I just got my information about my health insurance for next year. For context, this is an individual plan purchased through the ACA exchange. Previously, I basically had a Cadillac plan for $800 a month.
2015-changed to ACA plan with $500 deductible for $577 a month.
2016-deductible up to $1000 and cost up to $677.
2017-deductible up to $1500 and cost up to $815.
2018-they said the closest plan would require changing from a PPO to an HMO with deductible up to $2500 and price up to $1167. I found a PPO with a $500 deductible for $1287 which I thought was insane.
2019- The “equivalent” plan now has a deductible back to $1500 and a price of $1960. That is right, the cost is now more than tripled in the past 3 years for crappier coverage. I am going to have to change to a very high deductible plan with terrible coverage. I honestly don’t see how people afford insurance.
Perhaps you’ll have more sympathy with the health insurance companies if you contemplate the dismal returns they offered stockholders since Obama forced Marxism down their throats. Let’s compare their stock prices now with the 2009 trough.
IIUC the five largest private health insurance companies are
- CIGNA — stock price up 13-fold
- Humana — stock price up 13-fold
- UnitedHealth — stock price up 12-fold
- Aetna — stock price up 9-fold
- Anthem— stock price up 9-fold.
(These numbers would be slightly higher if you reinvest dividends. A 13-fold rose over that period might be a 14-fold rise if you reinvest 1% dividends.)
With numbers as dismal as these, due to the Democratic-Socialist take-over of medicine, I think you owe these insurance companies an apology. They’re struggling financially and investors are bailing out in droves. Would you keep your savings in a stock that offered a mere 10- or 12-fold rise over a period of almost a decade? Consider yourself lucky these struggling companies are able to offer you insurance at all.
Preach it, brother!
And will nobody give a thought to the hard and necessary work these fine companies do every day? Not only do they have to deal with mere 10x-13x stock increases, they provide the vital public service of killing sick children and grandmothers by denying payment and authorization for various treatments!
Do YOU want to spend all day killing sick children and grandmothers? I thought not!
So show a little more respect for these fine upstanding health insurance companies, that are doing the tough but necessary things to keep our great American way of life afloat! A mere tripling of premiums is a BARGAIN compared to what we collectively get in return!
This is so true - it’s never cheap to get screwed.
I can definitely endorse this pitting.
Some don’t.
I find these threads anxiety-inducing because I know, if I lived in the US, I would have no insurance. Who can afford that sort of monthly payment???
Before my benefits kicked in with my new job, I had to pay $75 a month for my medical plan. Once my benefits kicked in, I had overpaid BC Med so they sent me a cheque for $30. My plan includes medical, dental and all prescriptions.
I feel so bad for Americans (or anyone) who has to go through this.
It’s truly fucked up. It’s interesting that people will be looking at 2019 pricing when open enrollment starts on Nov 1, a week before the mid-term elections; and the timing will be similar for the 2020 election too. I know of course that many people will have bought into the lies, or we wouldn’t have Trump in the first place. But I think that not every Trump voter is so gullible now that they have seen the reality. Healthcare must be the number one issue for a lot of people.
And don’t forget, when you go to access the healthcare.gov website in order to choose your new, more-money-less-coverage plan, Trump has arranged for it to be “undergoing maintenance” for much of the time. So have fun with that, too.
No, none at all.
Here’s one way where all Americans could get decent health care at a reasonable price…
Except that the right has convinced themselves that this is all Obama’s fault. That the poor insurance companies have been forced to raise their rates because of Obamacare. Part of the reason they believe this is that they are explicitly being told this: in a conservative area, you ask your HR rep why your premium has gone up, and they tell you “Obamacare”. Everyone believes it because it reaffirms what they already “know”.
They firmly, firmly believe that sky-rocketing healthcare costs are the result of attempts to make healthcare more affordable.
What Manda JO said.
“Despite the valiant efforts of President Trump, the explosion in healthcare costs caused by Obama’s socialist policies are causing misery for hardworking Americans. Make sure that you vote Republican to let us continue the fight to give all Americans decent healthcare.”
The NHS slogan “We’re here for you.” as opposed to “We’re here for us.” pretty much describes the difference between the UK NHS and US Healthcare.
Trump promised to replace Obamacare with “something terrific”, and since Trump never lies, I guess what you’re describing must be terrific and you just don’t realize it. And you just know he’s right. I’m sure if you asked Trump how he feels about his own personal health care, he would say that it’s terrific.
It describes the difference between health care as a public service and health care as a profiteering business. In essence, therefore, despite many significant differences in implementation, it describes the difference between US health care and that of every civilized country in the world.
Huh, I didn’t realise he was such a language scholar.
Terrific:
ARCHAIC
causing terror.
“his body presented a terrific emblem of death”
And Trump nailed it! Of course, the original definition of terrific is “causing terror”.
The timing didn’t help- right around the end of 2010, corporate healthcare plans suddenly went from some variant of no deductible, reasonable co-pay, and 80/20 otherwise to some sort of several thousand dollar deductible, maybe a co-pay, maybe not, and 80/20 (or worse) beyond that.
I’m sure a lot of people make the usual assumption and think that price raises have a direct relation to cost, and then make the leap to assume that the Affordable Care Act was the cost of that higher cost.
In reality, I’m skeptical that it raised costs for insurance companies that much as to warrant as drastic of a change as we saw post-2010. I think it was probably a price-grab on the part of the insurance companies that they could conveniently blame Obamacare for.
I see Poe’s Law is still on the books.
2k a month for a high deductible plan for an individual? Virtually nobody can afford that.
We’re fucked.
What is really fucked up is that health care inflation is at historic lows.
Since 2010, health care inflation has barely been 1-2% a year, about the same as general inflation.
I’m not sure why health insurance costs would quadruple when health care costs themselves have barely gone up 8% in the same time frame.