How much is YOUR Ins. going up in January?

[A_Princess'_Daddy]

We're responsible for everything and it doesn't get counted as our out of pocket maximum or anything. We get no "credit" for it.

Parents of special needs kids are the ones who are going to suffer here. We don't have a limit on therapy sessions this year; I just think this is a terrible policy.

I'm sure you have looked into this, and given that you live in Texas it may be more challenging in that environment, but have you looked into a Title 19 Medicaid waiver for your child with special needs? We live in Iowa but have one for our son, despite having excellent private insurance and being well above the income threshold, as the means test doesn't apply in most cases (including ours). Medicaid functions as secondary insurance for him and it has been wonderful. If you have not looked into it, I'd suggest looking up "Title 19 Medicaid Waiver Texas" and see what you can learn. There are different ones (Ill/Handicapped, MR, Autism, Brain Injury, etc., and the criteria for each is different).

As for our insurance, we're seeing no increases or cuts in benefits. We pay around $300 per month for our family, with my employer paying the balance, and they have announced that there will be no increase next year in deductibles/copays or cuts to coverage.

 

[daughtersrus]

Um, my employer has been paying for my health insurance as a benefit of working there. Where are you going with this?

Most likely your employer is not paying it out of their own pocket. Instead, they have increased the cost of the service or product they supply to cover the cost of employee benefits. Anyone that purchases the service or product has paid part of the cost for your health insurance.

 

[mhfrau]

I think that in their zeal to provide a pathway to insurance for the un-insurables, they crafted a poorly-constructed law with massive, unintended consequences. They weren't kidding when they said that they had to pass the bill in order to find out what's in it. We are now finding out what's in it and how it negatively impacts the majority in order to provide for the few. It's not universal healthcare and it's not a private market anymore. It's like Frankenstein's monster, a little bit of both and not working well together!

That was the smartest, and most apt description that I've heard anyone say!

 

[mefordis]

Will ACA change anything for medicare recipients? Just worried about my folks.

Thanks.

 

[mefordis]

That was the smartest, and most apt description that I've heard anyone say!

Any chance it will be repealed? Or at least modified to something more sane? What does anyone think?

 

[aprilgail2]

Will ACA change anything for medicare recipients? Just worried about my folks.

Thanks.

I'm waiting on a call back from my moms insurance agent- I will let you know if they say there are any changed for medicare!

 

[pat fan]

Any chance it will be repealed? Or at least modified to something more sane? What does anyone think?

I think it will be modified to something worse unless.......but I can't go there, it's political. Sorry. Suffice to say, as the Ghost of Christmas Present says "If these shadows remain unaltered....."

 

[mhfrau]

Any chance it will be repealed? Or at least modified to something more sane? What does anyone think?

I think that it has so fundamentally changed the entire insurance industry that it will never go back to "the way it was".

I so wish we could dial back to the 70's and 80's when there were "cafeteria plans" and you could pick and choose what kind of coverage you wanted. It was great when you just picked your doctor, went, wrote a check for the visit and then the insurance company would reimburse you for their part. I know for my family it was always 80%. Sounds too simple, so it would never work in today's world I guess.

 

[Shagley]

Dr's are leaving, less are going into it, free clinics are going out so more people going to less Dr's means less care for all. Rationing of care due to age etc...means less care. Waiting for specialists longer means less care. Having a gvt official decide if I really need something done instead of MY Dr deciding means less care. Losing MY Dr because he's leaving and not being able to find one that takes new patients means NO care, or just ER care. Having a deductible that is so far out of reach that I just forego going to the Dr is worse/no care. I am glad you are not affected by this, but there are more of us who are adversely affected than there are that are not affected.

There aren't really less people wanting to become doctors. The medical schools are all filled to capacity. It is just that there are a limited number of residency positions in the US, so it creates a bottle neck when all the medical students graduate and try to get the limited number of residency positions. There are always about thousands more students than there are residency positions, and there is not enough money to create more residency programs. So, there is a shortage of physicians, but it is not due to a less people going into medicine. It is because they cannot get all they way through the program because of a shortage of residency positions. Sorry for my rant, this is just something that bothers me. We have a physician shortage, and we have students with MD and DO degrees (and huge student loan payments) who cannot practice medicine because they don't have room to put them into a residency program.

 

[wdwmom0f3]

Any chance it will be repealed? Or at least modified to something more sane? What does anyone think?

I doubt it. I think it's to late.

 

[daughtersrus]

I think that it has so fundamentally changed the entire insurance industry that it will never go back to "the way it was".

I so wish we could dial back to the 70's and 80's when there were "cafeteria plans" and you could pick and choose what kind of coverage you wanted. It was great when you just picked your doctor, went, wrote a check for the visit and then the insurance company would reimburse you for their part. I know for my family it was always 80%. Sounds too simple, so it would never work in today's world I guess.

I doubt most people would like pulling out their check book and writing a check for $300 and then waiting weeks to get a check for $240 from their insurance company.

Back in the mid 90's before we had a copay for prescriptions, I was paying almost $800 a month for medications for our DD. It was more than our mortgage and then we had to wait 6-8 weeks to get 80% back from the insurance company.

 

[mefordis]

I think that it has so fundamentally changed the entire insurance industry that it will never go back to "the way it was".

I so wish we could dial back to the 70's and 80's when there were "cafeteria plans" and you could pick and choose what kind of coverage you wanted. It was great when you just picked your doctor, went, wrote a check for the visit and then the insurance company would reimburse you for their part. I know for my family it was always 80%. Sounds too simple, so it would never work in today's world I guess.

People were healthier then. Not addicted to legal drugs as they are now, either.

 

[Green Tea]

Not at all. Stays the same.

 

[wendow]

I doubt most people would like pulling out their check book and writing a check for $300 and then waiting weeks to get a check for $240 from their insurance company.

Back in the mid 90's before we had a copay for prescriptions, I was paying almost $800 a month for medications for our DD. It was more than our mortgage and then we had to wait 6-8 weeks to get 80% back from the insurance company.

But at least you got something for your $800. We pay that much per month now just for our premium and we rarely, rarely even see a doctor. Not even once a year per person in our family. I'd much rather write a check for actual expenses and wait to be reimbursed. Who knows how much more we'll pay next year for insurance....based on this thread, I'm getting really worried.

 

[APiratesLifeForMe2]

My employer has offered our health insurance as a benefit and we did not pay anything. He has just given us notice that he will likely be removing the benefit since the costs have more than doubled but we will not receive any notice of increased compensation to make up for the lost benefit. Haven't even begun pricing an individual plan yet. If I go on DH it is an extra $180 every 2 weeks and right now we pay $0 for me.

 

[mhfrau]

I doubt most people would like pulling out their check book and writing a check for $300 and then waiting weeks to get a check for $240 from their insurance company.

Back in the mid 90's before we had a copay for prescriptions, I was paying almost $800 a month for medications for our DD. It was more than our mortgage and then we had to wait 6-8 weeks to get 80% back from the insurance company.

Yes, I agree. Most people wouldn't like pulling out their check book and writing a check for their care and waiting for reimbursement. But on the flip side, healthcare costs were lower, people didn't run to the doctor for a Zpak every time they got a cold, and you actually received the healthcare you PAID for, as opposed to paying for lots of different coverage that you didn't need.

I think where everything got screwed up was when we went the way of the HMO model. People loved going to the doctor, paying a $10 copay. Heck, I'll admit that I did. When I had my son in '96, I think I only paid about $100 bucks for my entire pregnancy and delivery costs, because we had HMO insurance. I realize now that someone else had to make those dollars up somewhere because I know my OB/GYN didn't work for free.

I would much rather have a straight 80/20 coverage with a $500 deductible. That would put me in charge of my own healthcare, and my decisions would be made based on what I feel is right for me and my family. I'm very happy that people can get their medicine cheap, but I don't think people will admit that their good fortune of reducing their costs, comes at other people's expense. I guess the only way that it would be totally fair was if we got rid of employer based offerings and EVERYONE paid exactly the same amount for coverage and services. But for that to happen a lot of people would be paying a whole lot more while some would be paying a whole lot less. And I'm pretty sure that the ones who all of a sudden had to pay a whole lot more would be crying foul. Definitely no easy answers...

 

[ORDisneyfans]

Self employed small business owner, we have BCBS Oregon our premiums for our healthy family of four is going up from $775 per month $915 kicker is they are doubling our deductible from $2500 to $5000.


We have 5 employees there is no way we can offer them health insurance as our group rate would be even more per month per person. We pay well above average per hour to compensate as best we can and most of them have insurance through their spouse/parents.


This country is in big trouble!!!

 

[nunzia]

There aren't really less people wanting to become doctors. The medical schools are all filled to capacity. It is just that there are a limited number of residency positions in the US, so it creates a bottle neck when all the medical students graduate and try to get the limited number of residency positions. There are always about thousands more students than there are residency positions, and there is not enough money to create more residency programs. So, there is a shortage of physicians, but it is not due to a less people going into medicine. It is because they cannot get all they way through the program because of a shortage of residency positions. Sorry for my rant, this is just something that bothers me. We have a physician shortage, and we have students with MD and DO degrees (and huge student loan payments) who cannot practice medicine because they don't have room to put them into a residency program.

I think the bigger problem is the lack of students who are wanting to be GENERAL practicioners...too many are being specialists and GPs are, as a breed, dying out. I think the trend will be toward Nurse Practicioners for basic treatment then doctors for specialized care.

 

[ruadisneyfan2]

There aren't really less people wanting to become doctors. The medical schools are all filled to capacity. It is just that there are a limited number of residency positions in the US, so it creates a bottle neck when all the medical students graduate and try to get the limited number of residency positions. There are always about thousands more students than there are residency positions, and there is not enough money to create more residency programs. So, there is a shortage of physicians, but it is not due to a less people going into medicine. It is because they cannot get all they way through the program because of a shortage of residency positions. Sorry for my rant, this is just something that bothers me. We have a physician shortage, and we have students with MD and DO degrees (and huge student loan payments) who cannot practice medicine because they don't have room to put them into a residency program.

I agree.
I work at a large teaching hospital in downtown Philly. I'm in the breast imaging dept and our secretary just showed us last week a huge stack of applications we've received for our BI fellowship for next year. Only a small handful will even get an interview. It's extremely competitive and we only want the cream of the crop.

 

[Angeni11]

We find out next month how much ours will go up. It depends on how much my husbands employer is going to cover because they were talking about it going up double so we would go from around $500 per month to $1000 per month for coverage if they don't absorb any of the cost.

Of course we have a $250 deductible per person now and I wouldn't be surprised for that to go up too.