Well, she'd better come up with a public option if she wins. If she does what she says and caps out of pocket expenses at $250 per person just for prescription drug coverage, insurers will invariably have to make up for the losses by raising premiums, which are already climbing around the country to astronomical levels, despite what's happening in your state slick. If Trump wins and gets rid of the mandate and brings in higher deductible plans, I'm all for it frankly. Next year, getting the cheapest bronze plan, I'll still be paying $7906 a year, just for the
privilege of having health insurance and that's
only for myself, one person, I might add. That's a lot of f*cking money to a retired person! I'd rather self insure and have a vastly higher deductible with a lower monthly premium, but that's not available in Obamacare.
What gets me is that all these big health insurers are leaving many state markets in droves and complaining that they can't make a profit on the high deductible plans that are offered by the ACA. What high deductible plans? A $6200 deductible plan sounds like a pretty damn low figure to me for a deductible. What are they griping about? I'd prefer a $10,000 deductible plan with a lower monthly premium and then pay out of pocket for my usual medical expenses every year, which are pretty low since I don't see the doctor but once or twice a year. I'd save a lot of money every month that I could apply towards health care when and if I needed it.
From my earlier Bloomberg link:
What’s the answer? Hillary Clinton’s platform calls for a $250-per-month per person cap on out-of-pocket expenses for covered prescription drug costs “to provide financial relief for patients with chronic or serious health conditions.” The flaw in her plan is that insurers would have to raise premiums to compensate for losses on the cost cap. That could accelerate the “death spiral” in which healthy people drop insurance because of high premiums, leaving behind only those most costly to care for. “It looks good on the surface, but I hope the average American can see what it looks like on the back end,” says Tyrone Squires, founder of TransparentRx, a boutique pharmacy benefit manager in Henderson, Nev.
Donald Trump’s platform doesn’t even attempt to deal with the problem directly. It encourages high-deductible plans, coupling them with health savings accounts that families could use to set aside money for health expenses tax-free. Such accounts are of most value to families in high tax brackets.
