The Biggest Losers: 401%

[Crabcake Johnny]

Allow me to opine and I'll try to keep this as short as possible (I hate reading long posts.)

The biggest losers when the legislation takes full effect are the upper middle class; defined as any household earning over 400% of FLP.

For the upper middle, the effects will be nothing short of devastating. They could be facing premiums as high as $20,000 a year - even for the Bronze plan. Remember that the carriers can still rate based on community, age and smoking.

I'd put it out to this community; who thinks that a household earning $89,000 has $20,000 of disposable income - even 15K and let's go to 10K - which would still be devastating.

This is the problem with drawing lines in the sand; someone who comes out earning 402% gets crushed while someone who earns twice that amount is in a much better position to handle the premiums.

Although you'd think that one remedy would be just to sit out and pay the fine, that doesn't work for any emergency situation. The BK laws have changed and "sitting out" could force them into BK.

So the biggest losers? Anyone who barely crosses the 400% of FPL line in the sand.

 

[Paradigm]

That will be the market that buys outside of the exchange

 

[Crabcake Johnny]

Agreed. Carriers will be selling "exempted" coverage. This does not qualify which means they'll incur a fine however it will like be affordable catastrophic coverage.

 

[moonlightandmargaritas]

The people who feel that they have a "right" to something not contained in the Constitution don't consider that to get their "right" - the fruit of someone else's labor has to be taken away.

An equally troubling facet of this mess that we haven't heard a lot about is the federal government - for the first time - levying a "payroll-type" Social Security tax on investment income.

Bad news.

 

[Full Throttle]

http://www.cms.hhs.gov/MedicaidEligibility/Downloads/POV10Combo.pdf

Link to the poverty level guidelines if anyone wants to reference the 400% level.

 

[Russ]

Allow me to opine and I'll try to keep this as short as possible (I hate reading long posts.)

The biggest losers when the legislation takes full effect are the upper middle class; defined as any household earning over 400% of FLP.

For the upper middle, the effects will be nothing short of devastating. They could be facing premiums as high as $20,000 a year - even for the Bronze plan. Remember that the carriers can still rate based on community, age and smoking.

I'd put it out to this community; who thinks that a household earning $89,000 has $20,000 of disposable income - even 15K and let's go to 10K - which would still be devastating.

This is the problem with drawing lines in the sand; someone who comes out earning 402% gets crushed while someone who earns twice that amount is in a much better position to handle the premiums.

Although you'd think that one remedy would be just to sit out and pay the fine, that doesn't work for any emergency situation. The BK laws have changed and "sitting out" could force them into BK.

So the biggest losers? Anyone who barely crosses the 400% of FPL line in the sand.

If you are just a couple...no children....and the husband makes $60,000 a year, wife doesn't work...with no health insurance...couple pays the full cost!

How much of the premium would be subsidized if the above couple was making 300% of FPL?

I think what's going to happen is...quite a bit will simply pay the fine. Reason...can't afford it.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

http://www.cms.hhs.gov/MedicaidEligibility/Downloads/POV10Combo.pdf

Link to the poverty level guidelines if anyone wants to reference the 400% level.

I was just looking at that exact same chart.