Money For Nothing

Last night I got on healthcare.gov and checked out what it would cost to insure my family of five through the exchanges. More than $12,000/year for Bronze plans with family deductibles as high as $12,000

Up to $24,000 per year in out-of-pocket medical expenses before I get anything at all for my money (because the money you pay for insurance you never use is a medical expense).

The premium cost is actually less than my 2014 employer-provided insurance (which is more than my 2013 insurance, with worse benefits, because my existing plan was canceled due to Obamacare. If you like your plan....), but my employer subsidizes 80% of my premium, so I don't feel the bite so much. But the bite is still there, if I pay attention, because that 80% "subsidy" is money the company could otherwise pay me directly in salary!

It's the deductible that's radically different. Currently, my deductible is only $1,200 for the family -- a tenth of the Bronze plan deductible. A $12,000 deductible means your insurance is really catastrophic health insurance, but it's priced like comprehensive health insurance, because after the deductible it covers all sorts of ridiculous things.

Pre-Obamacare, if I could have arranged for the company's share of the premium to be paid to me and bought my own insurance, I would have. But that's not an option under the perverse, industry-warping set of tax incentives we're saddled with.

We are not a heavily medicalized family. We don't go to the doctor at the drop of a hat. We typically don't meet the $1200 deductible, no less the $12,000 dollar deductible. All I would really want is catastrophic health insurance. I'm totally good with paying out of pocket for non-catastrophic expenses -- I can manage my own money, thanks. But I am now prohibited by Obamacare from buying catastrophic insurance through the exchange because I am not under 29.

I'm so grateful that a bunch of politicians and bureaucrats in Washington know what's best for me.

That's the ultimate indignity of the nanny state -- the presumption of incompetence.