Supreme Court upholds Affordable Care Act

Yeah... let's not repeat that confusion :P

So, I think as a good example, we can take real-world situations.

Let's say you're a high-end American worker earning 120 000 USD/year as a single individual. Normally a typical healthcare plan at this level would be $7000/year for a decent Kaiser HMO, upwards to $15 000 for something like a Microsoft Cadillac plan. Under the new rule I would only pay $4115/year (really?) and then something more than that for the cadillac plan.

Then let's say you're a typical American worker who has a job earning $25 000/year in a family of 4. Your spouse, the lower income earner, earns $15 000/year. Total income of $40 000 before tax. So the healthcare plan is 4% or $1323 max. Previously I might be spending say $3000/year for some really awful plan with lots of copays, now I get a decent plan for $1323. I could have also had no plan whatsoever, and so my expenses have increased by $1323 but medical expenses will drop.

And those listed figures should tell you why 115% of poverty line for the subsidy won't cover much useful. My internship made over the poverty line for four people, but I'd have had a hard time supporting a second person on it when paying for rent, food, utilities, college debts, a two-hour round-trip commute, and various kinds of insurance.

The poverty line for two people is around minimum wage for one, but minimum wage would be lucky to support even one person when you start tallying up actual costs of living.

edited 13th Jul '12 4:54:39 PM by Pykrete

I can't disagree with that assessment, people have basically been not paying for medical insurance when they should be to try to maintain themselves despite the cost of living in America. This is where I find many statistics that OECD and USA uses to be highly suspect, primarily with respect to "cost of living" (where they rate it much lower than say Sweden and then show how awesome American people are) and "PPP", when you have to blow such a great percentage of money on things that would normally be provided by the government in other western countries.

Single-payer is the way to go.

edited 13th Jul '12 5:04:17 PM by breadloaf

@Pykrete: Which is why they also included the caveat of whether or not insurance that costs less than 8% of your income is available.

I got a question: is dental insurance covered under all this, or is that it's own seperate thing?

I'm pretty sure it's mostly separate. I don't know if it falls under the 80% of premiums must be spent rule or not though.

I'm pretty sure dental is separate.

The awkward moment when a Canadian knows more about the ACA than the politicians who debated on it.

Okay so it's a little weird in the USA in that sometimes HMO or PPO might roll in dental/vision. But basically to escape ACA requirements, they just need to make those benefits to be of "additional cost" to the normal insurance, then it's not touched by ACA.

That's primarily why I say it's "I'm pretty sure it's separate" because I highly doubt any insurance company will NOT make it a separate part of their HMO/PPO policy.

^ Really? I mean I didn't see what the congressmen have been saying but have they actually been that clueless? Of most American policies this is one of the lighter reads, though still ginormous for what it should be doing.

edited 19th Jul '12 10:30:51 AM by breadloaf

I've never understood why dental is usually done separately. I mean...it's not like your mouth is gonna jump up and secede from the rest of you.

That's true, it's more of a historical reason. Our original healthcare system was to deal with acute emergencies except that these days we deal more with long-term problems but continue to have an acute-response system. Dental is a long-term care part of healthcare.

http://www.politifact.com/subjects/health-care/

Look at all the lies being spread about ACA

Yeah, dental, optometry, and mental health care is usually covered separately. You can occasionally find plans that bundle them, but it's not very common.