Obamacare cost...

[The_Douger]

The maddening thing about these anecdotes is this was entirely foreseeable.

It's ok. The economy will improve now that everyone will have 2 jobs instead of one.

[Indy Coug]

[Katy Lied]

I would hope people would realize you can't purchase any useful health insurance for an amount as small as the penalty.

People will think exactly that. "I'll pay the penalty, and then when I get sick, I'll go sit in an emergency room for my treatment. The government has taken over health care so they will pay. If insurance companies can't refuse my business, for sure the government won't."

People will consider the penalty the price to pay to avoid being out of compliance. Get insured or pay the penalty. Thus, the penalty is their price for access to emergency rooms.

[ERCougar]

Yup...this is my plan. As cheap as my high-deductible plan is (about $3000/yr), it's still a lot higher than the penalty, at least for the first few years. I'm counting on Uncle Ted to keep me apprised of this.

[statman]

Yup...this is my plan. As cheap as my high-deductible plan is (about $3000/yr), it's still a lot higher than the penalty, at least for the first few years. I'm counting on Uncle Ted to keep me apprised of this.

The problem is you can't count on the penalty if your state won't have an exchange set up - and many will not.

The scariest thing about Indy's pie chart above is the 52% that think it's all being implemented as planned. The "don't knows" are the only rational answer up there, because no one actually knows...

[VirginiaCougar]

Yup...this is my plan. As cheap as my high-deductible plan is (about $3000/yr), it's still a lot higher than the penalty, at least for the first few years. I'm counting on Uncle Ted to keep me apprised of this.

There are two issues with heathcare in the US - accessibility and cost. Quite honestly the US does both quite poorly, particularly relative to comparable nations. We spend about double the OECD average with little to no added value by most measures.

Obamacare does address accessibility but it doesn't really address cost. It is a seriously flawed bill, but it does offer opportunities for access that didn't exist before. It was a real mistake to put the penalty so low - it just begs for the free-rider which is exactly what you and a few others describe. To free ride the system until the unexpected happens, which has been a problem in the past, and will be with the loophole you mention. That exacerbates the cost issues.

It isn't the only cause - the increases in Healthcare/Insurance costs of the last few years are all within the normal patterns of the last couple of decades. Near 10% increases annually. Its been happening for a long time. Most of it has absolutely nothing to do with Obamacare, although they are selling it that way. (Now there are some things, but they aren't the primary drivers)

The real problem is that if you address access without addressing the fundamentals of why health care costs so much more than it should in the US, you just make it that much more expensive. It is unforunate that the GOP decided not to participate last time around (and then ironically say it was "shoved down America's throat"). We could have had a better bill. Not a great bill, because that can only happen if we are honest and realize that healthcare is inheretly inelastic and our primarily market based system cannot solve that inelasticity - in fact it can only make it worse. Health care costs are bankrupting America (literally if you look at the role of medical expenses in personal bankruptcies) and make it nearly impossible for US industry to compete.

[Jeff Lebowski]

You aren't going to like this answer, but the CBO's analysis doesn't really pertain to your company either. They are focused on employers who are large enough that they are required to provide insurance to employees under the law. Businesses with 25 employees are generally exempt.

The more employees a company has, the more immune it will be from changes in rate hikes. Smaller companies will see more dramatic changes- although that would also be true without Obamacare.

I work for a large company and my rates went way up this year. Biggest single year increase I have ever seen.

[VirginiaCougar]

I work for a large company and my rates went way up this year. Biggest single year increase I have ever seen.

Many companies are using the perception of "Obamacare" to transfer larger portions of annual increases to employees - to get that liability off their books and have employees carry a greater percentage of the costs.

[statman]

There are two issues with heathcare in the US - accessibility and cost. Quite honestly the US does both quite poorly, particularly relative to comparable nations. We spend about double the OECD average with little to no added value by most measures.

Obamacare does address accessibility but it doesn't really address cost. It is a seriously flawed bill, but it does offer opportunities for access that didn't exist before. It was a real mistake to put the penalty so low - it just begs for the free-rider which is exactly what you and a few others describe. To free ride the system until the unexpected happens, which has been a problem in the past, and will be with the loophole you mention. That exacerbates the cost issues.

It isn't the only cause - the increases in Healthcare/Insurance costs of the last few years are all within the normal patterns of the last couple of decades. Near 10% increases annually. Its been happening for a long time. Most of it has absolutely nothing to do with Obamacare, although they are selling it that way. (Now there are some things, but they aren't the primary drivers)

The real problem is that if you address access without addressing the fundamentals of why health care costs so much more than it should in the US, you just make it that much more expensive. It is unforunate that the GOP decided not to participate last time around (and then ironically say it was "shoved down America's throat"). We could have had a better bill. Not a great bill, because that can only happen if we are honest and realize that healthcare is inheretly inelastic and our primarily market based system cannot solve that inelasticity - in fact it can only make it worse. Health care costs are bankrupting America (literally if you look at the role of medical expenses in personal bankruptcies) and make it nearly impossible for US industry to compete.

A system this poorly designed has only one purpose - failure. And when it fails, a single-payer system will be quickly proposed, passed and implemented.

But Obamacare won't have been a total failure. It will have put a several thousand of Democratic-donor policy wonk bureaucrats in cushy $120K jobs for a decade. Nothin bad about that...

[VirginiaCougar]

A system this poorly designed has only one purpose - failure. And when it fails, a single-payer system will be quickly proposed, passed and implemented.

But Obamacare won't have been a total failure. It will have put a several thousand of Democratic-donor policy wonk bureaucrats in cushy $120K jobs for a decade. Nothin bad about that...

I tend not to buy the conspiracy theory nonsense, because that is what it usually is - nonsense.

Obama really wanted a big compromise on a key issue to define his presidency from the beginning. He chose healthcare because of its significance and how messed up it is. He tried to get compromise by using a Republican idea - one fully endorsed by a previous generation of conservatives (who ironically called their very own ideas "socialism" this time around.) They decided to not even play ball. I've got friends in DC Senate offices. Their GOP senators wanted to negotiate the bill but were told by leadership they couldn't even touch it.

As a result, the bill got pulled in various directions on the left and we got a very flawed bill. As I said, it would have been anyway as it really doesn't address costs. But its flawed for those reasons, not some grand evil master plan. That is bunk, one that really ignores the serious problems in our health care system. But hey, it does sell advertising on conservative talk radio programs!

[snowcat]

obamacare-chart.jpg

obamacare-chart1.jpg

[venkman]

I work for a large company and my rates went way up this year. Biggest single year increase I have ever seen.

Same here.

[Coach McGuirk]

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[ATTACH=CONFIG]2094[/ATTACH]

That looks cheap and totally streamlined.

[statman]

I tend not to buy the conspiracy theory nonsense, because that is what it usually is - nonsense.

Obama really wanted a big compromise on a key issue to define his presidency from the beginning. He chose healthcare because of its significance and how messed up it is. He tried to get compromise by using a Republican idea - one fully endorsed by a previous generation of conservatives (who ironically called their very own ideas "socialism" this time around.) They decided to not even play ball. I've got friends in DC Senate offices. Their GOP senators wanted to negotiate the bill but were told by leadership they couldn't even touch it.

As a result, the bill got pulled in various directions on the left and we got a very flawed bill. As I said, it would have been anyway as it really doesn't address costs. But its flawed for those reasons, not some grand evil master plan. That is bunk, one that really ignores the serious problems in our health care system. But hey, it does sell advertising on conservative talk radio programs!

In 10 years we will have a universal coverage plan run by the Feds. It's the only way that they're going to fix the problems with the 22,000 pages of rules and regs (and growing by the day) of Obamacare. Half the states won't have exchanges up and running. More and more businesses - small, medium and large - are throwing their employees off their existing health plans because of the total uncertainty of what their liabilities are going to be once O-care comes online. And for businesses, like individuals, the penalties of choosing "no" for health coverage is smaller than the costs of saying "yes." IT is a complete and total nightmare with no redeeming qualities - we won't have better care, we won't have cheaper care, we won't have more guaranteed access to care, and ultimately we will probably end up having fewer insured individuals. Lose, lose, lose & lose.

[statman]

I work for a large company and my rates went way up this year. Biggest single year increase I have ever seen.

My wife insures us - and our high deductible plan tripled in cost on January 1. It went from cheap to just about what it would cost to insure our family with the same plan by calling an insurance agent - except for the fact that if we did that we'd have to drop our son from our policy because of his diabetes. With that in mind, we're still way better off in the big group plan.