How bad is obamacare for our nations families financially? Really bad.

The purpose of obamacare was to pave the way to a single payer system. This is obvious to anyone with a working mind. One of the ways it was supposed to do that was by driving costs through the roof, which it has done very well.

From 2000-2013 the average premium increase for a family healthcare plan was 7.5% per year, with a high of 13% and a low of 3%. (the high's were in the early 2000's not recent)
Since obamacare went into full effect here are the numbers:

2014: 56%
2015: 9%
2016: 14%
2017: 22%

That's an average of 25% per year. That means, since it went into effect the price has doubled for families. In four short years each family is now paying for two families worth of insurance. PLUS their deductibles have increased dramatically (30% or about $900). This is money out of the consumer's pocket. So when you see people posting that it won't cost much more or we might even save a little by going to single payer, realize it's still more expensive than what we had pre-obamacare and this was a manufactured problem which is playing out exactly how they wanted it to.

Source 2012-2017
Source 2000-2011

From inception to now for me is about a 60% premium increase as well as a new requirement for a health risk assessment.

Progress!

a reply to: cynicalheathen

I guess I should be happy with my 45% increase lol! but my deductible is up by $1900.

It sure looks like you are right about this. People do not understand that their contrubution to Obamacare may just be a small part of the raise that the American people are paying. Now, the money to pay for that increase does not grow on trees.

Obama has created a serious problem. I am not sure how it can be fixed. Part of the problem is that people are getting sick more and running to the doctor for every little sneeze. Their place of work sometimes requires a doctors excuse, so do the schools. This is a domino effect that raises costs of insurances up. If healthcare costs were not increasing so fast, employers could afford to give raises. People's and employers money is feeding healthcare workers and the Pharma industry.

If you think you can go to the drug store and pick out a medicine yourself, the majority of the time you will pick out the wrong kind. The OTC meds are getting so complex and the labels are confusing, taking the wrong type of cough medicine can make your illness worse. The old time favorites have also changed and they split up into about three types, all with different properties. Toss a coin in the air, when you are feeling sick, looking at the labels and trying to make sense of them is impossible.

They had better medicines OTC back thirty years ago for things. It is as bad as going into the cereal isle at the grocery store and trying to find cereal. Picking the wrong medicine for a sinus condition can definitely cause negative effects.

a reply to: rickymouse

This is a domino effect that raises costs of insurances up. If healthcare costs were not increasing so fast, employers could afford to give raises. People's and employers money is feeding healthcare workers and the Pharma industry.

This is a really good point. Wage stagnation is only really seen on the employee side as the employer is now paying much more for that employee than they were before. The employee just doesn't see the money because it goes directly to the healthcare industry.

The big problem is young people have opt out and paid the tax, or just blew it off completely. This has made Obamacare not only expensive, but insurance companies are dropping like flies since they are loosing money with it. The rate is at the point that people will not be able to find coverage even if they wanted it.

a reply to: Xtrozero

But that's a planned feature-flaw. It's hilarious (and sad) that we were told that the reason costs weren't going to go up too much was because young healthy people would offset the sick, yet they allowed that group to stay on their parents plans until they were 26! How exactly were they going to pay in when they didn't have to go out and get insurance?????

a reply to: Dfairlite

The reason why there has not been NATIONAL OUTRAGE over ObamaCare is because only 5.3% of the U.S. population buy Individual/Family health insurance... aka "ObamaCare".

Source: acasignups.net...


Of the 12 million people who are paying for an ObamaCare Health Insurance plan, 77% pay less than $100 per month out of their own pocket. The vast majority of their monthly premium is paid from the +$800 Billion in annual taxes that are levied on businesses, the uninsured, and wealthier Americans.

"Only" about 17% of the 5.3% of Americans who purchase their own health insurance pay full-price. They are the ones who feel the full impact of the insane ObamaCare premium increases.

Source: www.healthcaredive.com...


Before President Trump was elected, the HHS Secretary said that this situation (the 17% getting hosed) was acceptable, because the vast majority of ObamaCare customers paid very little in monthly premiums.

The new HHS Secretary, Tom Price, pushed to have the scope of the ObamaCare replacement (AHCA) subsidies scaled-up to higher income earners than they are under ObamaCare. This will enable people who earn more than 400% of the Federal Poverty Level to receive assistance in paying their monthly premium. Plus, the monthly premium of an AHCA plan should be much lower than an ObamaCare premium, IF you reside in a state that chooses to opt-out of the AHCA mandates, which are essentially the same as ObamaCare mandates.

The House of Representatives created a huge mess when they enabled states to have "flexibility". But that's a subject for another thread.

a reply to: carewemust

Interesting... I can't say I'm familiar enough with AHCA to debate it though (I don't even know if I like it or not, I'm not wasting my time on it until it comes back out of the senate). ACA on the other hand.... everyone has felt those effects on their wallet, whether they realize it or not.

The purpose of obamacare was to pave the way to a single payer system.

a reply to: Dfairlite

Obamacare will probably go down in history as the first working *prototype* program towards that end.
The current Republican evolution of that prototype should be an improvement but I'm wondering if even Trump believes it will be an end all solution.

Single payer systems have economies of scale since they have a *potentially* more efficient single source of regulatory underwriting and billing.

One simple example, in a single payer system if the underwriting experience shows that smoker coded medical claims exceed non smoker coded medical claims, revenue from the tobacco industry is already there to cover the claimed difference.

a reply to: Dfairlite

Manufactured problem is exactly how I have been describing it for years. And more than that. They've been hard at work manufacturing it for decades. Obamacare was just when things started coming together to the point to where everyone should have been able to see they were up to no good.

As far back as when they made it against the law for hospitals to refuse care without doing anything to put caps on how much they could charge they were already steering things towards the goal of making things so expensive something would have to give eventually.

They absolutely never wanted to fix the real problem ($100k hospital bills). Their goal was ALWAYS control. As much of it as they could get. And medical care was the perfect place to start. They can control every aspect of your life from there. They can know everything there is to know about you.

When you pair that up with advanced technology (and the fact that computers keep perfect records effortlessly) it's honestly pretty creepy. I mean, this is exactly what really screwed the victims of the Nazis in WW2. Technology and record keeping wasn't anywhere near what it is today but it was already good enough to where they knew exactly where to find most of the people they wanted to get rid of.

a reply to: BrianFlanders

They absolutely never wanted to fix the real problem ($100k hospital bills). Their goal was ALWAYS control.

Exactly!

originally posted by: Xtrozero
The big problem is young people have opt out and paid the tax, or just blew it off completely.

Well, let's be honest. It's actually a fine. Which is what taxes really are.

This has made Obamacare not only expensive, but insurance companies are dropping like flies since they are loosing money with it.

That's about the only good thing I can say about Obamacare. Screw insurance companies. They were always scum. Shamelessly preying on sick people and doing everything they could to avoid paying when they could get away with it. I don't think Obamacare was really meant to screw them. I think they thought it would go over much more smoothly.

I'm glad there were enough people who didn't buy into it to make them wish they hadn't tried to force people who didn't want to be forced. Whether they expected there to be that many of them or not they knew we existed. And they didn't care if we didn't like it. They also did not care what kind of a precedent they were setting with a major law that forces (attempts to force) people to buy something they don't want and tries to obscure the mechanism of compulsion and punishment as a tax. How #ing low can they go? Well, that's just about the bottom but they've already been there. And they'll go there again. The clock is ticking and it's already been done. Now they know they can get away with it and they know the Supreme Court won't stop them.

a reply to: BrianFlanders

It hasn't hurt insurance companies bottom lines. In fact, they're doing better than ever with obamacare. They're opting out of exchanges because that's where the real sick people are.

originally posted by: Dfairlite
a reply to: BrianFlanders

It hasn't hurt insurance companies bottom lines. In fact, they're doing better than ever with obamacare. They're opting out of exchanges because that's where the real sick people are.

Well, whatever. I don't know if it hurts them or not but like I said, if it does, they deserve it. Time will tell. The insurance industry is the reason medical care costs a fortune in the first place. For as long as most people have had insurance they didn't really care how much it really costs to spend a week in the hospital or go to the doctor or whatever. As long as the insurance company was taking other people's money and paying for it, they didn't really care if a week in the hospital cost a quarter of a million dollars.

That simple fact made it unnecessary for medical providers to reduce their prices. As long as they helped the insurance mafia make the numbers work for everybody, everybody was happy and healthcare still costed as much as it ever did. They simply controlled things by excluding the highest risk people so they couldn't piss in the pool.

They thought they'd get some free profit by grabbing people who didn't even want their smarmy services. They knew many of these people were perfect for their brand of exploitation because the most they ever do is go to the doctor a couple times a year maybe for a sore throat or something. Pure profit. Well, maybe not pure profit. I'm sure they would put some of it to work paying bills for sick people. Of course most of their sick clients bought into the game when it was voluntary so it probably never even occurred to them their future medical bills would be getting paid for by money extorted from people who didn't give it to the pool by their own choice.

When they bought into it, it was still a predatory game but at least (they thought) everyone else was voluntarily agreeing to help pay for everyone else. That's about the only way you can put the insurance mafia in a slightly positive light. It was still a protection racket but at least you didn't have the mob beating on your door every month for you to pay them unless you chose to buy into it.

But then the bottom line is that it was always that golden opportunity where they knew they had you because it was something everyone would eventually need.

Now I ask you. Why doesn't a run of the mill Toyota cost a million dollars to buy? Is it because Toyota forced everyone to buy one? No. It's because of competition and choice. If a Toyota costs more than it's worth people will stop buying them and someone will sell a better car cheaper. Why doesn't this happen with doctors? Because of insurance. The doctor doesn't need your money badly enough to lower his prices for you when he has all that insurance loot.

Before Obamacare, if you went to see a doctor without insurance or government assistance of some kind and you didn't have the money to pay them what everyone else was paying them, they'd typically tell you to get lost. This literally created the problem that people like Obama exploited in order to make people desperate enough to buy any kind of BS he had to sell them. And (I would argue) it was a situation they created on purpose. Because they knew this was the Achilles heel of freedom. The one place where they know they have you by the balls no matter who you are is medical care.

My mother has dwarfism and an unknown stomach issue that causes her to vomit up ever 3rd meal. I have to be at home most of the time to take care of her. I can only work part time. Before obamacare I could not afford health care, after obamacare I now have a great doctor. And my mothers health cost have gone way down. I'm not saying this as an emotional plea but to show ATS that not all poor and middle class have been hit with higher costs. My hope is that trumpcare will be better or at least as good as what I have now through the ACA. Just please please don't raise my mothers health costs.

What are your actual costs per month?

Next question: why does it cost money? I refuse to call it "that much", as seems to me to be in the average bracket of income/insurance.

Why? Because the insurances want or need that amount.
Why do they want that amount?
Whom do these insurances belong to?
Who controls their pricing sheets?

originally posted by: Dfairlite
a reply to: BrianFlanders

It hasn't hurt insurance companies bottom lines. In fact, they're doing better than ever with obamacare. They're opting out of exchanges because that's where the real sick people are.

With the exception of Anthem Blue Cross of North Carolina, all health insurance companies that sold ObamaCare policies in this country, lost money on those ObamaCare customers.

The companies that make the most money are those who Administer, Bill, and Process Claims for Medicaid for the U.S. Government. Centene corporation hit the jackpot, because that's their core business. Aetna and United Healthcare did both ObamaCare sales, and Medicaid Administration for the Government. When they jettisoned most (Aetna) or all (United Healthcare) of their ObamaCare customers nationwide for 2016, they turned a profit. Aetna is only offers ObamaCare in 3 states this year. For 2018, they plan on abandoning those three, and sticking with Medicaid.

When you read, "Health Insurers don't like the AHCA", it's because the AHCA puts limits on Medicaid funding. Under ObamaCare, the funding was open-ended. A veritable Golden Goose for companies that administer the program for Uncle Sam.

a reply to: BrianFlanders

In Illinois, 40% of the doctors have stopped accepting patients who have ObamaCare health plans. The reimbursement rates are lower than what Group/Employer plans pay and they MUST (by law) treat a patient, even if his/her health insurance lapsed for non-payment in the past 30 days.

Patient lapses his policy on May 1st. Gets an operation on May 15th. Doctor and Hospital bills insurance company for the $30,000 in fees. Insurance doesn't pay, because policy no longer exists. Doctor and Hospital bills the patient. Patient gives Doctor/Hospital the middle-finger. Doctor says, "Screw it! No more ObamaCare patients!" Hospitals simply eat the charges, but more of them are starting to opt-out of ObamaCare. The 3 largest systems in Chicago did just that on 1.1.2017.

a reply to: carewemust

Obamacare is a joke. It was a money grab for insurance companies.

One thing I know Donald Trump understands is the massive pile of money that businesses sit under with health insurance fees and as someone that has negotiated contracts with employers it's the main thing keeping wages and full-time employment down.

Universal would cure a lot of that. Respect to you for examining the situation. Stars all over.