Wow.

I've read dozens of threads on other car forums about how peoples' health car costs have skyrocketed, and I thought those people just had special situations. I guess I was in denial.

So what do we get today? Two envelopes from Illinois Blue Cross/Blue Shield.

Our rates just doubled. Yes, doubled.

We're two 40+ year old adults, both non-smokers, no children, no hospitalization, ZERO claims in the past 7 years, and neither of us are on ANY prescription medication.

Thank you, Mr. President, you're doing a fine job.

Yep, but it's going to SAVE everyone $$$ in the long run if you go back and look at campaign promises from a few years ago.

Our office's HMO rates went up 38% this year, after a 25% increase last year. They tell you to your face the "fact" that rates are skrocketing becasue of Obummercare. They don't even try to hide that fact any more... We are one of the millions of small offices that are considering paying the 'penalty' rather than continuing health-care coverage. Our firm used to pay 100% of the cost of health care for all of our employees only a scant 10 years ago. Now we are practically trying to figure out how to stay in business if forced to offer even a 60/40 plan.

Nice job Mr. O!

Hi, so I have 5 kids, one with heart issues(open heart surgery day after birth), non smokers. anybody have any guesses on how much we would pay for health care coverage in the U.S.? We hear about Obamacare up here but not much about your existing healthcare programs.

Neill, it depends on your age. I'm assuming you have a spouse, so in Illinois, you'll pay around $1600 a month, or $18,000 a year, for you and your spouse and coverage for your children. This is with a $5,200 deductible.

Right now, the rates are around $500 a month for a non-smoker aged 50, and a $5,200 deductible, and that's for state issued insurance. If you go through Humana, United health, or some other insurance company, the rates will be higher. Blue Cross/Blue Shield is the cheapest around.

The people that placed all their personal information on the government's website will now be checked by the IRS. If they misstated anything to try and get a lower rate, be prepared to be audited. Or I guess if you're a Republican, you'll be audited too. You have to provide bank account information in order to do automatic withdrawal, and with that you officially give the government access to your bank account. Forget about paying your medical bills off a little at a time, the government can just deduct what you owe.

Meanwhile, hackers have already hacked into the government website, which had the security level of a child's lemonade stand. All their personal information has been compromised.

The good news in all of this is that the Obama zombies have finally shut up. They've made excuses for all his failures, and Obama has blamed everyone else for his incompetence, but this one they can't wiggle out of. America is doomed.

It will get MUCH worse in 2014 when the corporations and companies with more than 50 employees get hit. Be prepared, you're rates may double. And tax hikes are coming to help pay for this mess.

3-4 years ago I was talking to my cousin, who is self-employed (dairy farmer). He and one of his kids were high-risk and he said health insurance would cost him $39,000/year. Rates have gone up significantly since then, so I would guess it would be over $50k, maybe close to $60k now.

Affordable care act is the nail in the coffin for most of us

OMG, I had no idea rates could be anywhere near that high.

One screw up after another. Easily the worst administration in recent history.

I hope they can pull a rabbit out their incompetent asses soon!

wow...with our government run healthcare I pay $133 per month for the family. The government says that this is just a token amount. No deductible. Does not include dental, prescriptions, or alternative medicine (actupuncture, wholistic medicine, chiropractic). But as the true cost of healthcare skyrockets a second user pay system is emerging, example- if you need a non emergency ct scan wait 3-4 months for a healthcare provided one or pay yourself and get one next week. Healthcare for those who can afford it.
I think our system is doomed as well because its hard to raise taxes or increase rates quick enough to cover the cost of new technology. However, I never could have been able to afford your rates when the kids were small.
Hope everything works out for you guys...

its NOT the ACA "Affordable Care Act", its the IACA "InAffordable Care Act" just another way of transferring wealth.....just like the Global Warming agenda.
ACA is just one step towards "single payer"...I bet its been designed that way ,so people will go along with it later after being burned by ObummerCare.

Panama is looking better and better..if I could just convince the wife....

And now we come to California. I have Kaiser (which is the single payer model our legislators so desperately want). They dumped all the individuals in California, my policy went up $520.00/year to compensate for their revenue loss. My employer contributes 50% to my premium (thank God for having a job) Total for just me, 45 year old single, non-smoker, no kids on the policy is $5980.00/year with no deductible, but I can't see them maintaining that much beyond next year if things don't drastically change.

Meanwhile they waste millions sending a rocket to Mars. And We will fall off the fiscal cliff in January

This is an EXCELLENT point! I also just read that Obummer is negotiating with Afganistan to keep US troops there until 2024 or something like that. And here's the kicker... WE get to pay THEM for that to happen!

I say get the heck out, and if any trouble starts over there, dust off some hidden silos over here...

Hang'm all outside the White House and Pentagon for treason.

...and I [censored] about $133 per month for a family of four up here! Yikes...

I'm confused. For some reason I though healthcare was free up in Canada. By free I mean that it was paid by the government though your tax system. Clearly this isn't free but I didn't think individuals also had to write out personal checks.

Many of our employers' contribute to our health care plan. My previous post was a much worse scenario because the person was self-employed. My employer pays a significant portion of mine, I don't remember how much - maybe 60%. But I have a decent plan that is going to be about $4500/year for next year.

hospitals claim that there rising cost are being driven by uninsured patients, that they are legally bound to care for. they pass the cost on to the insured patients and the government, both federal and state. by means of medi-care and medi-caid. so our tax dollars are already going to this problem, along with our already annually rising insurance cost.(personally 10% to 16% annually for the past 16 years).
the insurance company claim that they must increase the cost of policiesbecause the health care industries keep raising there prices, due to the uninsured. they insist that they must keep there shareholders in mind and must show profits. yes, the good old American way.
so we have a good old catch 22. this has continued for decades. the whole while both hospitals and insurance companies are guarding there profit margins, for there shareholders.
meanwhile as insurance cost rise more and more individuals and small companies are no longer able the afford healthcare insurance. this raises the percentage of the un-insured that show up at the hospitals. and the meat grinder continues.

I guess one way of dealing with this is just let it be, and accept it as, just the way it is. or, realize there has to be something better. health care cost almost took down G.M.! so, if a much larger percentage of patients at the hospital have insurance . they aren't having to eat so much of the cost. which in turn should eventually trickle down to the insurence companies. which may trickle down to the consumer. if the other two don't take it as additional profit. American way. this being said the cost to the government shoulds increase because of the the increase in the medi-care medi-caid rolls.

so, what are we suppose to do. yes it's not worth a d&*n that or generation should have to eat the cost of affordable healthcare just after struggling through the secound worst economic down turn in our history. a tuff job market, and lower home values. i'm sure there were many pains when social secureity are medi-care started coming out of peoples checkes when it started. but how many of our moms and dads and even some of you have made it though life because of it.

there is no painless way of going about this. is Obama-care perfect. NO. does anyone else have a plan or solution. NO. it's always easy to point out flaws, but solutions are a [censored]. 2CENTS

I agree whether you like Obama or not no plan this big starts out perfect.
It's gonna take a few years if not longer to get it all ironed out.

I don't think it will be around that long, if it doesn't fail on its own they will defund it and start over the next republican run admin

you just wait until the 'designed' single payer situation happens AFTER ObummerCare...I bet its all designed to fail, on purpose, and THEN the real Obamacare will set in ,as its then ging to be "the only salvation"....this is just a 'trick' to get us on the way to that!
then..gov`t takes over...premiums paid by taxes ,you will have NO IDEA on what true cost is as it will be hidden...long waits, rationing on care (if you dont believe me ,read Swedish news)....and as the govt buys $600 hammers , what do you think will happen in health care? Right now its run as a business , making sure they make profit...when govt takes over , no reason to run it that way , just look at the post office!..they deem a new equipment is needed , they buy it...waste the old , right now those purchases are more thought of as " buy whats needed"..when nobody , except tax payers will foot the bill,...its going to be "just buy, its free"

been there ,done that..one of the reasons I moved to the US 45 yrs ago!

The icing on the cake is a guy tried signing up and received the paperwork days later to find out his dog was the one that got the coverage.

For the good of the nation this debacle must be repealed. Everything is turning out to be the exact opposite of what was promised.

You didnt believe the promises , did you??

Of course I did. They wouldn't lie to us would they?

Of course not , just 'mis speak', as most often.

If I was there I wouldn't be afraid to start calling people lyres, can't believe no one will call a spade a spade, they call it a misspoken statement, he misspoke, it was an untruth, what the hell he freaking lied, don't be scared to say it.

like you have never been lied to by your president. this one may lead use to billions of dollars in cost, but not the 4,474 deaths in or armed forces, and a trillion dollars in cost. search for wmd?
this is what politics are now a days. both parties say what they must, to get what they want, at that time. if they all would step up and put the country first in all there actions. but no, they just stand in line and see who or what they have to blow or suck up to. so that they get elected again and get nothing done.
as long as compromise is a dirty word in any party our politics are broken. single minded politics have never been a big part of or political system. this is why we are the power house of the world in all reguards. single mindedness serves no one. no party has all the answers. obamacare is not the problem. the inability and unwillingness to work though it problems, is the problem .
by the way do a little research. read the other plans, that are out there. think about what good they would do. or better yet who they help most. here's a hint. not you.

Very well said.

You are kidding yourself if you don't think the Affordable Care Act isn't going to cost trillions. It will end up being the second largest transfer of wealth behind Social Security.

The icing on the cake is a guy tried signing up and received the paperwork days later to find out his dog was the one that got the coverage.

So, they must ask the names of your pets, right?
Mighty strange…
Cal

Does the fact that not a single Republican voted for the ACA and some Democrats voted against it bolster your arguments in support of the ACA?

His dog probably has a credit card to go with that health plan.

Not only did none vote for it but the dems never read the bill, only voted to please their king. This weeks power grab is to try to stack the deck in order for it not to be repealed at a later date and setting it back until after the election is another move to save their a$$es.
It will fail leaving us in a worst spot than we are now, would have been better to have left it alone or took a couple years and set up a bipartisan group not government related to draft something then everybody read it and debated it with no pork or special favors

no. I don't think that obamacare will only cost billions.
I was referring to the cost of, just the one lie.


do I think it's good that it was passed the way it did? no. was it a step forward? yes.

if we go back in the wayback machine and look at how we got here, it somewhat ironic.

health care talk started in the early 90'. dems backed talk of modifying medi-care medi-caid or single payer system. reps. backed mostly the free market type system with private insurence companies run the exchange, not the feds.
pretty much what Romney put in in Mass. back in early 2000'. the thing is, this is were the individual mandate idea came from. the heritage foundation (a think group)came up with this idea... it was then carried to congress by Newt Gingrich, Orin Hatch and Charles Grassley. where it entered in to the mix of plans. because it was needed to make that type of plan work. a plan full of sick people can't work.
now 4 or 5 years later when dems take pieces of both plans and put them together. they have a exchanges of private companies which supply the polices, to paying consumers. they also exspand medi-care and medi-caid to cover the indigent and poor, and tax breaks to the ones on the margins. along with the individual mandate.
two of these are the ideas of the G.O.P.
so, it's not totally the dems. healthcare plan. so it hard to say that the ideas used to develope, and the polices of the health care plans never received by-partision support. it started out as there idea.
it's just not there idea anymore, and it also got shoved down there throats. not to mention it'S got that n!gg*&$ name on it now!

The government cant run themselves, how they gon'a run health care.
How many actually ran(not just own) or built a business before getting in power?
Must useless bunch idiots ever assembled on both sides.
If you think they can do better then the private sector, your lost...

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/companies-prepare-pass-more-health-023600385.html

Just posted today, no surprise. Our company is doing the same. Essentially the cost of living will jump 10% in early 2014 due to ACA alone. If it weren't for temporary oil devalue (deal with Iran), the pain would be much worse.

Subject: Hitler finds out Obamacare will not let him keep his doctor
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cgqcra7el14


I will post this in a separate posting also...lol

This is the problem with dogma, the ends justify the means.

The individual mandate is nothing new. Auto insurance has had a similar mandate in most states for years. With that said, at any given point in time nearly 1 in 6 drivers on the road do not have coverage. That is what uninsured motorist coverages are for, to protect against those that won't follow the law or maintain inadequate coverage for the havoc they wreak out on the roadways.

Here is the big difference between auto coverage and healthcare coverage, there is no requirement to provide coverage placed on providers. If you hit another car late at night in a parking lot and drive away(an illegal act in most states) after sustaining damage, if you take your car to a body shop they are going to ask you how you are going to pay for that and if you don't have insurance or the cash to pay, they merrily send you on your way.* Healthcare providers have to provide some level of care, it is required of them by law. This is why the ACA mandates coverage for everyone, so that there is some money around in these situations. It mandates lots of other things which I won't even get into.

As far as Massachusetts, I was there when they rolled out Romneycare. For the most part it has either been repealed or replaced. Two things resulted, they provided all the coverage they anticipated as the percentage of uninsured dropped and the cost of healthcare overall went up as more people became covered/subsidized. The cost increases outpaced most of the rest of the nation during the time period it was in place.

If you want to see how not to structure a system, an excellent example it Personal Injury Protection/No Fault in Michigan. It is unlimited coverage. It has been rife with fraud, underhandedness, and rapidly escalating costs. Continued unchecked it will bankrupt the state. However, this is where business interests are pitted against each other. The hospitals are making a killing on what they bill for it, the insurance companies have a limited willingness to contain the costs as much of the claims expense gets passed on to a third party reinsurer that they "own"/run and unscrupulous family members(not all, many are well intentioned and follow guidelines) extract millions of dollars from the system. Finally, you'll note that Michigan is the only state with such an unlimited coverage mandate. All the other states figured out what a time bomb it was.

*I obviously haven't even mentioned the car that was hit, they are out something also without compensation.

yes, instead of getting insurance for the 15 million or so that didnt have it (some didnt wantare losing it , whether they paid for it and wanted it or not....'fair'?

Just got my December BS/BS bill. Over $1600 for a family on an HSA plan. Plus we deposit over 6 grand per year into our HSA accounts. Still waiting to sign up for a new plan. Ours will cease on 1/1/14.

From what I have seen the best new plan is about the same money for my family of 3. They added some benefits and the deductible goes down.

Don't get me wrong. I am 100% against this whole thing. The last thing we need is more government in our lives!