A Sea Of Red

As I am sitting here about to enroll into a new insurance plan mandated by Obama. I am wondering if any of you have felt the effects of the ACA. I work for a very small company who does not offer health insurance so I have to go out into the free market and buy my insurance.

Here is how it has effected me. The year before the ACA rolled out.. for a family of 3 with a 2500 deductible I was paying 529/month. Year 2 (while there was a 1 yr extension for Anthem to comply with the ACA mandate) my premium was raised to 782/month with a family of 4 (expires Dec of 2014). I am currently shopping and while my premium might only rise to 850/month my deductible is going to a ridiculous $12,500. Excuse my French but WTFriday!!! What has everyone else's experience been from this great new program.

TERRIBLE. Don't get me started.

bballfan84 wrote:As I am sitting here about to enroll into a new insurance plan mandated by Obama. I am wondering if any of you have felt the effects of the ACA. I work for a very small company who does not offer health insurance so I have to go out into the free market and buy my insurance.

Here is how it has effected me. The year before the ACA rolled out.. for a family of 3 with a 2500 deductible I was paying 529/month. Year 2 (while there was a 1 yr extension for Anthem to comply with the ACA mandate) my premium was raised to 782/month with a family of 4 (expires Dec of 2014). I am currently shopping and while my premium might only rise to 850/month my deductible is going to a ridiculous $12,500. Excuse my French but WTFriday!!! What has everyone else's experience been from this great new program.

I have insurance through work so it's not too bad. My wife has hers through her work as well. We each have separate policies. Hers almost doubled with deductibles raised. Mine went to 2 tiers. I can go with mostly my same benefits, 35% higher deductible (option to get vision and dental as a rider whereas it was included before) at a 75% increase in monthlies and a $500 increase in deductible. OR I can pay 33% more than last year go with an HSA that the Company contributes to. The deductible is higher but almost covered by the company match. Other services (LTC, LTD etc) are no longer even being offered

yeah ours is continuing to get more and more expensive. we finally took advantage of being able to deduct it before taxes so i save about 200 bucks a month so there is that.

with a family of 5 and with our companies contribution i'm still paying about 7000 a year out of pocket for health insurance. its kind of stupid.

Fellow self-employed guy with a family of five who has seen our premiums doubled in the past 3 years. What makes it all the more painful is I write the checks to Lynchburg of all the places in the US.

RubberMallet wrote:yeah ours is continuing to get more and more expensive. we finally took advantage of being able to deduct it before taxes so i save about 200 bucks a month so there is that.

with a family of 5 and with our companies contribution i'm still paying about 7000 a year out of pocket for health insurance. its kind of stupid.

Eastman Kodak in Kingsport has a 6k deductible. I was told one family of 4 is paying $650/month.
I sorta tuned out at a 6k deductible before anything else kicks in

My premiums, deductibles, and out-of-pocket has all gone up. But not to worry, they're going to be covering gender-reassignment surgery next year, so there's that.

Everything has gone up.

We get free birth control though, even though the copay on every other medication has doubled.

Woo hoo!

Yacht Rock wrote:Everything has gone up.

We get free birth control though, even though the copay on every other medication has doubled.

Woo hoo!

I get free birth control through work. Not exactly a perk!
But it is better than what the other 'free' ones are!

My premiums went up going from state to federal...otherwise, everything remained the same for me. Just wish there was a way we could opt-out of having to have free birth control...my family doesn't need it

ATrain wrote:My premiums went up going from state to federal...otherwise, everything remained the same for me. Just wish there was a way we could opt-out of having to have free birth control...my family doesn't need it

Really? How come?

Purple Haize wrote:

Yacht Rock wrote:Everything has gone up.

We get free birth control though, even though the copay on every other medication has doubled.

Woo hoo!

I get free birth control through work. Not exactly a perk!
But it is better than what the other 'free' ones are!

I should have used my sarcasm font.

The whole "free birth control" mandate irks me.

Again, it's the government applying blanket policies to everyone instead of focusing on those who need help.

I won't be surprised if there is a lawsuit from a dude eventually tying the birth control mandate to parental rights and child support or something. :-/

Yacht Rock wrote:

Purple Haize wrote:

Yacht Rock wrote:Everything has gone up.

We get free birth control though, even though the copay on every other medication has doubled.

Woo hoo!

I get free birth control through work. Not exactly a perk!
But it is better than what the other 'free' ones are!

I should have used my sarcasm font.

The whole "free birth control" mandate irks me.

Again, it's the government applying blanket policies to everyone instead of focusing on those who need help.

I was being sarcastic too. Considering I sell it.....

just wrapped up 6 months of contract negotiations

we ended up agreeing to roughly the same coverage but the co-pays all went up and our contribution did as well

premiums increased 8% last year alone.

amazingly our COLA bump didn't.

"if you like your insurance, you can keep your insurance"

yeah... assuming you don't mind thousands more out of pocket

so technically the CIC didn't lie

"it depends on what your definition of the word is, is"

we. are. screwed.

At least with the new Executive Order....if you like your landscaper you can keep your landscaper

Purple Haize wrote:At least with the new Executive Order....if you like your landscaper you can keep your landscaper

hahahah that might be the quote of the year..thats awesome

I'm considering taking O up on the free gender reassignment. My recent mile times would put me in the top tier of all elite female runners in the country. My Olympic dream might not be dead after all!

I just got my quote for enrollment..wowzers..I gotta wait to share this till after Thanksgiving...fuming over it!!

we've got a big lib in the office whos and older guy always talking about how great it is.

we've also got a guy who wasn't making much who left to go to another job. more of a sideways move but there is more lateral movement opportunity at the other company.

he's always struggled to pay his bills has a family of 4. the perfect obamacare applicant basically. problem is that he has crones and hits his 5k out of pocket max every year.

lib guy told him to go find a plan that he'd be much happier with ACA than goign on Cobra.

he came back in to pay his first cobra bill and the guy was like WHY DIDNT YOU GO ACA I TOLD YOU IT WOULD BE BETTER. guy was like are you high? my deductible was TWICE my OOP with Cobra and the benefits were even less! i couldnt' afford that at all!

he was like, you must of put in the information wrong. it was a pretty funny exchange.

I have not heard one of my clients offices tell me it has made their lives easier. A couple clients like the concept, but then complain about the cost. Now Chuck Schumar is coming out against it. Basically, it's F'd up

he said its the insurance companies fault for not "offering better plans"

I thought these WERE the better plans since apparently the old ones were 'inferiror'

I selected a 60/40 plan strictly because it was the only way I could get an affordable deductible, which is $5,400. My only line of thinking really was that if something major happened, I could dig myself out of that kind of hole. Well, reality check, I've hit the deductible this month and I'm currently going to be making payments for, what seems like, the rest of my life.

I'm hoping against hope that something changes or somebody has the stones to repeal Obamacare but it's probably not going to happen.

My mom has cancer and has had multiple scan request get denied by the insurance company because they saw them as "unnecessary". Even though the doctor is the one directly ordering them stating that she needs scans asap. This has been over the course of the last 18 months.

Four years ago she was able to request a scan herself and get a scan done without question or issue. Obamacare has now financially handcuffed insurance companies, which has led them to decipher what is "medically necessary". That's just dumb.

Also, my wife was involved in a car accident - vehicle flipped 3 times - and was taken to the hospital in an ambulance. The doctor said he didn't want to do any x-rays or scans because he said she was "too young and didn't want to expose her to radiation". Bull. Standard procedure is to get x-rays of whatever is hurting - in this case her neck - but the doctor did not believe it was medically necessary considering the cost involved. Btw, this particular hospital was Lynchburg General.

Edit*: My wife and I found out she had a fracture in her neck 2 weeks after the wreck thanks to a chiropractor visit where he took the x-rays. So she went 2 weeks without a neck brace of any sort. Thankfully she is healed and better, but I am still furious about the situation.

All things considered, my insurance is through my company so I don't see it there so much as I have personally experienced this nonsense through the care my family has received (or lack there of). Brace yourself, this will become the norm.