real life ACA experience

pineinthegrass wrote: I looked at the health exchange prices in a fair amount of detail and here are my conclusions.

You are a loser if you are healthy and make more than about $46K for an individual or $62K for a couple. The policies generally cost more and have higher deductibles and more importantly (to me) higher max out of pocket expenses. And there is a marriage penalty if neither one of you have group coverage which covers your spouse. Just one example (there are many)... If you are both single without group insurance and make about $31K, you both get a large subsidy for individual insurance. If you are married, neither of you get a subsidy and you both pay the full amount.

You are a winner if you make less than those amounts, because you will be subsidized by the above losers.

You are also a winner if you are a retired millionaire younger than 65 and don't make more than the above amounts on your investments. You too will get subsidized by the above losers, even if those losers are in debt and don't have a dime in the bank.

Dealing specifically with Colorado, if you were refused insurance do to health issues, you had to pay a lot more to get Colorado's high risk insurance. From what I saw, the Obamacare policies generally cost about the same as those if you have to pay the full amount.

You are also a loser if you had individual insurance in Colorado with an HSA. Before, you would owe nothing above your deductible. Now you still have to pay for your prescriptions above your deductible until you reach your much higher max out of pocket expense. And in the past prescriptions had a fixed cost like $10-$50 depending on drug tier, but now higher tiers can cost you 30-50%.

Imagine if auto insurance was priced using the ACA model of pricing :driving: