Obamacare won't save you from making dumb decisions and it won't save you from dying when your time is up.
But with its subsidy, it does make healthcare insurance awfully cheap. Forget COBRA; if you get laid off, you'll want to ignore COBRA and simply sign up for a healthcare exchange plan with its subsidies...well, unless you enjoy paying more than double on lower (unemployment insurance compensation) income.
Of course if you can find cheaper health insurance on the open market, you're not required to buy via the healthcare exchanges. However, you should be able to find cheaper rates on the exchanges anyway, since the exchange creates a centralized point to compare prices, apples to apples. If you try that today on the free market, I say good luck.
I get it, though. If it was a perfect solution, why mandate that everyone earning over $10,000 (individual) / $20,000 (families) buy insurance, on their own or via the healthcare exchanges -- why use a stick when you just need a carrot? For one, the carrot works better with the stick, but more importantly, fewer uncovered patients means slower insurance premium cost growth. (Technically speaking, you just need to be covered 9 continuous months out of each year to avoid penalties, if you want to be really cheap.)
Once people find that their out-of-pocket costs (on the Bronze level) are so low that it'll only require them to cut out one lunch outing a week, they'll be angry that Republicans have been pouring all their energy into blocking Obamacare.
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