Married couples get a subsidy up to $96k (and higher in some localities) there's something very wrong with that set of figures.
ICM80: You're comparing individual insurances with finite maximums to a pooled insurance with basically infinite maximums.
Health insurance can't operate with unshared pools. Even a healthy person can get hit by a bus tomorrow and need $5m of care to be well again. No policy would function for 99% of people because health risks are super variable. Even with my super healthy life I've got there's many $0 years but others into 6 digits.
I'm stealing this post from another forum but I have confirmed the numbers are accurate:
Went to WA site used their calculator.
A married couple with combined income $62,500
Monthly cost for silver plan $1253 a month, $15,036 a year
Subsidy $0
Total cost $15,036 a year
A married couple with combined income $59,000
Monthly cost for silver plan $1253 a mont, $15,036
Subsidy $786 a month, $9,432 a year
Total cost $5604 a year, $467 a month
So if the couple earns $3,500 more a year their health insurance costs an extra $9,432 a year.
This is equivalent to a marginal tax rate of 269%
The first couple is not subsidizing other peoples healthcare...
Its insane that person making more money will net less money due to this idiotic liberal reliance on arbitrary numbers.
EDIT:Both couples are 60 years old
Using that calculator, a 60-year-old couple pays $1253/month with $62,041 combined income, and $491/month with $62,040 annual income. Either the calculator is mistaken, or that is one messed-up system.
I do think that in a universal healthcare system, pre-existing conditions aren't an issue; the system exists before the conditions, so they're not really pre- any more. I think it's a bit unfair to equate pre-existing conditions with risky behaviour - in some cases those conditions are lifelong, so the risky behaviour is what, being born? I agree with Billy's earlier statement - if you want to start down this road, do it properly, cut out the middleman insurance companies, and have a proper universal system. It'll probably be cheaper. Yes, it's pretty much the healthy subsidising the sick. I'm okay with that (and with using that word!), but then I'm from a slightly more solidarity-focused culture, I guess.
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Ah, yea checking into it that is the cutoff - you're assuming zero kids though, old "up to nearly $100k" figures assuming a family of 4-5 (as the national average is).
That pretty much is the perfect storm of age and the rest though, the dropoff at the end of the subsidy range isn't nearly as drastic for single policy holders, families or people in different age brackets. (And oddly, smokers don't have as much of one in the Kaiser calculator that I'm using)
Also note that's an ESTIMATOR however - and since there's no listing on when it was updated, the original formula from Oct 2013 isn't the same as today's - it's been tweaked. But it should be a smoother transition.
"Effective tax rates" is laughable though, any type of non-flat taxation or subsidy or whatever is going to have a ridiculously high "effective rate" in it's first couple dollars into a new bracket - that disappears quickly however. Additionally, there's no evidence there that the one is subsidizing the other.
Who do you think is paying for the tax break one couple receives? Heathcare is being subsized by using tax dollars...scratch that, "heath insurance" is being subsidized. You can continue to propogate this myth of "health insurance" all you want, its a lie.
I've largely stayed out of health insurance debates in the past but the more I learn about the ACA the more I resent it and the people who shill for it. It's trash. This is coming from someone who is not opposed to it because of politics. Its a logistical nightmare, it outright voilates peoples rights and it subsidizes these so called insurance providers profits long before the person gets or pays for care. I do not expect a perfect solution but I expect something better thought out than this poltical tool.
It is a logistical nightmare - and as terrible as it is now - it's better than it was before in a huge number of ways because it at least puts a sane maximum you can expect to pay for health insurance. And many of the logistics nightmares that existed before have been rectified especially for care providers - you know there used to be provider reimbursements that would take over TWO YEARS of fighting to get paid for services rendered by the insurance companies? ACA now makes it so that the longest the insurance companies can delay payment is 6 months, if they have not found grounds to refuse it that meet the Federal standard in 6 months, they are required to pay out at that point and cannot kite it out further - with 6 weeks of additional time for the check to be received by the provider.
It's almost surreal and hard to really understand until you've been in the shoes I was in before - literally living the "indestructible" 20-30something lifestyle where I paid a ton in insurance I never really used (although the cost was reasonable - $100/mo or so after my employer covered their portion about $250/mo including their portion roughly) and then suddenly when I actually have my life turn south and I leave my career because of the inability to work there with my new health - I'm asked for EIGHT TIMES THE COST for worse coverage.
And I've actually found out recently, it wasn't because my "PEC" finally got declared, it's been on record this entire time - just it finally got added to their coding as something confirmed beyond a clinical diagnosis as being a real genetic disorder. (Previous to 2006 it wasn't diagnosed fully as an absolute of its own - just a host of associated stuff with no linking factor found - now they can test for it in a DNA screen) Timing was just coincidental - I didn't notice it because my insurance was so slightly impacted during my part of being insured in a pool - until I left the pool. [And note, our pool wasn't that big - 400 employees split across three plans for the entire state of MD since we'd just started moving into the area then (and some of those employees were temporaries commuting from PA without the MD insurance packages technically - but only about 2 dozen in that category - and some were kids that didn't take coverage...) - you'd think my insurance rate going to 8x the amount solo would make an impact on a pool of probably less than 50 people on my specific insurance package, ya know?
But yes, it's a band-aid on top of a really screwed up system - and in being a band-aid on top of something so screwed up, it doesn't do that much - and does get in the way in some regards.
I'm not shilling for it, I don't like it - but it's not dire end of the world type stuff. In fact, most of the worst things people keep mentioning about it - are existing things. (Or annoyances that help deal with a problem directly - i.e. subsidy discussion - subsidizing others is annoying, but in any system it's going to be there unless you uncap costs, and uncapped costs were part of why bankruptcies were largely related to medical bills (which then get subsidized in a much similar fashion when they occur - so it's really just a matter of being proactive and not adding extra layers of paying debt collectors and such versus reactive and costing a bit more - half-assed but slightly better))
ICM80: You're comparing individual insurances with finite maximums to a pooled insurance with basically infinite maximums.
Health insurance can't operate with unshared pools. Even a healthy person can get hit by a bus tomorrow and need $5m of care to be well again. No policy would function for 99% of people because health risks are super variable. Even with my super healthy life I've got there's many $0 years but others into 6 digits.
Using that calculator, a 60-year-old couple pays $1253/month with $62,041 combined income, and $491/month with $62,040 annual income. Either the calculator is mistaken, or that is one messed-up system.
I do think that in a universal healthcare system, pre-existing conditions aren't an issue; the system exists before the conditions, so they're not really pre- any more. I think it's a bit unfair to equate pre-existing conditions with risky behaviour - in some cases those conditions are lifelong, so the risky behaviour is what, being born? I agree with Billy's earlier statement - if you want to start down this road, do it properly, cut out the middleman insurance companies, and have a proper universal system. It'll probably be cheaper. Yes, it's pretty much the healthy subsidising the sick. I'm okay with that (and with using that word!), but then I'm from a slightly more solidarity-focused culture, I guess.
calling liberals loons=not okay
The standard to which the forum moderators apply the rules here.
That pretty much is the perfect storm of age and the rest though, the dropoff at the end of the subsidy range isn't nearly as drastic for single policy holders, families or people in different age brackets. (And oddly, smokers don't have as much of one in the Kaiser calculator that I'm using)
Also note that's an ESTIMATOR however - and since there's no listing on when it was updated, the original formula from Oct 2013 isn't the same as today's - it's been tweaked. But it should be a smoother transition.
"Effective tax rates" is laughable though, any type of non-flat taxation or subsidy or whatever is going to have a ridiculously high "effective rate" in it's first couple dollars into a new bracket - that disappears quickly however. Additionally, there's no evidence there that the one is subsidizing the other.
I've largely stayed out of health insurance debates in the past but the more I learn about the ACA the more I resent it and the people who shill for it. It's trash. This is coming from someone who is not opposed to it because of politics. Its a logistical nightmare, it outright voilates peoples rights and it subsidizes these so called insurance providers profits long before the person gets or pays for care. I do not expect a perfect solution but I expect something better thought out than this poltical tool.
calling liberals loons=not okay
The standard to which the forum moderators apply the rules here.
It's almost surreal and hard to really understand until you've been in the shoes I was in before - literally living the "indestructible" 20-30something lifestyle where I paid a ton in insurance I never really used (although the cost was reasonable - $100/mo or so after my employer covered their portion about $250/mo including their portion roughly) and then suddenly when I actually have my life turn south and I leave my career because of the inability to work there with my new health - I'm asked for EIGHT TIMES THE COST for worse coverage.
And I've actually found out recently, it wasn't because my "PEC" finally got declared, it's been on record this entire time - just it finally got added to their coding as something confirmed beyond a clinical diagnosis as being a real genetic disorder. (Previous to 2006 it wasn't diagnosed fully as an absolute of its own - just a host of associated stuff with no linking factor found - now they can test for it in a DNA screen) Timing was just coincidental - I didn't notice it because my insurance was so slightly impacted during my part of being insured in a pool - until I left the pool. [And note, our pool wasn't that big - 400 employees split across three plans for the entire state of MD since we'd just started moving into the area then (and some of those employees were temporaries commuting from PA without the MD insurance packages technically - but only about 2 dozen in that category - and some were kids that didn't take coverage...) - you'd think my insurance rate going to 8x the amount solo would make an impact on a pool of probably less than 50 people on my specific insurance package, ya know?
But yes, it's a band-aid on top of a really screwed up system - and in being a band-aid on top of something so screwed up, it doesn't do that much - and does get in the way in some regards.
I'm not shilling for it, I don't like it - but it's not dire end of the world type stuff. In fact, most of the worst things people keep mentioning about it - are existing things. (Or annoyances that help deal with a problem directly - i.e. subsidy discussion - subsidizing others is annoying, but in any system it's going to be there unless you uncap costs, and uncapped costs were part of why bankruptcies were largely related to medical bills (which then get subsidized in a much similar fashion when they occur - so it's really just a matter of being proactive and not adding extra layers of paying debt collectors and such versus reactive and costing a bit more - half-assed but slightly better))