[quote=joec]Having those policies would be the same as not having insurance at all.
Like if someone sold a home policy and covered nothing, what’s the point to even buy or sell it? Just a scam.
The problem for me is that medical insurance is a required evil unless we want people dieing in the streets. It’d be nice if there was a very very basic policy coverage with limited advanced treatments (which is probably the expensive stuff we have here) so stuff like cancer, you can get no treatment or whatever other countries do to keep their cost down. Sad we aren’t doing everything we can to save people, but doing everything would be too cost prohibitive…[/quote]Agree, joec, due to Obamacare essentially doing away with High Deductible Health Plans (HDHP’s). Prior to Obamacare, these (PPO) plans covered catastrophic events, such as a cancer diagnosis with a typical $5K deductible for an individual (very fair). They also covered at 100% an extensive physical exam each calendar year (incl any blood work ordered by your GP) + 100% of different routine prophylactic exams required annually by males and females as well as diagnostic exams at nearly 100% for those who had a genetic predisposition to certain cancers (ex. a colonoscopy every 1-3 years). For a 50 year-old in good health (proven, previously thoroughly vetted by their carrier), the typical HDHP premiums started at about $175-$200 month.
Sadly, the ACA (Obamacare) has no longer allowed those plans to be sold since 12/31/13. And six of the major US carriers who previously offered them in CA have since left the state’s individual market on that date. A few scattered “grandfathered” policyholders whose carrier remained in the individual market in CA after the passage of the ACA were able to retain their HDHP until 12/31/14, but that was the end of HDHPs as we knew them (because they are not “ACA compliant”).
Currently, the only way to obtain a similar type of insurance (sans all the “100% payments” for diagnostic exams) is to take out “minimum essential coverage” (catastrophic coverage) through a state exchange as SK has suggested here. But one must be 29 years of age or younger (at the time of sign-up) to legally do so.
The rest of us are “trapped” into ever-escalating premiums each year which are beyond our wildest prognostications. Especially those who have individual plans with the state exchange who were 58-64 years of age at the time of signing up for (or attempting to “renew”) their plans.
Hence my argument on this forum ad nauseam why “Obamacare” should be repealed forthwith and I will vote accordingly in the General election (changed my voter registration to “R” last week). I’ve been (and currently am) paying premiums through the nose because my carrier now can no longer by law reject my “brethren’s” applications for coverage … many (most?) of whom now display major health problems of their own making (due to their earlier “lifestyle choices”). I strongly feel that this should not be my problem because of the intensive scrutiny I was put through at “middle age” in order to be accepted into an HDHP (with a reasonably priced monthly premium) by a major US health plan which has since left CA’s individual market in the wake of Obamacare. As a direct result, I was summarily “dumped” onto the state’s exchange with a pool of much “sicker” people than I am who just so happen to be in my age group. At the end of the day, you gotta ask yourself …. why and how did this end up happening to ME??
