The real life impact of reversing the ACA

[TexasHusker]

I have been in the high risk pool before. It was extremely expensive and had high deductibles. It has been years since we have been on it, but I think the numbers were $2,000 per month for the 3 of us with $5,800 individual deductibles plus something like $8,000 out of pocket. The premiums went down the longer we were on it, but I think the cheapest was about $1,500 a month after a year. I'm pretty sure Blue Cross administered it, so I had a BC card and not something that said, "IL high risk pool insurance" on it. I forgot how I found out about it, but it wasn't publicized and out of all the employees and their wives at the start up my husband worked at, I was the only one that knew about it.

The premiums were only $2000 a month, went down the longer you were on it, to $1500 per month? With an $8000 deductible, that would be significantly cheaper than Obummercare.

[disneysteve]

For people that actually have to pay the premiums, Obummercare is a financial disaster. When I dropped it, it was around $2500 a month for a family of four,

You've talked about this a few times and I'm still baffled by it.

First, why were you even buying your insurance through the ACA? You're not low income. You're not unemployed. You own a business. Why didn't you bring in an insurance broker and have them shop policies for you. That's what my partner and I did. We didn't have group coverage since there were only 2 of us. The broker gave us a list of choices and we each picked the policy we wanted.

Second, why was it so expensive? We're a family of 3 and we were paying about $750/month I think. I'm paying less now but I'm on a huge group plan with thousands of employees and the hospital system has their own plan administered by Aetna. But previously I was buying an individual plan on my own through the broker. I don't know why your premium was more than 3 times mine. And I'm in NJ which is one of the most expensive states for insurance in general. I don't know how things are in Texas. Maybe that's part of the issue. Why were there no less costly options available to you? Even the most expensive plan presented to me wasn't anywhere close to what you were paying. The most costly option was still way under $1,000/month.

[msomnipotent]

The premiums were only $2000 a month, went down the longer you were on it, to $1500 per month? With an $8000 deductible, that would be significantly cheaper than Obummercare.

This was many years ago, and it was $5,800 deductible, so $17,400 for the 3 of us, plus the $8,000 OOP per person. I don't think they ever paid anything on any of our claims.

[LivingAlmostLarge]

I think costs really depend on where you live. for us it would now be $1000 for a bronze plan for a family of four. But before obamacare we'd be uninsurable. So I guess that's something.