Individual health plan costs plummet 50% in NYS

[Brittain33]

Obamacare has brought some rationality to a broken individual health plan market in the state of New York. Great news for people seeking individual health plans and a nice counterpoint to some of the tortured hypotheticals involving healthy 21-year-olds who qualify for rare bargain basement plans before seeing their rates go up (I forget which conservative pundit wrote that about 6 weeks ago, but it made the rounds.)

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/17/health/health-plan-cost-for-new-yorkers-set-to-fall-50.html?_r=1&

[DC Al Fine]

A positive development.

What's wrong with New York's healthcare market? The prices mentioned in the article seem ridiculously high even by American standards.

[krazen1211]

A positive development.

What's wrong with New York's healthcare market? The prices mentioned in the article seem ridiculously high even by American standards.

Government regulation. New York does not allow health plans to charge different premiums based on age in the individual and family health insurance market.


Thus, all the youngs in NYC are shelling out moolah for the upstate olds.

[Brittain33]

A positive development.

What's wrong with New York's healthcare market? The prices mentioned in the article seem ridiculously high even by American standards.

Ignore Krazen.

The individual health insurance market in NY collapsed in the 1980s because of AIDS, among other things, and legal mandated minimums, plus they have very generous Medicaid benefits I believe. So, basically, no one buys individual health insurance in NY unless they're sure to use it, which means that insurance companies have to charge high rates. Obamacare is good for stopping this adverse selection death spiral by bringing healthy people into the market for health insurance on the principle that some of them will eventually use it, but not all of them.

[jaichind]

This is only relative to completely absurd prices.  Remember, the existing NY
prices are from the following rule: insurance company MUST take on anyone that
applies AND prices for all customers must be the same.  So only the very sick
apply which leads to massive insurance cost.  That it is going down by 50%
means the new NY insurance costs will still be a good deal worse than rest of
the country and for sure way way worse then what it could be in a real free
market

[Brittain33]

This is only relative to completely absurd prices.  Remember, the existing NY
prices are from the following rule: insurance company MUST take on anyone that
applies AND prices for all customers must be the same.  So only the very sick
apply which leads to massive insurance cost.  That it is going down by 50%
means the new NY insurance costs will still be a good deal worse than rest of
the country and for sure way way worse then what it could be in a real free
market

They are going down at least 50%, but in many cases, much more than that. More importantly, Obamacare is introducing a viable, affordable individual insurance market in a state where it did not exist before, and without sacrificing some of the minimum standards that, in the absence of a mandate, drove up rates before.

[jaichind]

This is only relative to completely absurd prices.  Remember, the existing NY
prices are from the following rule: insurance company MUST take on anyone that
applies AND prices for all customers must be the same.  So only the very sick
apply which leads to massive insurance cost.  That it is going down by 50%
means the new NY insurance costs will still be a good deal worse than rest of
the country and for sure way way worse then what it could be in a real free
market

A "real free market" would make many pre-existing conditions a death sentence.

Even if I accept it as a goal to make sure people do not die due to lack of health insurance which I do not accept as a goal. Then my solution is still make the insurance market work like a free market (across state borders free reign on the nature of the plan) and government comes in at the end of the process to give a check of $$$ for people to pay for their health insurance.  And if they choose not to and use that money differently it is their choice.  None of this mandatory stuff.

[King]

"Covered California" reported similar results.  The increase in disposable income and healthcare jobs in states which are actually enacting Obamacare is going to create quite the economic disparity in Obama states versus Romney states.

[The world will shine with light in our nightmare]

Even if I accept it as a goal to make sure people do not die due to lack of health insurance which I do not accept as a goal.

10/10 would rage again

[barfbag]

A positive development.

What's wrong with New York's healthcare market? The prices mentioned in the article seem ridiculously high even by American standards.

Lawsuits and regulation laws will make healthcare more expensive.

[jaichind]

This is only relative to completely absurd prices.  Remember, the existing NY
prices are from the following rule: insurance company MUST take on anyone that
applies AND prices for all customers must be the same.  So only the very sick
apply which leads to massive insurance cost.  That it is going down by 50%
means the new NY insurance costs will still be a good deal worse than rest of
the country and for sure way way worse then what it could be in a real free
market

They are going down at least 50%, but in many cases, much more than that. More importantly, Obamacare is introducing a viable, affordable individual insurance market in a state where it did not exist before, and without sacrificing some of the minimum standards that, in the absence of a mandate, drove up rates before.

But we could have done that without Obamacare by getting rid of community rating and  guaranteed issue.  They were only introduced by Cuomo the elder which pretty much destroyed the health insurance market in NY state.

[badgate]

This is all obviously liberal propaganda

[Marokai Backbeat]

Even if I accept it as a goal to make sure people do not die due to lack of health insurance which I do not accept as a goal.

Anyone who can't agree on so basic a goal as "people not dying" has no place contributing to discussions of policy. That is all.

Do we have some sort of "Ayn Rand villainy mine for posts containing slapstick evil" or something?

[Landslide Lyndon]

Where is Torie to do his usual concern trolling routine?

[7,052,770]

Where is Torie to do his usual concern trolling routine?

"Obamacare has subsidies to help people pay their insurance bills?  Are you sure?  I'm skeptical of that..."

[memphis]

Even if I accept it as a goal to make sure people do not die due to lack of health insurance which I do not accept as a goal.

Anyone who can't agree on so basic a goal as "people not dying" has no place contributing to discussions of policy. That is all.

^^^^^^^
What the hell is the matter with some people?

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Jaichind is one of our more valuable posters, but, yeah, he's not exactly on the side of the angels.

[greenforest32]

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$6,000 to $12,000 a year for individuals and $19,000 to $33,000 a year for families.

These prices are (still) insane.

Just sickening, everywhere you look: http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2013/07/15/2300321/mcdonalds-buget-low-wage/

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[memphis]

I'm not one to defend McDonald's, but poors don't pay retail for housing in NYC, do they? 

[barfbag]

I'm not one to defend McDonald's, but poors don't pay retail for housing in NYC, do they? 

Someone who doesn't like McDonalds is rare.

[bedstuy]

I'm not one to defend McDonald's, but poors don't pay retail for housing in NYC, do they? 

Obviously, poor people aren't renting $3000 a month apartments.  Some have section 8, rent stabilization or NYCHA public housing where the rent can be $200-$400 a month.  Some live in illegally subdivided apartments or cramped room share situations.  Some live out in the boonies.     

[jaichind]

Even if I accept it as a goal to make sure people do not die due to lack of health insurance which I do not accept as a goal.

Anyone who can't agree on so basic a goal as "people not dying" has no place contributing to discussions of policy. That is all.

Well, before I become evil incarnate let me clarify what I said.  For sure "people not dying" should be a goal.  What I meant to say is "people not dying" should not be an absolute goal.  Meaning "people not dying" should be achieved with a certain cost but no more.  We can debate where that cost should be, but "people not dying" is not and should be an absolute goal, at least for me, where we must pursue without regard to cost.  And I suspect my threshold on cost is a good deal lower than most.  But either way I suspect most people will have a threshold as well and not make it a goal without regard to cost.  Or else one simple thing we can to do prevent "people not dying" would be to make all speed limits 15mpr.

My point on Obamacare is that, I am not sure it is worth the cost as it is not an absolute goal for me, and for sure it does it in an inefficient manner. 

[jaichind]

http://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/727416/approved-individual-premium-rates-2014.pdf

Has all the rates.  They look pretty high but for sure better than the disastrous rates before.  One should really look at the silver plan because that is what most people who are reasonably healthy should get.  This some interest to me.   I do plan to retire over the next 4-5 years and I plan to structure my investments to capture Obamacare subsidies if not every year at least every other year, mostly to get back my money that I am paying now on our income over $250K.  How much the exchange will charge will be to some extent the the benchmark on how much I "claw back" from Obamacare since the Obamacare subsidies will just be the difference between 9.5% of MAGI and the premium.  The sum of the differences will be added up by me over the years and compared to the extra Obamacare taxes I am paying.  It will be a personal pleasure when the subsidies I receive will exceed the Obamacare taxes I paid adjusted for inflation.  I will then, this time in the future, want to email Obama and say "You cannot tax me, I will just claw it back.  The 1% cannot be taxed, money will find a way."

[Marokai Backbeat]

You know, people like Krazen or Barfbag are annoying trolls and all, but they're just playing characters meant to upset us. What's truly frightening here is that you mean it.

[7,052,770]

Seems like some sources say 65,000 are expected to sign up. Some say 615,000. Pretty big disparity.