Submitted by Equivalent_Alps_8321 t3_11tdwl3 in pittsburgh
Aggravating_Foot_528 t1_jcjw0q2 wrote
Reply to comment by B0bb3r7 in Pennie health marketplace questions for new person by Equivalent_Alps_8321
We can thank SCOTUS and the GOP for this in one of their 600 attempts to scuttle ACA, which itself was based on a very popular Massachusetts GOP passed program.
The penality itself was repealed before it was even levied.
Willow-girl t1_jcki9uq wrote
> We can thank SCOTUS and the GOP for this in one
Absolutely! When the individual mandate went away during the Trump administration, my then-boss and his wife were able to purchase an off-marketplace plan that saved them $800 a month. They used some of their savings to give me a raise. :-)
Aggravating_Foot_528 t1_jckj04p wrote
They could have done this before the ACA was partially gutted. If anything getting rid of the individual mandate raised prices because it shrunk the size of the pool and increased risk for insurance companies. Insurance companies were always allowed to sell off exchange plans.
Willow-girl t1_jcksv15 wrote
> because it shrunk the size of the pool
Which is another way of saying, "It allowed people to buy much less expensive policies that they preferred to the ACA-compliant ones."
The horror!
>Insurance companies were always allowed to sell off exchange plans.
Yes, but before Trump repealed the individual mandate, you would be fined if you didn't buy an ACA-compliant plan. The cost of the fine most likely erased any savings that could be achieved by buying a noncompliant plan.
Aggravating_Foot_528 t1_jcl49n8 wrote
the issue, and this is far beyond the scope of r/pittsburgh, is that most aca compliant policies are trash and society was ending up paying for the results of underinsurance, no insurance, or filling in the gaps of terrible policies.
Willow-girl t1_jclbeb5 wrote
I think the problem was that an ever-increasing number of people were going without health insurance, either because they couldn't afford it or because the cost-benefit analysis didn't seem to work in their favor. Therefore, the government had to step in and subsidize policies in order to preserve the insurance industry's profits. This also solved the problem of hospitals giving too much uncompensated ER care to the poor. Healthcare systems, like insurance companies, donate a lot of money to "our" politicians.
It's a pity this couldn't have been done in a way that would actually extend regular healthcare to the subsidized policyholders, but since that was a secondary concern, no one seems to have paid much attention to it. It really doesn't help a poor person to give them a free insurance policy with an $8,000 deductible; they still won't be able to afford doctor visits, or they'll have to pay for them out-of-pocket, same as they were doing while uninsured. They'll only benefit if they have a catastrophic expense, but then they most likely wouldn't have been paying for that anyway. (As the old saying goes, "Can't get blood out of a turnip.")
Aggravating_Foot_528 t1_jcleb2r wrote
The ACA (the non Medicaid expansion part) was 100 percent a GOP developed plan until they decided that they could score political points by opposing anything Obama did.
Willow-girl t1_jcnlymu wrote
The healthcare and insurance industries give lots of money to Republicans too, you know!
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