Shifting costs to the customer

My sister sent me an email at the end of last month asking me to help her find a new healthcare insurance policy. Her old policy was up for renewal and the company wanted an answer soon. The price had also gone up because of the many things mandated by the Affordable Care Act. My sister noted the policy has a high deductible of $5000 (though she didn't say whether this is an increase from before).

Because she still had a few weeks I suggested she wait in hopes that the federal site will improve.

My healthcare insurance is funded by my previous employer (because I retired instead of quit). I noticed this year the amounts of my copays for doctor visits and prescriptions has gone up (I forget by how much).

It appears our increased costs are part of a trend. Lots of health insurance companies are boosting profits by shifting costs to the customer. And the big way to do that is by raising deductible amounts. Many insurance companies aren't canceling policies (the big news stories) because of the requirements of the ACA. They're doing it to get customers into higher deductible / higher profit policies.

So if your insurance plan cancelled your policy and proposing a high cost or high deductible replacement, shop for a policy that meets the ACA.

Another case of profits coming before health.



Paul Waldman of The American Prospect created a handy bar chart that highlights the nastiness of the GOP. Those states with GOP governments that refused the Medicaid expansion as part of the ACA also tend to be the ones with low caps for Medicaid -- the income cap is so low most poor people don't qualify.

For example, in Alabama if the income for a family of three is above $4,500 a year that family is ineligible for Medicaid. Since the national poverty line is a bit more than $18,000 you can guess how far $4500 actually goes.

This Medicaid cap is important. The ACA assumes families below a certain income level are covered by Medicaid and so doesn't offer subsidies. Which means those between the extremely poor and the almost-making-it still don't benefit from the ACA.