Sunday, October 6, 2013

Obamacare Raises Texas Family's Premiums

As reported by THV11, "Rori Callaway's family got a jolt recently when they looked at the paycheck her husband, Zach, got from his Dallas public school teaching job: a 30% increase in their health insurance premium. The Dallas family of three stuck with the cheapest plan available during open enrollment, but is now paying $760 a month." "The individual's premium isn't supposed to total more than 9.5% of household income. The Callaways' is now almost double that."

" Karen Pollitz, senior analyst with the Kaiser Family Foundation, says families including the Callaways could still shop on the new exchanges; they just wouldn't be eligible for subsidies or tax credits because subsidies are only available to those who can't get affordable coverage. If the plans become unaffordable for the first time outside of a typical fall-to-fall plan year, they may qualify for a special enrollment opportunity."

Who the heck could afford any of the exchange premiums rates without a tax credit or subsidy!? Have you looked at them!? I did- the premiums are higher and less is covered while all the copays, deductibles and OOP Maxes are increased. It seems to me that Obamacare is a failure for many American families. 

Read the entire article here.

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

Affordable Care Act Fact - A company cannot offer health insurance plans to families whose premiums cost more than 9.5% of the household income. Either Zach's employer is going to have to add in a more affordable plan that also meets the minimum requirements for coverage or the employer will be fined considerably. The other side of this story may be that Zach and his family are choosing a plan that they can't afford and are blaming it on the Affordable Care Act.

Unknown said...

9.5% of your income is a lot to spend on premiums-- especially if you have sick kids like we do and deductibles and medication copays don;t go toward your now increased OOP Max..... we are at 22.5K in OOP medical because of the increased to our deductibles, copays and OOP Maxes. Perhaps this family needed better coverage than the crap plans at the low end of the echange offer. For instance, I looked for our family on the exchange- and the lowest plan that is $300 more than we pay now has a limited doctor list- none of our current docs are on the list and we NEED the SDS and Mito specialists to take our insurance. The formularies don't cover some of the life-saving meds my kids need.... the next few plans have the same limited doctor list that so not include the SDS and Mito specialists nor do the formularies cover certain meds. The plans that are $1000 - $1,200 more have better coverage, but still do not allow us to see the SDS and Mito specialists. The lower end plans have such high deductibles and high OOP Maxes, that we would be worse off than we are now at 22.5K in OOP Medical. So, maybe this is why this family chose the plan they did-- they want the same coverage. Obama lied, didn't he? If we are dumped onto the exchanges, we will be screwed and won't be able to keep our doctors. Not even if we pay more- maybe this family decided they wanted to keep their docs and same benefits and that meant getting a plan that cost more? Obamacare is a train wreck... even people in CA are bitching about it

Anonymous said...

The Affordable Care Act works for some people. I get to keep my doctors (which include a hematologist/oncologist). I get to keep my same plan. Plus, my premiums went down by $4 per month. My company in 2013 will be insuring more people, with the exact same plans as last year, and will be paying $2,000 less per month in premiums. Not only are we not hurt, we are being helped.

Unknown said...

You are one of the lucky few the law helps. It is immoral to cause millions of Americans to go further into debt, increase their costs so they can no longer afford their medical care or medications in order to help a select few. We just found out that our premiums are increasing next year by $1537/year. That's a $3,066 increase since this crap law passed in 2010. Since you posted this comment 3 times, I approved it only once on this post. We are at 23K in OOP medical- the worst in 17 yrs because Obamacare has raised all of our deductibles, copays, OOP maxes, etc. The law crushes the middle class. So be glad you saw a small $4 difference. Our employer is paying 7.4 million more for plans next year........ yep- another company screwed by Obamacare. I posted the letter they sent out back in August. I'd sure like to know what company you work for, because in all my interactions and research, I've not found one company that said Obamacare was reducing its costs- unless they dropped benefits for their employees. No- you don't have to tell me- I was thinking out loud there. It would just be interesting.

Anonymous said...

I have no problem telling you the type of company. I work for an upscale retirement community. We have around 100 employees - from housekeepers and maintenance, cooks and servers, receptionists and office staff, as well as nurses and lpns.
We worked very closely with our insurance broker in 2012 before the open enrollment for 2013 to make sure we found good, quality plans at reasonable costs. We switched over to Blue Cross/Blue Shield, and in doing so, it saved the company a good bit of money while providing better coverage to our employees. This year, we had more employees decide to get coverage, and surprising to us, we saw our premiums go down by $2000/month, even with more employees on the plan. Trust me, we were shocked. I honestly thought they would go up, at least some.
I'm sorry to hear that your coverage is going up yet again. I wish more people were having success stories like I'm experiencing.

Anonymous said...

Who are you a welfare freeloading freebie taker already who wants more free stuff?! Let me bring you up to speed here in Wisconsin as well.

My premiums will go up 135% and I will have less coverage under Obamacare. These are facts not fiction unlike ALL OF Obama's promises.

I already have a $5000 deductable so I could afford the Health Insurance premiums. My deductibles will go up too and will now have a 30% copay which I did not have under my current plan.

Let's look at this for a moment factually. Under my current plan which I like and can afford, a $100,000.00 Medical bill now costs me $5,000.00 OOP. Under OBAMACARE that same $100,000.00 bill will now cost me almost $40,000.00. I can not afford the Obamacare premiums so I will end up with no Insurance at all.

Now whre I could have had s plan I liked and afford to cover my Medical bills,TAX PAYERS will be on the hook for them when I file for BANKRUPTCY PROTECTION under Chapter 7. All because the Obama administration is pushing a communist agenda.

Anonymous said...

Do you live in California? One of about 3 States that will save money. Why you ask ? Maybe its because all of the ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS will now be forced to buy into Obomare!

Unknown said...

I don't think the illegal immigrants can be forced to buy into Obamacare. The IRS enforces it and unless they get SS #s and start paying taxes, the IRS can't enforce it. Just an observation.

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