About those "High Deductible Health Plans"

As time went on, MSA’s evolved onto tax-advantaged HSA’s, but the basic premise was undisturbed: in consideration for the insured taking on more risk, the carrier agreed to a lower premium.

Win-win.

Especially because a young, healthy person could sock away quite the nest egg.

Eventually, though, the ObamaTax came along, with out-of-pockets that dwarfed traditional HSA’s, coupled with premiums that matched what used to be considered the most expensive “high end” plans. So: lose-lose.

FoIB Allison Bell has a terrific new article on the effect that ACA-compliant plpans with ever higher deductibles – and premiums that don’t reflect them – are having on the average person. She cites a new Guardian Life report “based on a recent online survey of about 1,700 U.S. workers.”

And the findings are eye-opening (or cringe-worthy; your call). For instance:

“[O]only 44 percent of the workers surveyed this year told Guardian they had enough cash in a checking account or savings account to pay a $3,000 medical bill.

About 34 percent said they would use credit cards to pay bills that big.”

Great.

And here’s another:

“About one-third of the workers in high-deductible plans said they had skipped what they thought was a necessary doctor visit, avoided a blood test, delayed a procedure, failed to fill a prescription or avoided X-rays because of cost.”

We’ve seen this before: your insurance is too expensive to use. Of course, because plans are guaranteed issue and can’t exclude pre-exisitng conditions, by definition they’re going to cost more – much more – so any savings that were once available to those with higher deductibles is now gone.

#O’CareWinning!