Obamacare health insurance plans have higher deductibles and co-pays than employer-paid plans. Out-of-pocket costs for most insured people will rise. Low income people will have most their healthcare insurance subsidized, or even free. They may even have out-of-pocket expenses reduced. However they still have to pay some of the deductibles and co-pays. Everyone else gets charged full-rate.
So, while many may pay less for insurance, they may well be spending more for healthcare.
Consider a family of four making $59,000 a year. They will have to pay $400 a month toward their insurance premium, after receiving a subsidy, said industry consultant Robert Laszewski.
“But then, they will get a plan with a $2,000 deductible and hefty co-pays,” he wrote in an email. “The Democrats that say everything is going to be OK really need to go on one of the open exchanges and take a hard look at what consumers will see.”
A family of four could easily reach the deductible. So, that’s $400 a month for insurance plus $166 a month for the deductible, making $566 a month or 11.5% of pretax income, a not insubstantial amount. If anyone gets seriously ill and requires hospitalization, the co-pays will clobber them.
By March of next year, I expect there will be considerable numbers of seriously pissed off people after they get their first few medical bills.