Is ObamaCare saving you money?

[Joan.of.the.Arch]

Like many others, I was dropped from my current insurance plan due to Obamacare. I'm still without insurance, but actively shopping. I'm being quoted anywhere from a 27% to 65% increase in premiums.

I'm interested in what kind of plan is ending, and what kind of plan you are comparing it to now. Are you talking about a workplace plan? (Guessing you are an employer.)

[justbreathe]

I have insurance through my employer. Our premiums are going up in 2014.

This, though our premiums do go up every year. I would have liked to have seen a single payer system.

[atomicrc11]

Overall premiums went up 6% for my insurance and it was split equally between the employer and employee. Most years premiums stay the same or go up. The plan I have is through a large university and is self-insured so there is much incentive to go to the on-campus medical center and stay in-network. There were two years in the last ten I can remember there being no increase but the rest it was between 5% and 10%. Better than the national average of healthcare costs but still annoying.

Also, my employer did not try to blame anything on the ACA. For the most part, employer plans already covered many of the things mandated by the ACA. For example, I'm a man and do not need maternity coverage but due to the group policy I was already paying for it and covered. The only thing I believe wasn't covered was pediatric dental care.

A lot of companies are using the ACA to justify large increases or cost shifting from company to employee.

[dawnwes]

Our insurance will remain the same for 2014, but we are worried about 2015.

[greenskeeper]

Our insurance will remain the same for 2014, but we are worried about 2015.

I agree this is the tip of the iceberg once the employer mandate kicks in

[wjcalderon]

I've been paying for private health insurance since I retired early in 2006. The premiums have gone up every year.
This past year, I have been paying $336 per month - my deductible is $10,000!!!
And to make it worse, anything related to my back (because of childhood scoliosis and surgery) is excluded.

I signed up for Obamacare and my premium is $159 per month with a $2500 deductible. And my back is covered!

All in all, a great deal for me.

[feh]

I've been paying for private health insurance since I retired early in 2006. The premiums have gone up every year.
This past year, I have been paying $336 per month - my deductible is $10,000!!!
And to make it worse, anything related to my back (because of childhood scoliosis and surgery) is excluded.

I signed up for Obamacare and my premium is $159 per month with a $2500 deductible. And my back is covered!

All in all, a great deal for me.

Yup, this is one of the great advantages of ACA in my opinion - people will not be forced to keep working just to have access to health insurance.

[disneysteve]

Yup, this is one of the great advantages of ACA in my opinion - people will not be forced to keep working just to have access to health insurance.

Not only that but people won't be stuck in dead end jobs. Many people stay in a job they hate because if they leave, they lose coverage. The next job may have a 90-day wait period to enroll or may not offer coverage at all. Having insurance that isn't tied to your employer eliminates that problem.

[Gailete]

I spent several hours on the website the other night. From what I could see in the preliminary stuff hubby would be eligible for a $2 month premium and a $500 deductible. So I started the application and after the 2 questions of how much did you make last year and do you expect to make the same last year, immediately they sent a determination that he was eligible for any help and the numbers I saw would take up 2/3 of our income!!!! And to top it off you have to appeal this instant determination in the regular slow motion Government boondoggle. Then I did find that if you need to you can remove the application and start over. Of course at this point either the website or the computer froze up and I couldn't get back into the site. So at this point I still have to try to figure this out from the top after removing my first application.

Some of the questions were incredibly weird. In the preliminary stuff, some of the things that supposedly gave one extra help or something along that line was a disabled person in the household that the person seeking insurance has to help which is our case. So in the application we get to the question about disability it says (paraphrasing) Does any one in the family have a disability? With two possible answers: Hubby or none of these people. Hmmmm

Obviously still many glitches that I saw. Probably/possibly not as many for a 'normal' family, but they haven't cleared them all out by a long shot. I can't possibly do this over the phone as talking on the phone for even a few minutes becomes painful. We have one navigator for our entire county of at least around a million people. I will try yet another day. All I know is he needs his corneas replaced, again, and because of his eyes and other health problems he can only get health insurance if they don't look at past medical history.

[jIM_Ohio]

I have insurance through my employer.

I have heard from small business owners it is really bad. My 60 year old aunt and uncle are required to carry pre-natal care, care for infants, and some other things which are IMPOSSIBLE for their situation, and the costs went up about $5000 per year (he owns his own business). He had no choice, as his wife works for same business, and they have paid for their own insurance for about 20-30 years.

I have seen similar conversations online on forums like this.
The younger you are, the better obamacare looks, however the ACA policy for a 25 year old and a 60 year old are the same, yet their needs are different. ACA treats them under the same policy.

[Joan.of.the.Arch]

The younger you are, the better obamacare looks, however the ACA policy for a 25 year old and a 60 year old are the same, yet their needs are different. ACA treats them under the same policy.

I've been hearing & reading people saying just the opposite: The older you are, the better Obamacare looks.

[disneysteve]

The younger you are, the better obamacare looks, however the ACA policy for a 25 year old and a 60 year old are the same, yet their needs are different. ACA treats them under the same policy.

I've been hearing & reading people saying just the opposite: The older you are, the better Obamacare looks.

The cousin I mentioned earlier is 59 and retired. He was very happy with the ACA policy as it was only a few dollars more than his previous coverage and had a lower deductible.

As for covering things a person doesn't need (maternity, birth control, etc.), that's true of any group policy so nothing new or different about that.

[bdoubleu]

Employer plan, employee + 1.
Premiums going DOWN from $216/paycheck to $197/paycheck. Deductible up from $1000 to $1250, but employer giving us $250 to use toward medical expenses in 2014.

So I'd consider this a great outcome. Our premiums had been increasing rapidly the past few years, so this is very welcome.

[Staceyy]

I'm saving about $150 a month.

[greenskeeper]

a lot of people are picking up the cost for owebamacare. You can't add uninsureable people to the rolls without the cost being picked up by another group.