Healthcare.gov crashing because backend doomed in the requirements stage

Re:Healthcare.gov crashing because backend doomed in the req... by jamroom on Monday October 21, 2013 @01:27PM (#6586918)

Of course - that's the whole reason for the mandate. Similar to social security, there needs to be a pool of people paying into the system that are not using it. I don't agree with you that the plans will be worse though - maybe in some states, but certainly not here in Washington.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Healthcare.gov crashing because backend doomed in the req... by tunesmith on Monday October 21, 2013 @02:00PM (#6587161)

The Medical Loss Ratio part of the law also helps with that. Used to be that plans paid 75% - 80% of their premiums towards care. Now they're mandated to pay 85%, or 80% for individual plans.

The other thing to factor in is that most of the people that are experiencing premium increases are on plans that don't meet the "minimum level of care" as mandated by ACA. Those plans that no longer qualify are often the types of plans that lead to the horror stories of people being kicked off of plans after becoming sick (rescission), lifetime maximum amounts, etc. Insurance companies were saving a lot of money due to those brutal practices. Part of the intent of the ACA was to eradicate those practices, which ultimately protects the people that were subscribed to those plans, and who didn't understand they were at that type of risk.

In other words, if you were subscribing to a crap plan, your premiums were artificially low in the first place. It's kind of a degraded case of the people that are complaining that they can't any longer go insurance-free. The law of the land now is that everyone has to participate, in order to help take care of our sick and injured - so that means that our insurance plans all have to have a basic level of quality.

I would bet that if you restricted your search to the people that originally had plans that met that basic level of quality (which is really not all that high), you would find that their premiums have gone down.

(Obligatory data point: I'm self-employed in washington, have had a Regence BCBS plan for $540, and my monthly premium will go down about $150-$200 / month for similar care.)

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Healthcare.gov crashing because backend doomed in the req... by genwin on Monday October 21, 2013 @02:47PM (#6587430)

But keep in mind they are using it, since the insurance reduces the risk they'll be saddled with high medical bills (or more likely that they'll saddle others with those bills). They are healthier, but can still have an accident of course.

[ Parent | on HN ]