Just got new health insurance RATES!!!

we just had company meeting about health insurance rates. They were too afraid to tell us how much it went up, just handed out pricing on our way out of meeting. 35%! increase!! Looked back at when I started 7 years ago, plan prices have gone up 350%. If we are lucky we get a 2% raise, which doesn't even cover inflation let alone health care costs or gas...

How much are we suppose to take? How much longer can we take it? I make just too much to qualify for any "social programs" and make too little to afford what my parents had (have). Wife is home with toddler because after taxes/gas/child care we would loose money if she got a job. I'm a broken man today. I will have to ramp up my part time job of scrapping and cut even more costs. Well that's my rant for today...

I'm in the same boat as you. My kids started school this year but even with gas prices there are not that many opportunities for jobs to break even.

The updated better plan has really helped people out, not. My brother who is an independent truck driver is also struggling with the "new" better government compliant plan.

I have health insurance from my 20 years of service in the Marines. I have no reason to complain but I will let you know my prescription co-pays are up between 3-5 times. Other costs have gone up and benefits continue to be taken away. This is how the retired military are being treated I know you guys are just political fodder for the clowns in charge.

I wish you the best of luck but you are being squeezed for political reasons(this is just my opinion). I see ANY solution that will fix these health insurance high costs. Mike

< Still shaking my head in disbelief >

I'm self employed and when the law was passed that everyone had to go buy insurance i checked out the cost. For my wife & myself it would be as much as our monthly mortgage.

That's just not gonna happen ........

The people making the laws have completely lost their minds.

The best way to bring healthcare costs back under control ? Outlaw insurance ! One way or another you ALWAYS pay so why not cut out the middleman ?

If folks had to pay out of pocket for the services they receive it would sort things out in a hurry. >:)

Elections have consequences.

What makes you think that without the new laws health care would have gone down at all?

http://www.motherjones.com/files/ima...ecd_growth.jpg

This chart is from way before the new insurance act, if anything more people into the system has made the skyrocketing costs slightly better not worse. Sure plans that covered much less were cheaper, but why pay for insurance if whatever you get is a pre existing condition and not covered at all?

Self employed people get a small fine if they don't have insurance (assuming you get a refund on your federal taxes), its not like you have a gun to your head.

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Originally Posted by unknownk

What makes you think that without the new laws health care would have gone down at all?

http://www.motherjones.com/files/ima...ecd_growth.jpg

This chart is from way before the new insurance act, if anything more people into the system has made the skyrocketing costs slightly better not worse. Sure plans that covered much less were cheaper, but why pay for insurance if whatever you get is a pre existing condition and not covered at all?

Self employed people get a small fine if they don't have insurance (assuming you get a refund on your federal taxes), its not like you have a gun to your head.

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But we were promised health care costs would go down. Now we can't even afford the health insurance we are "required" to buy. My wife (who was covering me) just had the insurance premium go from $250 a month to $550 a month. It was bad enough when I just had to worry about paying for health problems. Now I have to worry about paying a mortgage payment for insurance that does not pay for health problems... and I still cannot afford to pay for my health problems. He!!, if I had the $500/mo to pay for health insurance, I would be making payments on my student loans.

My wife right now has great health care.. but after 20+ years of working for "the man" she is itching to get out there and work for herself as I do. With that "leap" I have only just begun to delve into the "self employed healthcare arena" And from what I have seen so far it it ridiculous!
The only + is that as a self employed individual you are able to write off every cent of health care premiums.. but you still have to make that $300, $700, $900 or whatever astronomically crazy # you have to pay each month. Which never helps in the short term.

Just started my digging in. I want so very much for my wife to be able to make the leap to self-employment also.. but we will have to crunch the numbers and come up with a stellar plan to "pull trigger"

Having 2 little ones and not a substantial health plan is just a really dumb thing to do.

So I feel your pain my man.

I have a bachelors in Electrical Engineering and work as an Electrical Designer for a $30-40M company. I have a wife and son 1 newer car 1 older car and a 3 bedroom ranch. Wife just finished her RN degree and between us we have $60,000 in student loans. I have to do eWaste, scrap wire from work and try to sell reconditioned computers to make ends meet. Luckily I enjoy it and its a part time job that I can mostly do from home.

House went up for sale last week and we are moving into her grandparents basement apartment. I don't ask for pity, I sure can spend money; but I budget down to the penny and keep the wife from spending like I know she wants too... and its not enough. I heard a lot about the working poor and finally realized that my family falls into that category. Once my wife gets rolling as a nurse things will improve but for now we are getting squeezed hard! This website and all your mostly friendly advice probably saved us from claiming bankruptcy. Thanks SMF family, hang tough

Jiffy-
I hear you man. Both my wife and I have degrees. We wiped out our college loan debt, we own both our cars, we live very modestly. No $60K truck for me.. No BMW for her. We own a 3 bedroom older home that I have put 10 years of "sweat equity" into.. and we still run tight from time to time with things. It is tough to make a living sometimes.. don't want to get on the "we're being taxed to death" but geesh.. trying to survive sometimes is hard! I bill 45-50 hours a week, my wife works full time.

The kiddos do small activities like cheer, my son and I attend free lego club nights. Our "splurge" is going to a dinner out or a movie at a theater. When we go- sometimes we don't even buy the candy, popcorn and soda. And we work our arses off. Keep on keeping on man.

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Originally Posted by jiffy117

we just had company meeting about health insurance rates. They were too afraid to tell us how much it went up, just handed out pricing on our way out of meeting. 35%! increase!! Looked back at when I started 7 years ago, plan prices have gone up 350%. If we are lucky we get a 2% raise, which doesn't even cover inflation let alone health care costs or gas...

How much are we suppose to take? How much longer can we take it? I make just too much to qualify for any "social programs" and make too little to afford what my parents had (have). Wife is home with toddler because after taxes/gas/child care we would loose money if she got a job. I'm a broken man today. I will have to ramp up my part time job of scrapping and cut even more costs. Well that's my rant for today...

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Is there any part of your computer or scrap projects you wife can do a little bit of during the day? maybe find leads for you to check out, or take something apart.

While your talking about Obamacare check out what the originator of it was quoted as telling someone. Something about the American people are stupid. This is from A fact check site.

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“This bill was written in a tortured way to make sure CBO did not score the mandate as taxes,” Gruber tells the audience with a smile. “If CBO scores the mandate as taxes, the bill dies.” … “Lack of transparency is a huge political advantage,” says the MIT economist who helped write Obamacare. “And basically, call it the stupidity of the American voter or whatever, but basically that was really, really critical for the thing to pass.”

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WaPo fact check: Yes, Gruber got $400,000 for ObamaCare work « Hot Air

I;m in the same boat. I like our coverage. I thought we could keep it. But, nope. Our plan is being discontinued. We'll end up paying about 35% more, for a lesser plan.

I work until 11PM at night, and start at 6:30. I haven't taken a day off in... have I ever taken one off for leisure? The politicians that did this will get theirs someday. But, that doesn't help in the meantime. My truck is approaching 30 years old. I can't afford much of anything, so I'll be keeping her for life apparently. I sacrifice everywhere else, too. I'm debt free, and that's worth it.

Instead of giving my money to a bunch of fat ******** who lay on their couch all day, why can't we do something? Give them good kick in the rear, and help support small businesses. We're the ones keeping the country going.

< /Rant>

What are you all worried about??? As soon as the lame duck in office uses his "executive right" and gives 5 million illegal immigrants permanent residency, there will be 5 million more "citizens" paying into the health care system so all the rates should go down. C'mon people things are getting better, just trust in your "elected" leaders.

Btw anyone know how his trip to China went? Funny how he comes back from there and he has all these ideas on how to make things right. anyone see the "Manchurian Candidate" ???? If you haven't you really should!!!!!

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Originally Posted by jiffy117

I have a bachelors in Electrical Engineering and work as an Electrical Designer for a $30-40M company. I have a wife and son 1 newer car 1 older car and a 3 bedroom ranch. Wife just finished her RN degree and between us we have $60,000 in student loans. I have to do eWaste, scrap wire from work and try to sell reconditioned computers to make ends meet. Luckily I enjoy it and its a part time job that I can mostly do from home.

House went up for sale last week and we are moving into her grandparents basement apartment. I don't ask for pity, I sure can spend money; but I budget down to the penny and keep the wife from spending like I know she wants too... and its not enough. I heard a lot about the working poor and finally realized that my family falls into that category. Once my wife gets rolling as a nurse things will improve but for now we are getting squeezed hard! This website and all your mostly friendly advice probably saved us from claiming bankruptcy. Thanks SMF family, hang tough

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I feel your pain. I highly reccomend you give this guy a try. He has free pod casts so you can make a judgement without ANY cost or obligation. If you believe this forum can help you then believe this guy can help you deal with your fincial problems. Best of luck, Mike

http://www.daveramsey.com/specials/w...Fe7m7AodF3wAkw

I'm ashamed to admit it but this mess started here in Maine. It began with the Dirigo health plan back in the early 2000's. Remember thinking to myself that this state sponsored "universal health plan " would be insolvent in no time. It limped along for awhile and then collapsed. In it's present incarnation it's the medicaid program for the poor.

From there it traveled south down into Massachusetts and New York. I haven't followed it closely but i guess it's been mandatory to have health insurance in those states for awhile now. ( Well before Obamacare came out. )

Those, left of center in congress, have had a single payer system on their agenda since at least the Clinton years. When they finally got a majority again they tried to push it through but were stopped dead in their tracks by the congressional budget office. The CBO advised them that there wasn't anywhere near enough in the federal budget to make it work.

They had to save face politically so they pulled a complete cop out and just told everyone to go buy it. ( Much like the Swiss system.)

Ta-Da ! Just like magick you now have universal healthcare in Amerika !

You can't really put this on the president because Romney (R) would have supported it had he been elected. He was sitting as governor in Mass. when the state requirement to purchase insurance was pushed through.

It's still an unworkable idea. It's destined to fail because there isn't enough money to make it work.

I wish they would have taken an object lesson from how it worked out here in Maine all those many years ago. It would save us all a lot of heartache.

As for the fine -or- tax for being uninsured ? It's just a small one in 2015 but it's scheduled to increase every year thereafter till it's equivalent to what you would be paying for health insurance.

Yep ... there's a gun to your head. If you fail to pay your *ahem* tax they will seize your property & maybe even put you in jail.

All because there's no money in YOUR budget for health insurance.

Wait till this gets rolling. The public is going to be furious with the government.

The real issues is insurance companies want to make lots of money, private hospitals want to make lots of money. Health care in the US just lines a few mega corporations pockets while giving the minimum in actual healthcare. Every other country has free (as in everyone pays taxes) healthcare, and they make sure you visit the local doctors for checkups to get at minor issue before it gets major. Here we put bandaids on issues with costly drugs so you can keep doing your unhealthy things until you end up in emergency and then they can pile on the costs. The vast majority of those costs come in the last 6 months of your life giving you treatments that just prolong the agony and cost tons.

We are born to make a few people money any way they can get it.

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Originally Posted by Mechanic688

While your talking about Obamacare check out what the originator of it was quoted as telling someone. Something about the American people are stupid. This is from A fact check site.

WaPo fact check: Yes, Gruber got $400,000 for ObamaCare work « Hot Air

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He was also paid by a handful of states $400-$500k to consult on setting their state exchanges.

Our premium for a family of 5 is more then our mortgage...we have had the same HMO for over 20 years and were happy with it, but our plan was yanked last year and now we have to pay premium + copay + deductible where as before the copay covered everything.

For what we pay now we were able to cover our family and 100% of 6 employees, back in the 90's.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G790p0LcgbI

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t7IlKhqJPH8

Four years was not enough, we had to go for eight????????

The reason that health care costs have not gone down, is that people do not realize that they are eligible for subsidies though the ACA. Over 60 percent of Americans are eligible. Yes, the new plans are more costly, but chances are that you can actually pay less if you just apply for the subsidies. "Back in the 90's" was a long time ago, everything was cheaper then because it was 20 years ago. Do your homework, and you will save money.