Obamacare success stories please

[lauradis]

Sorry, but not too many happy faces around here - only those that can be subsidized by the government, the rest have 'higher' premiums for less insurance - hard to get excited about that!

Just another way of making 'some' pay for the health care of others - a different twist on charity.

wow we are on the same sinking ship ahoy mate.

We need to hear how our higher cost are helping people, happiness decreases your stress and stress is bad for your health which we can't have now.

Happy story of the day. Local Burger King laied off half their staff, but they are hiring full time with health insurance benefits, so I asked how much the insurance was and got single person is about 106 oop month for bronze, which will save tax payers some money because they aren't eligible for the insurance exchange benefits.

This Burger King has never offered any type of insurance to anyone else but management.

 

[Lindaland]

[[/I]

Im not sure I'm understanding that. for example I have health insurance through my employee, I go on the aca website compare and if my employees health insurance is better that's what I take.

Now as far as my premiums at work, for the most part premiums have been going up for the last 10 years. the rise in health care has been going up at double digit rates since the 1980's so I really can't figure out how folks swear it's this legislation that's causing the increase.
The Kaiser foundation said that between 2002 and 2004 health care cost rose almost 9%.

Love this!

 

[Karlzmom]

I hope there is positive sides my husband has a pacemaker & can not get insurance plus we are a small business owners we have not had insurance for 6 years. We'll before we could get my husband on the new insurance his appendix burst yesterday. I worry for the people that are going to be hurt by this new plan I think there has to be a better solution that will not hurt so many. Best wish for all of us & hope we will hear some happy stories.

Every "happy" story is brought to you courtesy of someone else's pain. There is no such thing as a free lunch. The Government does not produce its own money, the only money they have to pay the subsidy to one person is money they took from another.

The insurance companies will offer coverage to a person that previously was "uninsurable" by upping the incoming premiums to cover the risk - which means raising rates on the previously insured to now make up what the individual who had the high risk had no way of paying themselves.

Its tough and there is no easy answer. The truth is there is not enough to go around, period. So, now we have the government who is working to make it "fairer" for some at the expense of others rather than just letting the market set the inequality. Either way its still inequality. What you think about the situation is likely driven by whether you are a "winner" or a "loser" in the mandate.

To the "winners", I sincerely hope that you will not find yourself called to be a "loser" in the future, as now that the Government is picking winners/losers is there any basis to argue *your* money is safe from a taking to fund what is deemed to be "in the public good"?

 

[lauradis]

Every "happy" story is brought to you courtesy of someone else's pain.

Sad but true.
We need happy stories.
We should all talk to strangers and find out if they are being helped or hurt by ACA.
No matter what your damage is over ACA, we are all in the "ship" together and need non msnbc or fox real life stories. No need to wallow in self pity.

 

[tinker&belle]

My mom's employer stopped providing coverage for part time employees effective 2014. They are expecting for these people to be eligible for ACA. The (Very Large) Corporation is taking advantage of the ACA. I just got through the website to see the plans. For a decent looking Silver Plan she can get it for as low as $65 a month. Not bad at all. She was a loser in this because her company is trying to save the money but it worked out okay. The $65 is cheaper than the $240 from the previous plan.

I would say this would be an example of a win all the way around based on her being part of a much larger pool.

 

[lauradis]

My mom's employer stopped providing coverage for part time employees effective 2014. They are expecting for these people to be eligible for ACA. The (Very Large) Corporation is taking advantage of the ACA. I just got through the website to see the plans. For a decent looking Silver Plan she can get it for as low as $65 a month. Not bad at all. She was a loser in this because her company is trying to save the money but it worked out okay. The $65 is cheaper than the $240 from the previous plan.

I would say this would be an example of a win all the way around based on her being part of a much larger pool.

Did she lose any hours, is the coverage close to the same oop. plus if she is now making less money her poverty level percent went down and her benefit would go up..

Think we have a winner fbs

 

[tinker&belle]

Did she lose any hours, is the coverage close to the same oop. plus if she is now making less money her poverty level percent went down and her benefit would go up..

Think we have a winner fbs

No changes in hours. No change in income.

Edited to add deductible is 1450 less a year and OOP max is almost 5000 less a year on the ACA plan. Much better plan for less money

 

[barkley]

[[/I]

Im not sure I'm understanding that. for example I have health insurance through my employee, I go on the aca website compare and if my employees health insurance is better that's what I take.

Now as far as my premiums at work, for the most part premiums have been going up for the last 10 years. the rise in health care has been going up at double digit rates since the 1980's so I really can't figure out how folks swear it's this legislation that's causing the increase.
The Kaiser foundation said that between 2002 and 2004 health care cost rose almost 9%.

heavens, I would love to fall into this demographic. I (and many of my friends, family and neighbors-different states/different types of employment from public to private, retirees to active employees) haven't fallen within these rates for YEARS. for some of us we can't opt out of employer sponsored insurance ("condition of employment absent proof of EXSISTING/IN EFFECT insurance coverage"-yeah, check out labor laws), and while premiums have risen-it has been NOTHING compared to what we are experiencing now.


previously it may have been 9% over a 2 year period-but for myself and many others who received their open enrollment paperwork this week, explain to us how this legislation has not impacted our healthcare costs when our premiums FOR REDUCED COVERAGE/INCREASED SHARE OF COSTS has gone up (from personal experience) at least 25% vs. our 2013 premiums?

your chart shows the average as $15,745 for a "family", well myself and many tens of thousands of others employed/retirees from my former employer will be paying $21,6000 so long as we only have 2 "family members", in the event we have additional family members add another $4000 or so per year (and we don't qualify for tax credits because the insurance companies made sure that they compared numbers with our employers such that the 'employee only' share is JUST below the 9.5% federal requirement).

 

[kymom99]

There was nothing stated the entire facility was closing, it's a case of they are going to have to do more with less. Phasing out has to happen as not all insurance claims will be submitted and received by 12-31, but the volume will drop. Some staff will remain to follow up, audit, and post money received in the first half of 2014 earned in 2013.

We learned about an hour ago our neighbor, a single lady with 2 high school kids and a teacher herself, learned her insurance is increasing by $4200 next year, along with all educators in KY. That is essentially a 10% pay cut. We've been neighbors for 10 years but this is forcing her to sell her home and move as the pay cut will make her mortgage unaffordable.

It's great to hear some success stories, nobody should ever be denied insurance over a previous condition. There has to be a better way though.

Wait a minute. I am a Ky teacher and my insurance, with the parent plus option, will be $123 a month. Is she including OOP and deductibles in that amount? I have never come close to hitting my max OOP. My husband has once when he had a kidney stone.

 

[eliza61]

heavens, I would love to fall into this demographic. I (and many of my friends, family and neighbors-different states/different types of employment from public to private, retirees to active employees) haven't fallen within these rates for YEARS. for some of us we can't opt out of employer sponsored insurance ("condition of employment absent proof of EXSISTING/IN EFFECT insurance coverage"-yeah, check out labor laws), and while premiums have risen-it has been NOTHING compared to what we are experiencing now.


previously it may have been 9% over a 2 year period-but for myself and many others who received their open enrollment paperwork this week, explain to us how this legislation has not impacted our healthcare costs when our premiums FOR REDUCED COVERAGE/INCREASED SHARE OF COSTS has gone up (from personal experience) at least 25% vs. our 2013 premiums?

your chart shows the average as $15,745 for a "family", well myself and many tens of thousands of others employed/retirees from my former employer will be paying $21,6000 so long as we only have 2 "family members", in the event we have additional family members add another $4000 or so per year (and we don't qualify for tax credits because the insurance companies made sure that they compared numbers with our employers such that the 'employee only' share is JUST below the 9.5% federal requirement).

Oh that's easy. It's called out of control insurance companies.

First of all Barkley you can't make a correlation to price and legislation, to legislation that hasn't even gone into effect. Only 2 key components have become law. 1. being that kids can stay on parents policys until 26 and the other being the can't kick people with pre existing conditions off. So basically you're blaming legislation for greedy insurance companies. How about blaming the people who are jacking your rates up for no reason (I know novel idea).

Now I totally agree "average" mean some folks will be higher, some folks will be lower but doesn't change the results.

The fact is healthcare rates have been raising double digit percentage wise since the 1990's. Hillary Clinton tried to address it and every screamed about socialism back then, and promptly did ABSOLUTELY nothing.

Now you want to stick your head in the sand and say "oh now I have to pay for the poor lazy people". gimme a break LOL.

Now whether or not all the other doom day prophecies happened, we will have to wait and see but health insurance premiums and health insurance cost have been skyrocketing for decades now.
If it makes you feel better to blame the poor and this bill, that's cool. but it does not make that the reality.

 

[lauradis]

Oh that's easy. It's called out of control insurance companies.

The fact is healthcare rates have been raising double digit percentage wise since the 1990's. Hillary Clinton tried to address it and every screamed about socialism back then, and promptly did ABSOLUTELY nothing..

Health care cost have been ignored almost completely in Aca

This is more of a regulation for every citizen to have Insurance.

Google says insurance is to protect you from financial lost.

Personal happy story my hubby's employer has decided not to kick spouse off the family plans

 

[mikek]

Sure hope your granddaughter is doing well and very happy to hear she will be afforded medical coverage. I believe everyone with pre-existing conditions, or not, should be able to access to affordable healthcare. While I don't agree with everything in the Affordable Care Act, I do believe this is one good part which we should have had all along.

agreed- here in NJ as long as you kept coverage you were always set with pre-existing conditions. Seems that is not the case everywhere and scary. (you were always hosed if you ran out of cash and had to drop insurance, you could only get back in if you wound up at a large employer with an open enrollment period)

This is a wonderful thing that it exists now.

 

[luvmy3]

Oh that's easy. It's called out of control insurance companies.

First of all Barkley you can't make a correlation to price and legislation, to legislation that hasn't even gone into effect. Only 2 key components have become law. 1. being that kids can stay on parents policys until 26 and the other being the can't kick people with pre existing conditions off. So basically you're blaming legislation for greedy insurance companies. How about blaming the people who are jacking your rates up for no reason (I know novel idea).

Now I totally agree "average" mean some folks will be higher, some folks will be lower but doesn't change the results.

The fact is healthcare rates have been raising double digit percentage wise since the 1990's. Hillary Clinton tried to address it and every screamed about socialism back then, and promptly did ABSOLUTELY nothing.

Now you want to stick your head in the sand and say "oh now I have to pay for the poor lazy people". gimme a break LOL.

Now whether or not all the other doom day prophecies happened, we will have to wait and see but health insurance premiums and health insurance cost have been skyrocketing for decades now.
If it makes you feel better to blame the poor and this bill, that's cool. but it does not make that the reality.

I'm sorry but I must have missed where that poster mentioned anything about the poor or paying for the lazy people.

 

[mikek]

It depends.
If you go into emergency with a life threatening case you will most definitely be seen to.
When my dh was battling cancer, the hospital WOULD NOT give us an admittance date to start his chemo until the insurance company verified the treatment.

That is why the argument about how ACA is going to take away the doctor-patient relationship is so bogus. believe me, every step of the way during my dh's illness it was made very very clear that no treatment or not program would be started until the insurance company said they would pay for it.
Your doctor could want to admit you asap and if the insurance say no, guess who's not getting admitted.

Many times we had to fight with Aetna because his oncologist prescribed a certain medicine that wasn't on the approved list and guess what, hospital definitely did not administer the medicine.

Now I don't know enough about the aca to know if things like that will be changed but today in this country, medical care is directly attached to your ability to pay. I spent all of 2012 learning that fact first hand.

I'm afraid this probably wont change. Maybe it's in there- fingers crossed.

Same thing happend with me and a loved one at RWJ in new brunswick. We're there checking in for cancer treatment, they prequalify you with insurance (which i actually didnt take offense too) BUT THEN THEY DEMANDED CASH. I'm there with the patient worried about their life, trying not to freak out, and they want a **&#&%#@ down payment?

It's not just the hospital either- surgeon's office beforehand actually mailed us a bill a few days before surgery demanding a down payment. I acted ignorant like it didn't come. (thing is not only are they demanding payment but they can't even understand deductibles. Granted we probably had 4k left of 5k deductible to go at that point- but they have no idea- if hospitals bazillion dollar bill hits first (and it did) that sucks up the deductible and everyone behind gets in the coinsurance pile.

It's plain disgusting behavior. Maybe they fixed it....

 

[Karlzmom]

Sad but true.
We need happy stories.
We should all talk to strangers and find out if they are being helped or hurt by ACA.
No matter what your damage is over ACA, we are all in the "ship" together and need non msnbc or fox real life stories. No need to wallow in self pity.

Easily said when its the OTHER GUY getting the short end of the stick. Why are the people who are stuck with the bill less deserving of compassion then the people who had a situation that put them out? Is one person's pity worthy of a complete upending of the financial system even if it devastates someone else? Who decides who is worthy? If its simply 51% of the vote then we have instituted mob rule and heaven help us all....

My point is the "happy story" is an illusion. In order to provide the happily ever after for one person, another person gets to take the hit. All we did was shuffle the deck chairs....no real net gain. There can't be a gain, as the Government is not capable of producing the funds to make party A happy without taking it from party B by force of law. By your analogy of being in the same boat, there are not enough life jackets to go around, someone is going to be without one...you seem to be asking the people who had a life jacket to be jumping for joy at having to hand theirs over to someone else.

 

[mikek]

The truth is insurance companies have found a scapegoat. Lots of these premium increases have nothing to do with health care reform, but..,, insurance companies will take the excuse all the way to the bank

how you figure? The law specifically limits premiums to only 15-20% over the cost of what they pay in medical care.

http://www.cms.gov/CCIIO/Programs-a...urance-Market-Reforms/Medical-Loss-Ratio.html

one thing it MIGHT do is give the insurance companies less incentive to negotiate harder with providers. If for example a hospital charges BCBS 10% more than the insurance company can make 10 % more absolute dollars. But I havne't seen anyone suggest any of that is happening. I think it's way too early to tell.

 

[barkley]

Oh that's easy. It's called out of control insurance companies.

First of all Barkley you can't make a correlation to price and legislation, to legislation that hasn't even gone into effect. Only 2 key components have become law. 1. being that kids can stay on parents policys until 26 and the other being the can't kick people with pre existing conditions off. So basically you're blaming legislation for greedy insurance companies. How about blaming the people who are jacking your rates up for no reason (I know novel idea).

Now I totally agree "average" mean some folks will be higher, some folks will be lower but doesn't change the results.

The fact is healthcare rates have been raising double digit percentage wise since the 1990's. Hillary Clinton tried to address it and every screamed about socialism back then, and promptly did ABSOLUTELY nothing.

Now you want to stick your head in the sand and say "oh now I have to pay for the poor lazy people". gimme a break LOL.

Now whether or not all the other doom day prophecies happened, we will have to wait and see but health insurance premiums and health insurance cost have been skyrocketing for decades now.
If it makes you feel better to blame the poor and this bill, that's cool. but it does not make that the reality.

1. the legislation has nothing to do with kicking people off with preexisting conditions-it prevents insurance companies from denying them coverage or charging them more.

2. Hillary Clinton did succeed to an extent by virtue of her husband's "welfare reform" which created zero cost entitlements to tens of thousands of people who under former Medicaid regulations either were ineligible due to income and property/resource regulations or at bare minimum were required to participate in sliding/increasing (with their income) share of costs (I know, I worked administrating Medicaid in the '90s and am well versed in how clients were shifted categorically from 'welfare' programs to 'work' programs that resulted in years of free medical programs they were previously ineligible to).


3. for the record-I am retired from health and social services, and despite my experiences and frustrations with some of the individual clientele I served- I have NOT and would NEVER demean those I served by referring to them as "poor lazy people".

there is nothing in the post from me that you quoted that implies I put the blame on any demographic, I was simply stating the facts-that 15K average family cost of insurance is nowhere near what myself or many others have paid for several years, and for the upcoming year it is well below (especially if you include your tax payer funded/aka as my employer contributions)-then kick that affordable healthcare to an average of $42,000 per year in premiums for one adult and 2 dependents

 

[barkley]

I'm sorry but I must have missed where that poster mentioned anything about the poor or paying for the lazy people.

thank you for noticing, and pointing this out

 

[mikek]

My mom's employer stopped providing coverage for part time employees effective 2014. They are expecting for these people to be eligible for ACA. The (Very Large) Corporation is taking advantage of the ACA. I just got through the website to see the plans. For a decent looking Silver Plan she can get it for as low as $65 a month. Not bad at all. She was a loser in this because her company is trying to save the money but it worked out okay. The $65 is cheaper than the $240 from the previous plan.

I would say this would be an example of a win all the way around based on her being part of a much larger pool.

is that the actual plan is cheaper?

Or after subsidy it's cheaper?

 

[Lindaland]

Well ... the thread was started for "success stories" and few of them come with frowny faces.

You do know that you are already paying for others (who don't have insurance) now, don't you?

This, exactly..... There are other threads that discuss the merits of the law, but this is for success stories and positive experiences. This is not the place for negative feedback and arguing.