Obamacare: What it will cost here

[ScienceRocks]

Obamacare: What it will cost here

Four companies to offer 31 health plans on new state exchange at a variety of prices.

Obamacare: What it will cost here | Local News | The Seattle Times

For some people, individual insurance plans offered through Washington’s new online exchange marketplace may cost more than those available now, but they will cover much more, state Insurance Commissioner Mike Kreidler said Thursday.

And although people in some counties will have limited choices, as they do now, in most counties the 31 new plans available from four companies will offer a wide range of premiums and cost-sharing options.

The plans, which are being made available under the federal Affordable Care Act (ACA), sometimes called Obamacare, take effect in 2014. The state Thursday disclosed details of the exchange plans, the centerpiece of the ACA.

Targeted groups are mostly people who don’t have health insurance through employers or who have no coverage at all. The law provides subsidies for those buying these plans whose incomes fall below certain levels.

 

[waltky]

Here's what it'll cost...

'Affordable' Care: $1 Pay Hike Costs Middle-Class Family $9,355 Hike in Premiums
August 9, 2013 -- When the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (AKA Obamacare) is fully enforced on individuals and families next year, a middle-aged, middle-class couple with three children could be hit with a $9,355 hike in their annual health-insurance premiums if their annual household income happens to increase by just $1.

Under ACA, all Americans are required to secure health insurance. Those who do not get it through their employer can buy it through government-run health-insurance exchanges, which the law requires to be set up in every state. People buying their Obamacare-mandated health coverage through these exchanges will be eligible for federal subsidies in the form of a refundable tax credit---as long as their adjusted gross household income is between 100 percent and 400 percent of the Federal Poverty Level (FPL). People whose household income is too small to qualify for the subsidy will be put on Medicaid. People whose household income exceeds 400 percent of the FPL will get no subsidy at all.

According to the IRS, which responded to a CNSNews.com inquiry on the issue, a household earning an annual income that is just $1 more than 400 percent of the FPL is ineligible for an Obamacare subsidy, period. As explained by both the IRS—which wrote the regulation governing the Obamacare subsidy--and the Congressional Research Service, which published a July 31 report on the matter (Health Insurance Premium Credits in the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act), the Obamacare insurance-premium subsidy essentially works as a cap on the percentage of annual income an eligible person is required to pay in health-insurance premiums. This percentage-of-income cap gradually increases as a household’s income increases from 100 percent of FPL to 400 percent.

For households with income between 100 percent and 133 percent of the poverty level, for example, insurance premiums are capped at 2 percent of household income. From there, the cap gradually rises until it tops out at 9.5 percent of income for households making between 300 percent and 400 percent of the poverty level. For households with incomes over 400 percent of FPL—even just $1 over, according to the IRS—there is no cap on the percentage of their income they can be made to pay for their Obamacare-mandated health-insurance premiums. “ACA will provide premium credit support scaled to individual and family income relative to poverty such that eligible families and individuals’ premium contributions will be limited from 2.0 percent to 9.5 percent of income,” explained the Congressional Research Service. “Individuals and families with income at or above 400 percent of poverty will be ineligible for premium credits.”

The regulation governing the “premium credit” or subsidy is also calculated on the assumption that the household will buy the second-lowest-cost “Silver” plan on the health-insurance exchange. There are “Gold” and “Platinum” plans above the "Silver" plan and "Bronze" plans below it. Under Obamacare, a household is free to buy a cheaper Bronze plan or a more expansive Gold or Platinum plan, but, as CRS explains it, “if the individual/family enrolls in a plan with a premium that exceeds the premium for the reference plan [the Silver plan], the individual/family is responsible for paying that additional amount.” What does this mean in cold hard cash?

- See more at: 'Affordable' Care: $1 Pay Hike Costs Middle-Class Family $9,355 Hike in Premiums | CNS News

 

[francoHFW]

#1- True
#2- Total Pubcrappe, for hater dupes ONLY.