What is the actual cost of Obamacare?

I'm working with the data set we all saw pop up online at a .gov site last week. I'm trying to get the entire thing into a table similar to this one for expandable headings to make drilling down into the data an easy process.

This is just one county, from one state. It's the rates for the major city/population center in Southern Missouri. Springfield is the city for Greene County, for general reference.



It's somewhat of a large image for width, just as a warning on that.

I know many are really wanting to see real numbers though. Hard numbers. Any numbers. Well, there they are. At least for this one spot in the nation.

If those are monthly charges then many many people are poop outta luck. They will have enough cash at the end of the month do eat some dog food and kitty litter

Single parent family: who has 800 dollars a month extra income?

reply to post by dashen


Yes, those are monthly premium rates. Now, I wouldn't be fair in this if I didn't point out, those are rates before any tax credits or subsidizing by the US Government.

There is a challenge at the moment though, as to whether the Government legally CAN extend credits or subsidy to state residents who are not among the states running their own exchange. The ACA, apparently, says they can't.

Most uninsured Americans live in states that won’t run their own Obamacare exchanges

It'll be interesting to see. I agree, too. Those rates as legally mandated amounts I MUST pay, without fail, every month for the indefinite future? Well.. I can choose health coverage or I can pay my mortgage. I can't do both. Shelter means more....my apologies to the Government. I can't pay what I don't have. I think many are finding that same hard reality.

There is hardly a variance in cost between signing up for ACA or just finding your own individual coverage, even through your employer. Right now I have a PPO through United Healthcare with me and my daughter and it's roughly 500.00 a month split between 2 checks

I dont have an extra $250 a month so screw em.
I also smoke a cigarette after work (around a pack/month) and they want to make people who smoke pay more. No thanks.

reply to post by sulaw


I pay 300 per mo. now and the lowest I can get under the ACA is 658 per mo. and I do not qualify for subsidies. If I get dropped from my plan I will definitely be screwed and not able to afford health insurance.

I would basically have to quit my job or find a lower paying one just so I could qualify for subsidies.

BS deal.

reply to post by Wrabbit2000


Can someone please explain to me how this was passed in Congress? Did lawmakers refuse to read all the fine print or what, or did they just look for the "Happy Rainbows & puppy dogs" portion of the bill??? It blows my mind that Obama stands behind this and believes this is a legitimate good thing that's affordable....

jhn7537
reply to post by Wrabbit2000

 

Can someone please explain to me how this was passed in Congress? Did lawmakers refuse to read all the fine print or what, or did they just look for the "Happy Rainbows & puppy dogs" portion of the bill??? It blows my mind that Obama stands behind this and believes this is a legitimate good thing that's affordable....

It was passed without them reading it.

It was over 2000 pages long, and they were given a VERY short time period in which to review what it contained. It became a deal of "We have to pass it to read it," (as Nancy Pelosi so aptly put it).

So it was passed, without being reviewed, with no debate on the contents of it, and without any hope for us that are already skirting the line of being on the streets, trying to survive.

What is the actual cost of Obamacare?

The White House.

This snowball hasn't even started to roll.

It was never about health, but the tax dollars of 300 million Americans.

reply to post by Wrabbit2000


Minimum wage is $7.25 per hour. A 40 hr week is $290 and 52 weeks is a $15,080 year. A month is therefore $12,57.

...In 2008, about 47 percent of people had incomes of less than 25,000 dollars. Twenty-eight percent of people had incomes of between 25,000 and 50,000 dollars. Thirteen percent of people had incomes of 50,000 to 75,000 dollars. About five percent had incomes between 75,000 and 100,000 dollars, while just six percent had incomes that were more than 100,000 dollars. However, many households have more than one income.... www.usdta.org...

This of course is BEFORE the economy TANKED. Since then we have a 22% rising to a 23% actual Unemployment Rate

If you include the unemployed, you are looking at over half of Americans have incomes of less than 25,000 dollars.

Brookings Institute: The Uncomfortable Truth About American Wages

.... In 1970, 94 percent of prime-age men worked, but by 2010, that number was only 81 percent. The decline in employment has been accompanied by increases in incarceration rates, higher rates of enrollment in the Social Security Disability Insurance program and more Americans struggling to find work. Because those without jobs are excluded from conventional analyses of Americans’ earnings, the statistics we most commonly see — those that illustrate a trend of wage stagnation — present an overly optimistic picture of the middle class.

When we consider all working-age men, including those who are not working, the real earnings of the median male have actually declined by 19 percent since 1970. This means that the median man in 2010 earned as much as the median man did in 1964 — nearly a half century ago. Men with less education face an even bleaker picture; earnings for the median man with a high school diploma and no further schooling fell by 41 percent from 1970 to 2010....

Now onto the cost of living.
The average rent in the United States is $804 per month.

Basic Family Budget for National Average, United States
Two Parents, Three Children Budget
Monthly Housing $965
Monthly Food $776
Monthly Taxes $482
Monthly Healthcare $431
Monthly Childcare $1,353
Monthly Transportation $460
Monthly Other Necessities $418
Monthly Total $4,886
Annual Total $58,627

So half the Americans have a DOUBLE income of $50,000 or LESS. Guess what is the first expense to be jetsoned?

Note that healthcare of $431 barely fits the bronze category (lowest is copay PPO exchange @ $346)

Coventry Bronze Deductible Only PPO Exchange
Policyholders are generally responsible for 100% of costs until the deductible amount is met. After the deductible has been met the policyholder is responsible for the coinsurance / copay until the out of pocket maximum is reached at which point the insurance company assumes 100% of all costs.

reply to post by jhn7537

Can someone please explain to me how this was passed in Congress? Did lawmakers refuse to read all the fine print or what,

They did not bother to read it.

Nancy Pelosi said, "But we have to pass the [health care ] bill so that you can find out what is in it."

An explanation of WHY Congress never bothers to read bills. Why Congress doesn't bother to listen to citizens. Why Congress passed a bill making protesting ILLEGAL.

America’s Ruling Class

...When this majority discovered that virtually no one in a position of power in either party or with a national voice would take their objections seriously, that decisions about their money were being made in bipartisan backroom deals with interested parties, and that the laws on these matters were being voted by people who had not read them, the term “political class” came into use. Then, after those in power changed their plans from buying toxic assets to buying up equity in banks and major industries but refused to explain why, when they reasserted their right to decide ad hoc on these and so many other matters, supposing them to be beyond the general public’s understanding, the American people started referring to those in and around government as the “ruling class.” And in fact Republican and Democratic office holders and their retinues show a similar presumption to dominate and fewer differences in tastes, habits, opinions, and sources of income among one another than between both and the rest of the country. They think, look, and act as a class....

Nowadays, the members of our ruling class admit that they do not read the laws. They don’t have to. Because modern laws are primarily grants of discretion, all anybody has to know about them is whom they empower.

By making economic rules dependent on discretion, our bipartisan ruling class teaches that prosperity is to be bought with the coin of political support. Thus in the 1990s and 2000s, as Democrats and Republicans forced banks to make loans for houses to people and at rates they would not otherwise have considered, builders and investors had every reason to make as much money as they could from the ensuing inflation of housing prices. When the bubble burst, only those connected with the ruling class at the bottom and at the top were bailed out. Similarly, by taxing the use of carbon fuels and subsidizing “alternative energy,” our ruling class created arguably the world’s biggest opportunity for making money out of things that few if any would buy absent its intervention. The ethanol industry and its ensuing diversions of wealth exist exclusively because of subsidies.... What effect creating such privileges may have on “global warming” is debatable. But it surely increases the number of people dependent on the ruling class, and teaches Americans that satisfying that class is a surer way of making a living than producing goods and services that people want to buy.....

Wrabbit, it should be said that "tax credit" is NOT the same as deduction. The tax credit can, and will, be taken away very soon as there is no reason to keep them. Tax deductions are a different matter. So while people think they are getting a deal because the gubment is crediting them a few bucks, it cannot be counted on. The populace is beyond stupid, and this is another case where folks have no idea what anything means, as they think the terms "tax credit" and "tax deduction" hold the same weight. The gubment specifically, with great thought and effort, decided to make them credits so they can be removed shortly.

I suggest you work the graphs WITHOUT the "credit" because they are a gift, not a right.

reply to post by Wrabbit2000

Yes, those are monthly premium rates. Now, I wouldn't be fair in this if I didn't point out, those are rates before any tax credits or subsidizing by the US Government.

So how many people will actually be able to deal with the red tape? Forget getting any help from the bureaucrats. After 4 decades I have found them not only unhelpful but actively tossing obstacles in your way - Especially if you haven't donated generously to THEIR party.

All you have to do is look at the Treasury Inspector General Report. The Report revealed that the IRS had singled out groups with conservative-sounding terms such as “Patriot” and “Tea Party” in their titles when applying for tax-exempt status.

The Inspector General determined that “Early in Calendar Year 2010, the IRS began using inappropriate criteria to identify organizations applying for tax-exempt status (e.g., lists of past and future donors).” The report stated that the illegal IRS reviews continued for more than 18 months and “delayed processing of targeted groups’ applications” to prevent them from influencing the 2012 presidential election.

So it would appear that they want us all to quit our jobs, earn money in an underground, unreported economy**, and apply for full subsidies.

(Don't forget to take all your money out of their banks first. I just got charged $6 to cash a check at Chase bank, cuz I didn't have an account with them. They're so close to belly up, I can smell it. I'm still wondering what the charge woulda been if the check was only for $6.00? Maybe it was a clue, but they were giving out free suckers.)

What part of the obvious am I missing here? Besides the fact that only the upper 1% will be able to afford this? And there won't be any doctors anyways, because they all seem to be quitting out of hatred for the new system. You'll be paying out all this money and the 'doc' giving you your next physical will be Dougie Howser, or some barely trained 'medical asst' AKA perky 'n clueless 18 year old kid.

**May I suggest there will soon be a good market for tar and feathers?

sulaw
There is hardly a variance in cost between signing up for ACA or just finding your own individual coverage, even through your employer. Right now I have a PPO through United Healthcare with me and my daughter and it's roughly 500.00 a month split between 2 checks

That sounds hard enough for anyone to deal with.

Then there are those without two paychecks to draw on and that's going to be brutal. Of course we can hope we're just to poor to hit the radar, which many will be I suppose.

That still leaves all the really poor folks with zilch, as usual. I guess a big part of his plan is to have them die off what with his clampdown on charity healthcare providers. Geez I've got pictures in my mind of bodies in the streets, more foreclosures and the IRS just waiting to slam everyone who can't pay with penalties and payment plans. Sounds like slavery to me.

Michigan is part of the federal ACA exchange and has a VERY large pdf that list, by county and area, the costs of various plans and premiums....more or less by age and before subsidies.

The VERY large PDF is available here [like 72 pages or so]
www.michigan.gov...
under Company Premiums by Metal Level/Age
There is also a Michigan subsidy estimator, that is fairly accurate.

It should be noted on ANY chart you are seeing, the prices at 50, or 45 or whatever are for that year ONLY.
Premiums go up EVERY year until you reach Medicare age....and they can go up as much as 40$ per month.


Another tool, by state
www.valuepenguin.com...

Our insurance from the school system in Michigan is $260 a month Obama wants over $1200 with no rebate. If I signes up at work it would be about $300 but with blood work every 6 months and adjustments for the results. We'll stick with our insurance

reply to post by signalfire

May I suggest there will soon be a good market for tar and feathers?

I have been collecting feathers....

reply to post by Wrabbit2000


The price in cash is bad enough, but the value of the freedom we lose when the gov't ends up taking charge of all healthcare, (thus denying us choice), is priceless.