had a plan I liked cancelled out from under me. Result is higher premiums, higher deductibles and much higher max out of pocket fees. Lots of little things not covered that were before.
And I wasn't able to keep my doctor either.
Re: Many See I.R.S. Penalties as More Affordable Than Health Insurance
#9Personal 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.
Are you getting subsidized or do you make $85k+? Why only catastrophic?
Re: Many See I.R.S. Penalties as More Affordable Than Health Insurance
#10I'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 the bank 120 bucks per year.