First of all, the “subsidy” and the “Premium Tax Credit” are the exact same thing. Second, it doesn’t apply to that aforementioned 60-year old earning $50,000 a year.
Yes, I meant you can calculate the subsidy with that subsidy calculator thingie. I know they are the same thing.
As for your 60-year-old, I’ve already told you that I reject your rough off-the-cuff estimates and guesses. Sorry. If you have real examples, bring them. But you have to bring the amounts they paid under the old system - for insurance, or out-of-pocket if they had none - to compare.
of people between 45-60 who are in single-person households: 218
Less those below poverty line (26.5% of all individuals, or 58 below poverty line): 160
Median wage (Males) Calhoun County: $25,572
Your hypothetical person would have to make twice the prevailing wage to be ineligible for Obamacare. This sort of person, especially in Calhoun County, would either be covered under an existing plan, owns the town, or would have moved the f** away from Calhoun County*. You picked a person with very specific demographics making over twice the standard wage in one of the poorest sections of the country.
Having been to Calhoun County myself, it is quite likely your person doesn’t exist or represents, at best, 2-3 people.
Talk about gaming the system: Your person, if he made the average wage in Calhoun County, would have been eligible for FREE bronze plans, post tax-credit.
The income of that hypothetical 60-year-old is right there at the top of the page - 50,000. And he is a hypothetical, so I have no idea what he paid before. Does that make the 20-30% that he is forced to pay under ACA more “affordable”?
Miller County, a place smaller than Calhoun (right next door, even!) with just as depressing demographics. My point remains the same - the person you’re talking about likely doesn’t exist in that county.
Oddly enough, if I go to DeKalb County (part of Atlanta) and pick your demo with 2X the median male income for that county, their lowest bronze rate is $429. I would think that’s affordable to somebody making $73k/year, right?
I said many people are forced to buy “shockingly expensive” plans under Obamacare. I proved it to you - from the horse’s mouth, on the healthcare.gov web site. You can close your eyes, ears and hum loudly - doesn’t change the facts.
No you haven’t. You have yet to prove that there are unmarried 60 year olds in these counties that make $50k/year who aren’t covered by an already-existing plan. The baseline for this number is 160 for Calhoun County, but that includes everybody above the poverty line. Those who are four times above it, or twice the average income… how many is that. 2? 3? And how many of those 3 are already covered by insurance?
A range of whole numbers with a maximum value of “3” and a minimum of “0” does not constitute “many”, imho.
I have also shown that your person, far more likely to exist in a metropolitan area, would pay significantly less than the person in Calhoun County.
No, you showed one very incomplete example you didn’t show is represenative. Not “many”.
This is why I said from the beginning that only real data that comes in in the coming months will suffice. I saw this coming. I’m not going down this road any more.
Let’s take your (cherry-picked) example. How about $50K? And the plan has $6500 deductible. From looking at the details for that plan, you pay everything, doctor visits, drugs, everything - until you reach $6500. Then the plan kicks in. So - if you’re moderately in need for health services (which a lot 60-year-olds do) you will be on the hook for $11.5K/year. Do you think that’s “affordable” for someone earning $50K/year?
DeKalb County is the county seat for Atlanta, GA, a metropolitan area with over 6.1 million people and $300 billion in Gross Metropolitan Product. DeKalb itself is home to over 600,000 souls. A $73k/year salary in DeKalb county for a single person of age 60 is not impossible, given the overall size of the county and wealth of the surrounding area.
You picked two counties in SE Georgia, in some of the most poverty-ravished areas of the country (total yearly GDP for each county might top $100 million), your selected demographic earns twice the average income in your selected counties, and he very likely doesn’t exist.