About 543,000 US residents signed up for health coverage through the federal exchange during the first week of the Affordable Care Act’s third open enrollment period, according to CMS data released Thursday, The Hillreports (Sullivan, The Hill, 11/12). “The deductible”, she said, “is so high that I have to pay for everything all year – visits with a gynecologist, a dermatologist, all blood work, all tests”.
No matter how much we dislike spending more than we have to, a good health care plan isn’t measured only by a monthly premium.
But in interviews, a number of consumers made it clear that premiums were only one side of the affordability equation.
A recent University of Minnesota study found that after 2016, the cheapest plans would experience a few of the most dramatic premium increases. “It’s really just a catastrophic policy”. “You don’t have to be a bankruptcy specialist on par with Donald Trump to understand that loading up on clients who are consuming health care but aren’t paying close to full freight is unsustainable”, the Journal explained in an article this week. And with new improvements to the site, signing up on HealthCare.gov is easier than ever. (Half of the plans are above the median, and half below it.) In Jackson, Miss., the comparable figure is $5,500. In Chicago, the median deductible is $3,400.
Every new donation up to $3,000 will be matched 100%, according to Berkowitz, who said he was looking for a way to make the most of his charitable donations. Advocates in Colorado presented a petition, with 156,000 signatures, calling for a 2016 referendum to end Obamacare and replace it with a single-payer system run by the state government. That means many Americans have less access to health care – because they can’t afford the higher deductibles, and they put off seeing a doctor.
All plans cover the most important services, such as doctor visits, hospitalizations, prescriptions, maternity and infant care and mental health care. She and her husband, an airport shuttle driver, pay $275 a month for a “bronze” plan with a $13,200 deductible.
Higher insurance premiums are pummeling Texans in the age of Obamacare, and health-care analysts say ever-bigger increases are inevitable.
We saw about 358,000 existing Marketplace customers come back in, shop, and actively select a plan that best meets their needs. Most therapists are self-employed, so taking time to get paid from insurance companies pulls them away from their clients.
But for many consumers, the frustration is real, as is the financial strain. He assures that it’ll be more certain by December 15, the deadline for those who want to apply for a healthcare insurance plan starting the first day of the year 2016; and the final weeks of January, the deadline of the enrollment period to get coverage for the rest of said year. If you don’t have coverage through your or your spouse’s employer, you can create an account now and enroll in health coverage through Washington HealthPlanFinder beginning November 1. “Health insurance costs likely to drop” (Daily Journal, October 20), is another example of the integrity-barren profession that media has become (remember Dan Rather and Brian Williams?). That was 1.5 million people more than the administration projected.
Alexis Phillips, 29, of Houston, is the kind of consumer federal officials would like to enroll this fall.
Health care policy experts say insurers designed their plans with substantial rising deductibles and other cost-sharing measures as a way to encourage low and moderate income Americans who qualify for federal subsidies to try to hold down their medical costs. “I’m better off not purchasing that insurance and saving the money in case something bad happens”.
Date: November 22, 2015