r/Insurance • u/Simple_Ddog • 14d ago
Health Insurance Has Trump Admin destroyed Individual insurance for the Avg. American?
I'm hearing from working class peeps that work 1099, THEY can no longer afford insurance. I'm talking about people who make between $20-30/hr.
Key indicators of this affordability crisis include:
- Widespread Difficulty: 44% of U.S. adults report it is very or somewhat difficult to afford health care costs, and 22% had problems paying or were unable to pay medical bills in the past year.
- Cost Desperation: Approximately 11% of adults (about 29 million people) are classified as "Cost Desperate," meaning they lack access to quality care and have recently been unable to pay for both needed medical services and prescription medications.
- Insurance Gaps: Even among those with coverage, 30% of working-age adults say high health care expenses make it difficult to afford essentials like food and utilities, and 35% report being unable to access quality, affordable health care when needed.
- Disproportionate Impact: The inability to pay is significantly higher among lower-income households, with 64% of those earning under $24,000 unable to pay for care, compared to 8% of white adults and high earners who reported no change in their ability to pay.
I thought the plan was to go back to 'pre-Obama' rates and coverage (excluding pre-existing conditions) ---
What happened?
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u/tankmode 14d ago edited 14d ago
yes
young health family of 4, was quoted 26k per year for insurance (with a 16k out of pocket max, so 42k a year before youre fully covered) . state regulator just approved a 12% increase for next year
it doesnt pencil out for a lot of people to participate in this market
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u/Beautiful_Welcome_33 14d ago
I think it is vitally imprtant to separate the health insurance market from the property and casualty market, but yeah, health insurance in the USA is absurd and unaffordable and pnce you price in what it can actually be used for (ie, price in the cost of delayed care, poor care, inappropriate treatment and the additional costs from iatrogenic disease and injury) i dont think it makes sense.
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u/Whitewater-Fan 14d ago
This isn't new.
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u/actadgplus 14d ago
It’s just so much more worse now. Just compare what the dollar is worth today vs 5 years ago, 10 years ago, 20 years ago, etc.
I’m an older Gen. Xer and both my spouse and I work in Tech. with high incomes and a large family. Even for us we are so cost conscious because we can clearly see that our money no longer goes as far as it used to.
I can’t even imagine how bad it’s gotten for those making $20-$30/hour today vs even just a few years ago.
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u/ohhhhhhhhhhhhman 14d ago
Health insurance is my biggest monthly bill. More than my mortgage. And that’s with a high deductible.
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u/MoPhunk60 14d ago
In my area, prior to the ACA there was over 10 companies offer health plans. Now we have 2. One expensive one with very good doctor networks and one cheap plan with 45 min drives to doctors in network.
The biggest issue prior to ACA was preexisting conditions. We could have taken the money we spend on the ACA and developed an under 65 medicare plan or expanded the ssid rules that allowed people to qualify for ssid(with no benefits outside of medicare).
Look at the stock prices of the major health insurers. They've gotten fat off the subsidies and have absorbed all the competition.
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u/Simple_Ddog 14d ago
The system is corrupt... !
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u/MoPhunk60 14d ago
What happens every time we make large amounts of government funding available without proper oversight, checks and balances?
Medicaid fraud is rampant Military contract oversight is non existent Medicare fraud is rampant Covid money
The list goes on and on.
All government spending should be on the block chain and be available to be properly audited at any time.
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u/Simple_Ddog 14d ago
MORE PEEPS need to go to jail -- the only way to curb corruption is 'fear of the law' ~
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u/MoPhunk60 14d ago
There's no reason all government spending shouldn't be available at all times on the block chain. You can set a small portion outside for national security things but its 2026. We have the ability and the technology to do it. They won't because lots of money gets funneled in the dark.
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u/Simple_Ddog 14d ago
Agreed --- Are you involved in Local Politics? --- I feel this is our only chance.
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u/MoPhunk60 13d ago
I am not. My area is far left and has been my whole life. So much so that Republicans dont even run for certain spots
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u/Simple_Ddog 13d ago
Unless you are talking extremes, 'Republican or Democrat' title means little these days.
-- The real battle is 'Corporations vs Citizens' -- the citizens need to get organized to form a 'formidable opposition' to Big Brother.
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u/Bird_Brain4101112 14d ago
Medicaid expansion WAS a central part of the plan. Republicans stripped that and let the states decide. And the states that didn’t expand Medicaid are the one with the most situations like you describe.
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u/ghost9680 13d ago
Health “Insurance” didn’t have a standard definition before the ACA. You’re referring to junk and catastrophic plans that didn’t cover a whole lot of things.
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u/MoPhunk60 13d ago
I sold the plans and bought them. They had lower deductibles and out of pocket maximums than the plans do now. Again this is in my area. They were not junk nor catastrophic plans.
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u/MikeTheActuary 14d ago
While the ACA/Obamacare did a good job of making health coverage more accessible to more people, and it did a better job of impacting the trajectory of total costs than I expected going in, it didn't resolve the problem that US healthcare is ridiculously expensive and on probably unsustainable path.
In other words, Obamacare was a band aid that the government didn't fully put on, and it didn't actually fix the injury it was covering.
The current administration aggravated matters with what it's done in the past almost 2 years, but aside from the failure to act that transcends admirations/parties, Trump isn't to blame for the "gross cost is expensive and getting worse" element.
The entire money side of the American healthcare industry needs to be nuked from orbit and rebuilt. That would be incredibly disruptive, and politicians don't have the appetite to do it.
Some flavor of Medicare for All would be something in between "band aid" and "nuke from orbit", and it's probably the most (relatively) realistic option to pursue, given political concerns.
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u/Bird_Brain4101112 14d ago
ACA got hamstrung before it did what it was intended to do. The idea was making everyone have access to insurance AND manage premiums. Republicans torpedoed the affordability part while screaming about being “forced” to get insurance. I don’t think I’ve ever seen any of them file for medical bankruptcy.
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u/Shield_Maiden831 14d ago
Yeah, the GOP stripped parts of the ACA that would have helped control cost, like the mandate.
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u/Wyshunu 14d ago
ACA is the PROBLEM. It steals from the pockets of working people in the form of ridiculously high "premiums" so that it can give gold-level healthcare to people who DON'T pay at all for "free". That is financial slavery.
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u/Bird_Brain4101112 14d ago
The republicans stripped all the parts that would have ensured premiums remained affordable while ensuring that children, the disabled and the elderly could still get care.
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u/MikeTheActuary 14d ago edited 14d ago
That's not quite the right way to think of it. Look at it this way:
American healthcare is ridiculously expensive.
ACA was a statement by the folks in charge at that time that the government needed to step in and do something about some people not being able to afford that ridiculous expense. Some folks disagree because of the political philosophies they hold.
If you believe that people should be solely responsible for making sure their medical bills can be paid when they come up, or something similar...then yes, ACA is a problem.
If you believe that society should pool its resources to make sure that people can get their medical bills paid when they come up, then ACA was a good start, but it is a problem that we haven't gone further.
Both of those ignore that the real problem is that American healthcare is ridiculously expensive. "Was ACA good or bad" is mostly an argument about who should pay the bills; not whether the bills are too big.
(ACA does have some provisions that seem to be helping slow the rate at which the ridiculousness is getting worse, at the expense of some unintended consequences. But it was never intended to be an actual fix of that problem.)
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u/Popular-Drummer-7989 14d ago
Dying sooner means less payout for Social Security and services. That's the endgame
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u/Simple_Ddog 14d ago edited 14d ago
That makes sense... (sadly).
I think its called 'Eugenics' !
BUNCH OF MORONs downvoting me, but upvoting above --- dumb MOFOs!
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u/durian4me 14d ago
I am the health benefits administrator for my company. We had a plan in place that was affordable to the company that was a pretty good plan. But when Obamacare came out there became a lot of rules for insurers to follow. The rates sky rocketed. Our company does pay for the health plan of the employees but it's expensive. So not it wasn't a Trump thing. Rates have been going up 8-12% annually for 15 years
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u/ARoseandAPoem 14d ago
The Wall Street journal actually put out a new poll a couple of days ago that 48% of Americans would support Medicare for all. That’s unheard of as of 10 years ago. Something has to give people’s wallets need relief.
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u/Simple_Ddog 14d ago
The country needs a floor plan for peeps who can't afford to break off 15% of their take home for insurance. --- MANY COUNTIES have a 'hospital plan' that covers indigent and working poor.
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u/Wyshunu 14d ago
"Medicare for all" STILL means that people who actually work and earn a decent living will be gouged to shit to pay for healthcare for everyone else, while people who don't work will get it for "free". That is still financial slavery. There has to be an opt out.
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u/ARoseandAPoem 14d ago edited 14d ago
I pay a shit ton in taxes. Our household is 200k. How about instead of it going to wars it just goes to health care hmmm. That’s on top of the 30k I pay in premiums yearly to bcbs. I literally can’t afford a home because as a SN parent I can’t go without healthcare. 30k a year I could pay a mortgage with.
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u/ARoseandAPoem 14d ago
Are you aware we effectively have the same tax rate as Canada and yet we receive less than half the social services they do? It’s about where our money goes. I don’t need another fighter jet or submarine. I need healthcare that doesn’t cost an arm and a leg.
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u/Low_Dig3356 14d ago
Some people forget that early-ACA financially destroyed the upper end of lower class. Households making just slightly too much money to qualify for free Medicaid or heavy subsidies, but not enough to comfortably absorb premiums. Guess what happened if you were in that group? You got fines in your taxes for not being poor enough, while not being able to afford to healthcare. The other thing people seem to forget about early ACA is how high the deductible were. It wasn't uncommon to see deductables over $10k
The difference now is that it has expanded from upper-end of the lower class through to the middle class.
I am not saying now is better. I'm saying for a lot of people it's just par the course.
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u/Wyshunu 14d ago
I have an HDHP that costs me almost $200 a month and covers NOTHING until I meet a $6500 copay every year. Why am I paying $2400 a year for "insurance" that I still have to pay another $6.5 k in premiums before they do ANYTHING? Won't be renewing this year. If I have to pay out of pocket anyway there's zero point in wasting money on "insurance" that is only going to pay the insurance company's operating costs and then helping to cover other people's medical bills. I can put that money currently going to my HSA into a separate HYSA that is there for me to use for ANYTHING I need done without having to make sure it "qualifies" first.
It was NEVER a sustainable model to have that "insurance" middleman overriding what the doctors say you need, all with the absolute LIE of "reducing your costs". Then they tried to make it mandatory so they could further gouge anyone who dares to actually work and earn a decent living for far more than they would EVER actually pay for their own healthcare because somehow now they're responsible for EVERYONE ELSE'S healthcare (SOCIALISM!!!!). It all just needs to die. Go back to the old way of paying your own darned medical bills and applying for charity if you need it as opposed to feeling entitled to steal money out of other peopl's pockets.
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u/VisualProfessional12 14d ago
I haven't been able to afford health insurance for over a decade. Even had to pay a fee while filing my taxes for not having it. The healthcare system in this country is so f'ed and the government simply does not care. Even if we got a government that actually cared about the citizens, it's going to take years to fix this mess
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u/InsuranceAndChill 10d ago
I think the bigger issue is that Obamacare made insurance more accessible, but it never really solved the underlying problem: healthcare in the US is insanely expensive.
Now you have people who are self-employed or 1099 making $20–30/hr being asked to spend thousands a year just to have coverage, before they even get to the deductible and out-of-pocket max.
The subsidy changes definitely made things worse for a lot of people, but even with the subsidies, the underlying cost of healthcare is still the problem. You can only subsidize a broken pricing system for so long before someone has to actually address the cost.
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u/RH558 14d ago
Strange that you blame it on Trump when you mention going back to pre Obama rates. You literally named the culprit there..
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u/Simple_Ddog 14d ago
Can you expound --- You think Obama's plan is causing todays affordability issues?
Appreciate the input...
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u/Brave_Strategy_3275 14d ago
I can afford it, but I'm not paying nearly $1,000 a month for mediocre coverage.
I stacked a 12 month short term plan that includes prescription and wellness coverage ($170/month premium) with an injury policy. Total premium is about $200 a month, and I'll reevaluate in a year.
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u/Simple_Ddog 14d ago
Nice...I think that's a smart way to go (especially if you are healthy)
so you went with 'short term medical' --- have you used it ?
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u/Brave_Strategy_3275 14d ago
I have not, and my hope is not to have to.
I am fortunate that I also have access to extended family in Latin America who supply maintenance prescription medications for literally ~20% of what they cost in the US (without insurance), and I have a doctor in the family locally who can provide some degree of care should I need it.
It's not exactly a perfect solution. I wish I could pay $300 - $400 a month for a decent ACA-regulated plan and not have to do all of this, but plans like this quite literally don't exist.
I've also maxed out the med pay on my car insurance for an extra ~$25 a year.
My thinking is my routine prescription needs are handled by extended family and I get a few wellness visits a year under my short-term plan, so my main risks are either some sort of freak injury (the short-term policy and injury policies should kick in), a car accident (car insurance med pay, plus the short-term policy, and the injury policy should pay), or I get diagnosed with some catastrophic illness *knock on wood* and ride out the short-term plan until open enrollment opens up and I can buy the best ACA plan possible since there are no pre-existing condition exclusions. Perhaps I could even fire myself from my company to force a qualifying event and get ACA coverage sooner.
If I get hurt while traveling, I have an Allianz plan for ~$200 a year which will cover that.
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u/czervik_coding 14d ago
No, Obama did....forcing people to buy insurance (except for members in elected positions) was way I stepping. Handed control right over to the insurance companies
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u/Brave_Strategy_3275 14d ago
That's not really true. Forcing everybody to carry insurance helps eliminate the "free-rider" problem.
If I don't have insurance but I get hit by a car, the ambulance will still take me to the hospital, and I will be treated - irrespective of my ability to pay. Someone still has to pay for that.
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u/Simple_Ddog 14d ago
The Hospitals are making so much money, and there's usually 1 county hospital that takes indigents.
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u/czervik_coding 14d ago
My point is that the government should never be involved in our healthcare. It should be between the doctor and the patient and not the doctor insurance company and the government and lastly the patient.
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14d ago
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/Simple_Ddog 14d ago
Its not CHAT --- knuckle-head.
I was talking to some neighbors who work in restaurant biz. The same old chit --- the world hates the poor!
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