Another lie.
Rod Coons and Florence Peace pay $403 a month for a family health plan that covers barely any medical care for either of them until he or she reaches $10,000 in claims in a given year. And that’s just the way they like it.
“I’m only really interested in catastrophic coverage,” says Coons, 58, who retired last year after selling an electronics manufacturing business in Indianapolis. Beyond their premium, the couple typically spends no more than $500 annually on medical care, Coons says. “I’d prefer to stay with our current plan.”
That won’t be an option next year. In 2014, plans sold on the individual and small-group markets will have to meet new standards for coverage and cost-sharing, among other things. In addition to providing 10 so-called essential health benefits and covering many preventive-care services at no cost, plans must pay at least 60 percent of allowed medical expenses and cap annual out-of-pocket spending at $6,350 for individuals and $12,700 for families. (The only exception is for plans that have grandfathered status under the law.)
Plans with $10,000 deductibles won’t make the cut, experts say, nor will many other plans that require high cost-sharing or provide limited benefits — by excluding prescription drugs or doctor visits from coverage, for example….
So I’m screwed, because I’m one of those self employed individuals who has a no-frills plan that provides mainly catastrophic coverage so I don’t go broke in the event of a devastating illness. I don’t want to pay for insurance that would cover routine office visits, mental illness treatment, much less be forced to fund the latest Orwellian scheme they are calling “behavioral health.”
Sure, I have kvetched about this before, and so have others, but their warnings were pooh-poohed by the White House, which continues to repeat the lie that you can keep your current health plan. Here’s what I said back in 2007:
It is one thing to have a basic safety net of some sort. I don’t like the idea of people starving in the streets or bleeding to death for lack of money to afford a doctor. However, it strikes as patently immoral to take money from me and use it to buy things for other people that I do not buy for myself.
For example, I have never bought a new car in my life, and while I have a television, I don’t watch it and I could easily do without it. Such things are not necessities of life, rather, they are desiderata. The idea that my money should purchase a class of health care for other people better than that which I buy for myself makes about as much sense as saying that my money should pay for strangers’ new cars or television sets.
So, it will be interesting to see the details of whatever mandatory health care plan the Democrats wish to impose.
Well, we are now seeing the details, and it is quite clear that they lied, and we’re screwed.
So what else is new?
Comments
9 responses to ““If you like your health care plan, you can keep your health care plan.””
Enrollment starts in a month and a half. Found this at hsaforamerica.com:
Maximum deductibles: Maximum deductibles for HSA-qualified plans in 2014 will be $6,645 for individuals and $13,290 for families. However, it is not clear if plans with deductibles this high will actually qualify, due to the minimum actuarial value requirement.
Minimum actuarial value: Everyone over age 30 will be required to carry coverage that covers at least 60 percent of the actuarial value of the benefits offered (that being the average medical expenses incurred by a typical person in a year). It is not clear if the contribution to a health savings account will be counted when calculating the actuarial value. If not, the maximum deductible that is available will go down a good bit.
Clear as mud. My state has a fancy exchange website. I’ll see if it works come October.
obama care is better then what I have now which is nothing thanks tp pre-existing conditions. I would prefer medicare for all but insurance companies bought off to many senators!
Cap. Arizona: A close friend suffered a debilitating head injury and no commercial insurers would insure him. He ended up buying insurance through the state’s high risk pool:
https://www.covercolorado.org/default.asp?contentID=679
It wasn’t cheap but it works. Perhaps your state has something similar.
From my point of view Obamacare is an ongoing disaster. My individual high deductible plan jumped from $180/month a year and a half ago to close to $300/month today, and will jump another $100/month come January, 2014. I’m being forced into the federally subsidized exchange but perhaps that’s the point, to get the majority of citizens dependent on the federal dole.
My HMO refuses to pay for cough suppresent, even though MediCaid covers it, because they suspect I am a drug dealer with no evidence to back it up.
Alan, obviously only a drug dealer would need a cough suppressant. Next you’ll be trying to score Sudafed!
why don’t republicans say obama care is unworkable and have medicare for all. much simpler and those that can afford it medicare suppliment plans like we have now but we know why they don’t do it.
why don’t republicans say obama care is unworkable and have medicare for all.
You silly twit, the unworkable part was built in to Obamacare on purpose so that the alternative which you propose would seem better. Why should the Republicans propose it when Harry Reid already has?
One question for you cap’n ‘zona: when doctors can no longer make a living in private practice, close their offices, retire or retrain (research labs, etc.) who will fill their place? Maybe we can have the government forcibly assign doctors into a work cadre, take over all private hospitals, and bring back wards, Soviet style.
You will then get the medicine you deserve, good and hard, you ignorant leach.
obama care was the only thing some democrat senators owned by insurance companys like ben nelson of nebraska would vote for to break gop filibuster obama started out single payer but couldn’t get it! as for doctors the medical schools keep enrollment down to create shortage and tell the rest to become a lawyers and I don’t see doctors leaving here to go to third world countries just the opposite we could strip the world of doctors if we let them in!
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