According to this the average cost of group coverage is $7,739.
Silver plans can run a LOT higher. For example, for a 63 year-old male non-smoker in Ohio (about my Dad’d situation when Obamacare went in, but today’s prices) the silver plan average is $1,064 a month, which is $12,678 a year.
That’s 65% higher. And obviously it can go up from there if you were 64 or a smoker or wanted a gold or platinum plan.
And of course, since he’d been on an underwritten plan pre-Obamacare, his premium went up WAY more than 65%. I think the premium quadrupled AND was a worse plan, although I’d have to double-check that with him.
It didn’t spread most of the cost to you or me though… it spread most of the cost to my Dad.
Also, IIRC, if you had qualifying coverage you couldn’t be denied for pre-existing conditions. So it was pretty within your control to keep coverage going. Lose your job and get an individual policy if you’re too rich to qualify for Medicaid.
I might be remembering that wrong. But I think the idea was that you couldn’t select against the insurance companies by waiting until you were already sick to buy coverage, but the insurance companies couldn’t not cover you because you got sick.
So you’re telling me you’re angry that young people aren’t subsidizing your father as much as I’m subsidizing old people at my job?
Did you look at average silver across all ages?
Also, did you look at employer contribution for group plans because, pro-tip, employees pay for that too.
To be fair, I’ll look for the exact funding mechanisms and medical burdens some time next week for both, but I’m suspicious that your father is being no more screwed than the rest of us.
Yes, exactly, why would you buy more insurance than you need!??? Finance 101 bro, figure out your future medical costs and then buy whatever product will give you more than that. Otherwise you’re basically a chump.
What is really rich is that a bunch of actuaries who have underwritten insurance, and many of whom are involved in calculating underwritten rates, are acting like it’s evil for other people to prefer underwritten insurance.
Underwritten insurance is great for every single insurance product in existence except individual medical.
Not really… Caesar was providing zero charity. I would interpret it to mean “don’t refuse to pay your taxes” not “work to ensure that we have higher taxes that pay for a lot of social programs”.
He was for individuals being charitable, certainly. He never advocated for governments to be.