Obama care will hurt a small segment of the self-insured market

[Sgent]

I just wanted to point out that some of the attacks I have seen are a bit over the top or incorrect. In general the ACA will lower rates and provide better coverage for everyone -- but there are some losers.

The losers are those who meet the following criteria:

Make more than 45,000 / year, are male, under 40, have no current health issues, and are sterilized / impotent with no plans to adopt. OR

Are a child with no health issues and who have not reached puberty and have a family income over 400% of the poverty level.

Even they will gain two things under the ACA:

Mental health coverage
Unlimited lifetime benefits.

That being said, the actuarially will come out on the wrong end of the ACA.

For everyone else either the premiums will be less, or the coverage much better, or both. Even for young, healthy, females who cannot get pregnant have much higher costs in the individual market.

[Hoyt]

1. They also get elimination of "pre-existing" and security, but your point is correct.

Hopefully, the burden can be reallocated, or the overall health system improved.

[Sgent]

3. The pre-existing

part was covered by the "healthy" part -- if they had a pre-existing condition they either wouldn't have insurance or it would be much more expensive.

It does provide a bit of security in that rates cannot be raised as easily, I did forget that.

[Hoyt]

4. He could develop asthma, or worse, tomorrow. Before, he would have been stuck with that

policy, or beholding to employer coverage.

Otherwise, I do think younger folks like OP are getting hit a bit hard right now.

[Sgent]

5. Yea

but once the policy is in place its not really an issue as long as you keep your current policy. In every state I'm aware of they cannot raise rates on an individual, but rather have to on their entire pool.

That being said, over time the pools get smaller as people get different insurance companies or drop coverage for other reasons.

All said, the single male making over 40,000 at a job which doesn't provide insurance will get hit some, but I'm not really that concerned (as a single male under 40). The ability to get insurance on the individual market is huge for this age group given how many have jobs w/o insurance, etc.

[Hoyt]

6. For years I paid for an individual policy while under employer's insurance, so that

I could tell them to stuff it and leave without worrying about insurance.

Now, people don't have to worry about that.

[seveneyes]

2. There should have been a tax rebate or supplement for these victims

Or those making over six figures should be covering the excess.