Son Losing Insurance

[FinallyFree]

My son who is in college got a letter saying that his current ACA plan will no longer be offered in 2018. The plan he had for 2017 was $230 month. It looks like a new plan for 2018 will be at least $410 a month Thanks Donald Trump. I thought everyone was supposed to have BETTER insurance for LESS money.

[KLP]

My son who is in college got a letter saying that his current ACA plan will no longer be offered in 2018. The plan he had for 2017 was $230 month. It looks like a new plan for 2018 will be at least $410 a month Thanks Donald Trump. I thought everyone was supposed to have BETTER insurance for LESS money.

Sorry to hear you son's cost are going up...but generally everyone's cost is going up.

Actually health care coverage has been soaring for the past 5yrs under ACA despite the repeated promise and assurance of an average savings of $2,500 per year. And the giant increases have been occurring despite the Feds sending money to Insurers to help offset the losses...this is just shifting the cost to others (which many people seem to like) . And the Govt is still running in deficit with 20trillion in debt already so should We (the Fed and taxpayers) be subsidizing Insurers? . When more people are being provided more required services then there is going to be an increase in total cost...not sure how anyone ever believed the on average $2,500/yr reduction in cost....it is sort of a math thing.

It is worst for younger people because they generally need catastrophic insurance or no insurance...but they are being depended upon and required to buy insurance they on average will not use in order to subsidize people who on average will consume more services. That is how it works.

[Cootie Brown]

Trump and Obama are not the villains in this health care catastrophe. That falls squarely in the lap of congress and the supreme court. Any plan that includes insurance is doomed to failure. Private enterprise is incapable of handing the losses that will be generated by any national program. Insurance companies must make a profit to stay in business, and in order to make a profit they cannot accept preexisting conditions. And they must have a large pool of younger people that are healthy to offset losses.

In the current mess the government promised the insurance companies they'd pay for their losses, so the insurance companies were all in and why wouldn't they be? The elementary principles of insurance were totally violated with the predictable results. The government simply has no way to fund the enormous losses that this plan produced.

Any national health insurance plan that is based on the principles of insurance will fail. I'm not a fan of Bernie Sanders, but his plan is the only viable plan that has a chance. We have a successful national health insurance plan now that has been in force for decades. Simply open up the current medicare plans and cover every citizen. That provides access to basic health care, not insurance, for everyone. Private enterprise still has a role. The can continue to provide supplements to cover the cost of things medicare doesn't cover. My wife and I are on medicare now. and we purchased a supplement, and it is actually better coverage than the group plan we used to have and that plan was a really good plan.

Why is congress so firmly against an obvious solution that has been in existence for decades? They haven't got the courage to adequately fund it. The only possible way to adequately fund this is through a national sales tax that will generate trillions of dollars. Virtually everyone will have to contribute in order for the plan to be adequately funded. A law that doctors must accept national health insurance patients must be included too. Some doctors would prefer to go cash only patients but they would be a huge minority. The law could mandate 50-75% of a doctors patients must be covered by national health insurance.

Deductibles would apply and a low premium would also apply based on income that would increase with income. Those falling below the minimum income would have no deductibles or monthly premiums to pay. Prescriptions would be included as they are now. The low incomes people could also be issued a card that exempts them from the national sales tax. (yeah, I know fraud would be rampant but there are no perfect plans.)

I have 38 years experience in the insurance business and I know any plan that uses insurance will fail. I think this extension of medicare will eventually be enacted but that might be many years into the future unless or until the public demands it sooner.

[agricola]

We had good luck finding a policy for our youngest daughter by going through an insurance broker. We pay $113 a month. It isn't perfect insurance, but she has medical coverage which is reasonable, and has a reasonable copay and deductions.

She is still under 26, but we are now on Medicare and can't cover dependents any longer.

[Cootie Brown]

Agricola makes a good point, check with an independent broker that represents a lot of companies. And request their 3 best quotes in writing. The companies rating should be A or better with A+ being the best. That rating indicates their financial strength & that relates to their ability to pay claims.

You should be able to get a number of rates/price quotes to compare on the Internet. I got out of the life & health part of the business years ago & focused on Home, Car, Business, & Commercial Insurance, so I'm not up to date on what's going on in health insurance now.

[FinallyFree]

Thanks for the suggestion, Agricola!

[tarheel]

Agricola makes a good point, check with an independent broker that represents a lot of companies. And request their 3 best quotes in writing. The companies rating should be A or better with A+ being the best. That rating indicates their financial strength & that relates to their ability to pay claims.

You should be able to get a number of rates/price quotes to compare on the Internet. I got out of the life & health part of the business years ago & focused on Home, Car, Business, & Commercial Insurance, so I'm not up to date on what's going on in health insurance now.

Depends on the state you live in. In North Carolina, the only insurer left who will write health is Blue Cross. And they won't write a policy that is different than the ones they offer on the exchange. So you get BCBS on the exchange or you go with the faith based health cost sharing. That's it. We are actually looking at that for my wife. She is still a believer so she can sign the affidavit stating such. The most comprehensive plan has a $500 deductible and max out of pocket with a $1,000,000 cap per incident. Drugs are not covered. Cost per month is $199. The only real risk you run is there not being enough in the pool to pay a large claim. But that vs $17,000/yr for a BCBS policy (we don't qualify for a subsidy) seems worth the risk.

[agricola]

Are either of you members of any professional organization (for example - something work related, or educational, or anything)?

I was able to get long term care insurance through a professional organization I'm in, at group rates instead of individual. Another group I'm in has dental and vision policies (I should clarify - the professional organizations don't insure people, but they act like a 'group' where members can buy policies from regular companies at group rates instead of the (higher) individual rates).

The advantage is that most of these are multi-state or national organizations, so you can get around that 'single state provider' problem.

[tarheel]

I overlooked mentioning that the faith based health share programs have the pre-existing condition clauses that the old insurance policies have, which would be a big issue for some people.

These plans are not insurance so would not be deductible as health insurance on Sch A of your tax return if that deduction survives. They also are not ACA compliant so if the mandate that taxpayers have health insurance survives you would be subject to the penalty for not having health insurance. The penalty would be substantially less than paying for the coverage in most cases.

[agricola]

Yes if you are willing to go there, non-compliant policies do exist and cost less, but come with significant drawbacks. We had a couple of those policies for our girls during our 'transition' from employer coverage to Medicare -

Most won't cover pre-existing conditions.
Some have a mandatory health check to be sure you don't HAVE any pre-existing conditions.
The deductibles were VERY high ($5000) and also you had to meet that before the policy paid ANYTHING AT ALL.
So - we bought a different policy (very inexpensive) which WOULD cover that deductible amount - but only in case of an accident.
(since accidents were likely to be big-ticket items, it was worth it).

The policy we have for our youngest daughter right now is a lot better. It is from Philadelphia American. Our broker was really good and gave us lots of useful information and quotes from more than one provider. Her deductible is still fairly high but the policy starts paying a little something on medical charges right away instead of demanding you are out of pocket first. There was still a health check but it was nothing special and we are lucky that she doesn't have anything pre-existing to worry about at the moment.