Reply to DC Health Exchange- all options are really expensive?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Low blow. Not scrounging for problems. I'm trying to understand the genuine impact of ACA. One of my biggest concerns is that subsidies still might not make this mandated insurance affordable for people on living on the edge, which is a function of living expenses, which the government cannot ascertain. Do you not get that?

Of course I see that there is some good here. But does it outweigh the bad? A fair question. If it does, I'd love to find ways to offset the bad.
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NP here and I agree. I finally got onto healthcare.gov on Friday and was able to shop plans, and ... yikes. And I know the cost of individual insurance well, as many people who have employer-subsidized coverage do not. For all intents and purposes, a bronze plan IS a catastrophic plan, no matter what they call it. Same deal with most of the silver plans. Even the gold plans have more cost-sharing than what people are used to. We are seriously asking people to put 10%+ of their take-home income into health care when most people are already feeling squeezed even without that expense? I am a lifelong Democrat and was always a huge supporter of the ACA but now that I see what is on offer, I am really disappointed and skeptical that this could possibly work. For my family, even $1000 of medical expenses above premiums in a year is a huge fucking deal, much less a $10k deductible, which would basically bankrupt us. We do not qualify for subsidies. Because we are basically healthy and don't utilize much care, paying premiums is essentially throwing money down a rat hole -- we're not getting anything out of it and we'll never see it again. We tolerate this for our $200/mo life insurance bill, our $150/mo car insurance bill, and our $100/mo homeowners insurance bill, but another $800-1000/mo (cost of bronze to silver plans for my family) is just TOO MUCH to throw away on the off chance that one of us might get cancer or hit by a car, with finances being so tight. We'll do it because we're risk averse that way, but I resent every single penny of it. I agree with David Goldhill that medical insurance should be for catastrophic purposes only and that there should be a functional market for other types of health care and people should budget for routine health expenses. I wouldn't mind paying $100-200/mo into a catastrophic policy and saving the rest of the money in an HSA to pay out of pocket for yearly physicals and an occasional ear infection or what have you. Prices would come down if there was real competition among providers. And yes, doctors wouldn't make as much money. But everyone else would have a much better quality of life. [/quote]

Hit the nail on the head. Costs are outrageous.
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You are paying 200 a month to be insured against death.  800 a month is more than fair for a whole family given the insurance industry's assessment of your risk.  [/quote]

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