Purchasing Health insurance for self employed people. (Alpharetta: sales, 2013)

[Mattie]

Originally Posted by AnsleyPark

We just purchased a family plan with Kaiser. Seems pretty good and is more affordable than Aetna or Humana.

We have Kaiser also, and two of our friends have just made the switch after not being happy with BCBS. Kaiser is decent. I'm not thrilled with having to drive pretty far for certain specialties, but we've been happy with the doctors, and have gotten out of network referrals without any difficulty.

The OP mentioned in another thread that his daughter will be undergoing treatment through Emory though.
That narrows the pool of available insurance, and needs to be considered.

[IntentionsRGood]

Originally Posted by AnsleyPark

We just purchased a family plan with Kaiser. Seems pretty good and is more affordable than Aetna or Humana.

I know quite a few people who have Kaiser insurance. They had nothing nice to say about it.

[Mattie]

Originally Posted by IntentionsRGood

I know quite a few people who have Kaiser insurance. They had nothing nice to say about it.

Why is that? The only issue we have run into is their appointment telephone line, which is lousy, and which I've been told is in the process of being upgraded.

It's convenient being able to have appointments, x-rays, and pharmacy at one location. I have had to travel further for dermatology, but I got an appointment quickly and have no complaints about any of the doctors I've seen.

[sunseaker]

Thank you so much for all the input.
Mattie, I will check to see if Emory Neuro accepts Kaiser...it appears that the Emory in John's Creek has a stroke department and advanced imaging which is very comforting so that's good. Our dear daughter has been treated and cleared but it's comforting to know there are services nearby. So, for now we will need only the yearly MRI to consider in terms of neuro. They also have Emergency services at Emory John's Creek.
I will be making some more research today. But does anybody know how much a family of 5 would expect to pay for Health Insurance in GA?
Thank you

[whodean]

Originally Posted by cwkimbro

Yea I agree. It was pretty bad. I knew a few people who got those $2k+ premiums the year after being diagnosed with some long-term diseases

On this note... I'm going to spot out what a fool whodean is for his previous response.

People who are self-employed will pay a small bit more for insurance under Obamacare, however they are the biggest beneficiaries of Obamacare's policy changes as they did not have a large employer pool to protect them once they are diagnosed with a long-term illness.

Insurance companies in the individual market could re-evaluate and negotiate after each calendar year before. Once someone was riskier, they'd jack the prices up as high as they could to push away the sick and keep the healthy. The end-effect is all individual health insurance was only partial insurance. It didn't cover and hedge the costs of long-term illness when people were still healthy.

The sad thing is most people who stay healthy are often unaware.


Under the old system you pretty much insured yourself for the first year. It was good single-incident catastrophes (ie. get in a wreck and get mangled up pretty bad), however you got a long-term illness that would take many years to fight or worse would stick with you for the rest of your life your rates would skyrocket so high the following year many were forced off of insurance.

The problem is there was no way for a person to insure themselves for the future, just the first year.

Under the system now with the stricter rules an individual buyer who is insured and stays insured is truly insuring themselves for future problems that might come up, not just catastrophes that happen in the first year. As a healthy, single 30-something male I am paying slightly higher rates, but I am paying for more insurance protection into the future too. That includes any long-term illness I might be diagnosed with going into the future.

The added protections of Obamacare primarily affected those in the individual market and the uninsured the most and changed very little for those who were already on fairly good large employer pools. That is why the previous system was truly broken for many people. It was faux healthcare.

All fine and good for you, paying a "slightly higher" monthly premium, but I will pay 8 times what I paid for a similar policy (the out of pocket annual limit is actually higher) for my family. We are healthy and make too much for a government handout subsidy, the group that has faired the worse under Obamacare.

[arjay57]

Originally Posted by cwkimbro

People who are self-employed will pay a small bit more for insurance under Obamacare, however they are the biggest beneficiaries of Obamacare's policy changes as they did not have a large employer pool to protect them once they are diagnosed with a long-term illness.

Yep. Obamacare was a godsend to the self-employed job creators. As long as that pre-existing condition baloney was around we were up the creek.

[whodean]

Screws the healthy, exuberantly too.

[cwkimbro]

Originally Posted by whodean

All fine and good for you, paying a "slightly higher" monthly premium, but I will pay 8 times what I paid for a similar policy (the out of pocket annual limit is actually higher) for my family. We are healthy and make too much for a government handout subsidy, the group that has faired the worse under Obamacare.

First and foremost, the policies are not similar for all the reasons I stated above. Fuzzy details people want to conveniently ignore. Had a family member been diagnosed with a 10 year battle with Cancer, liver disease, or something else your policy premiums for an individual would have exceeded $2000 within 1-2 years, even higher for a family.

So you were under-insured, didn't have proper insurance, you're also 6 years older, and/or you're over-embellishing how much your premiums went up.


I went through the same thing in the same region. I know how much it went up and how much it didn't and very little data that isn't made up news supports numbers that high.

[whodean]

Yes, every time I relate my ObamaCare experience a genius like you shows up to say I'm lying.

About 10 million Americans buy individual insurance coverage either on or off the exchanges and get no federal subsidies to help bring down the cost, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

http://money.cnn.com/2016/10/15/news...care-premiums/

[cwkimbro]

Originally Posted by whodean

Yes, every time I relate my ObamaCare experience a genius like you shows up to say I'm lying.



Rising Obamacare premiums anger those paying full price - Oct. 15, 2016

Well genuises like me wouldn't need to show up if geniuses like you wouldn't equate other things to an 800% price hike, which never really materialized (and yes I know from personal experience too).

And all of that forgets that previously the self-employed were only half insured from the get-go.


FYI,

one problem with the article your posting from related to our discussion was a case where a lady went from Employer through COBRA to individual....

That is not entirely Obamacare's fault. Cobra would have previously run out and she still would have paid jacked up prices for low insurance in that scenario.

Even worse, she would have left that pool from the office place. Her case is not that of a truly self-employed individual either. Her first insurance wasn't, her second insurance after her husband's death is related. That was not Obamacare caused. She was going to lose that...

Obamacare increased options besides COBRA that did not previously exist (Weigh options when losing health coverage at work: COBRA or Obamacare? - LA Times), but ultimately what someone chooses to do will vary from person to person and a person's access to COBRA will run out and Obamacare does not affect that.