Tuesday, October 08, 2024

If You Like Your Healthcare Plan - Well, You Can't Keep Your Healthcare Plan

Got a letter from my health insurance provider.

Due to Obamacare regulations, the grandfathered status of my health insurance plan expires in 2025, and I can longer keep my plan.

The plan that I had, while a high deductible one, had a $4,000 individual out of pocket deductible after which practically everything was covered moving forward.  I only hit that cap in two of the years I've had the plan.  Very simple - hit the cap and no copays for in-network care moving forward. As plans go, it did what it needed to do at a relatively (for definitions of relatively) reasonable cost, would cover what I needed, has a good network, and does provide some useful discounts.

But, as a result of this ending of the grandfather period I need to switch to an Obamacare-approved plan.

All of the approved plans have higher individual deductibles, around $7,200-$8,000 rather than the $4,000, and all now have copays or coinsurance after the deductible is met. And some have much higher coinsurance, up to 100% to be covered by me for certain tiers (whatever the heck a tier is) compared to 0 now. So I have a out-of-pocket cost that is pretty much 100% more than I had before add in the new copays and it's over 100% easily.

The new plans offer more costs and less coverage. But hey, they offer maternity coverage - which I really don't need.

On top of that, these compliant plans are at a minimum 20% (with  potential out-of-pocket costs that are staggering) to 60% more per month (with  potential out-of-pocket costs that are less staggering but much more than I need to pay now) to again get less coverage and have to pay more out of pocket than my current plan.

So under the new Obamacare plans, I will pay more per month for the insurance, and more out of pocket when health care is actually delivered.  

I will be paying way more than double my current costs for health care to get less, whichever plan that I choose.

What a really wonderful deal.

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