That sucks. Some people did get hurt with the advent of the ACA.
How do two people who are 60+ get a policy for $408 for both of them? I am in my 30s and I’ve been quoted $300 for an individual policy. Even in my 20s a bare boned policy was almost $100/month.
Not to question your sincerity but if your old policy didn’t comply with ACA, neither would an “equivalent” policy. Something had to have been added to your coverage.
Probably maternity care. 
Which again, is arguably better for a society as a whole, but does not help a 63 and 55 year old couple. So can we stop with the whole “Yes, it might cost more, but you are getting more in return.” You may be, or you may not be. Those ten things aren’t automatic benefits to everyone.
I’m sure I can go down a list of things I have to pay for that aren’t benefiting me in the slightest. Just get me a list of whatever our military’s quartermasters (or whatever those pencil jockeys are called now) have requisitioned from my tax-funded armories and I’ll just start naming things.
Should I be able to opt out of paying for whatever the latest bucket of prop wash the US Army has demanded this month? No? Why is that? Is it because I live in a society where the common populace decides the common good, and individual intransigence isn’t allowed to create wildly sub-optimal Nash equilibria?
Nah. Couldn’t be. Amun-Reagan (pbuh) has decreed “The Government Is The Problem” and so mote it be, for ever and ever, amen.
Oh come on . . . it’s not for maternity care. Another benefit of ACA is that the minimum standards it sets prevents people having injuries or serious illness, reporting to their doctors or hospitals thinking their policy covers them and only then finding out it didn’t. That was a common currency before.
Then the sales pitch should’ve been “if you like your plan, you can keep it, unless we decide you’re ignorant. Spoiler alert: we figure ignorance is a common currency.”
I’m a 30 year old single male with no health problems. I buy my own individual health insurance and go to the doctor once a year for a physical check up. I’m the demographic that is getting thrown under the bus.
My 100% ACA compliant individual policy costs $96/month and has a $5,000 yearly deductible with 100% coinsurance coverage. It fits me perfectly. The problem is the letter I got last month stating:
“Your Medical Insurance Policy is No Longer Available - Coverage Ending on Dec. 31, 2014…”
The cheapest “bronze” policy available on healthcare.gov is 36% more expensive ($136/month) with a 20% higher deductible ($6,000) and only 70% coinsurance coverage. It is worse in every possible way. To get something comparable to my current plan would be north of $300/month.
I understand that the supposed goal of the ACA was to spread risk, etc. What pisses me off about it was the way it was insinuated (or explicitly stated) that if I liked my plan, I would be able to keep it. Anyone with a basic understanding of the ACA proposal, for-profit health insurance companies, and basic math should’ve raised an eyebrow at that statement.
Is the ACA better for the country? Maybe… probably? Seems too early to tell. Has it made me better off? No way.
One thing is clear though; the stock prices of health insurers are sitting pretty. As a group they’ve outperformed the S&P 500 by almost 30% since the passage of the ACA.
If you get into a serious accident, go to the hospital and find out you’re not covered and you thought you were, nobody has to decide you’re ignorant, you just are.
Yes, that’s the exact sort of phrase that should have been used in the sales pitch.
Or better to say “don’t worry about that anymore. Whatever policy you buy, you’re covered”. Which is essentially what ACA did.
I’m glad *their *insurance is better-I had avoided mine, at work, because the coverage was shit. Now, I have to pay several hundreds a month for shit. Great to be fucking covered.
Yes, there were many alternatives to the If You Like Your Plan You Can Keep It lie. Why false advertising was the order of the day, I’ll never know.
I know a lot of conservatives are gonna disagree but it really WASN’T a lie. Obama started that line prior to ACA being signed in 2010. It was true in that policies in effect on THAT date were not subject to ACA standards and could be reissued in perpetuity. The problem was that if those policies changed in any way, and were issued AFTER that date, they were. And there were still three years before ACA went into effect. So policies that were cancelled were issued after March 2010.
I don’t think that’s quite right; it’s my understanding that you couldn’t grandfather in an unchanged plan that lacked coverage for adult children up to age 26, for example, or one with a lifetime limit.
The cost of my policy went up substantially. It wasn’t sold based on political affiliation. The person selling it was greatly unimpressed with the promises made of grandfathering or cost reductions.
Find a new seller. You know, free market and such
I use independent agents for insurance.
But I did take your suggestion to heart yesterday. I found a new politician.
Don’t we all use independent agents for insurance? That doesn’t make them the seller. The seller is the insurance company. The agent is just the agent.
If you’re like most other Americans, especially employers, your hc premiums had been rising steadily for years prior to ACA.
OMG, when in the history of health insurance has this sort of thing happened? Except every single fucking year to millions of people, of course.
People have always complained about health insurance. The costs have gone up, my doctor is not in plan, it’s confusing, they stopped covering this or that. In years past, there were a lot of different people to complain about, your insurer, your doctor, your employer, drug companies, the hospital, etc. Today, everyone gets to complain about the same thing, the ACA, as if the ACA is actually the cause of these problems. These problems already existed, and until we have single payer, or true universal coverage they will continue to exist.
But, bravo to you for taking a stand, and blaming the party that is trying to make health care better (despite the efforts of the other party to make it impossible) for not fixing every problem immediately. We cannot allow that to stand, maybe the Republicans can repeal the ACA and we can go back to the pre-ACA days when costs never went up.
I do wonder if it was truly intentional false advertising, or if the people who implemented ACA really had *no *idea how many insurance plans didn’t meet the minimal requirements under the ACA?
Neither is a good excuse, BTW. It just crossed my mind. Things do. Carry on.