Health - Resources and discussion for everything health-related

3682 readers

18 users here now

Health: physical and mental, individual and public.

Discussions, issues, resources, news, everything.

See the pinned post for a long list of other communities dedicated to health or specific diagnoses. The list is continuously updated.

Nothing here shall be taken as medical or any other kind of professional advice.

Commercial advertising is considered spam and not allowed. If you're not sure, contact mods to ask beforehand.

Linked videos without original description context by OP to initiate healthy, constructive discussions will be removed.

Regular rules of lemmy.world apply. Be civil.

founded 2 years ago

MODERATORS

Awa@lemmy.world

WhoRoger@lemmy.world

RoyalEngineering@lemmy.world

294

Panic tears through U.S. as health insurance costs spike (prospect.org)

submitted 2 weeks ago by MicroWave@lemmy.world to c/health@lemmy.world

61 comments fedilink hide all child comments

The end of expanded subsidies for the Affordable Care Act exchanges means more people will go without health insurance, workers, doctors, and researchers said.

Open enrollment is under way for 2026 insurance coverage, and millions of Americans are facing extreme sticker shock thanks to the end of expanded Affordable Care Act subsidies, which capped Obamacare premiums for a “benchmark” insurance plan at 8.5 percent of income. Twenty-two million people relied on that funding, at a cost of about $35 billion annually.

With the expanded subsidies set to expire at the end of the year, reverting back to a less generous subsidy level last in place in 2021, patients around the country are facing premium increases that are so extreme, they’re either reducing health insurance coverage or dropping it altogether. Some are facing price hikes many multiples higher than they paid last year; those whose costs only doubled told the Prospect they considered themselves lucky by comparison.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] Satellaview@lemmy.zip 45 points 2 weeks ago (3 children)

The article describes this too: healthy people balk at the high premiums, drop their insurance, the pool of people on insurance becomes proportionally more sick people who can’t risk dropping coverage, the insurance companies realize they’ll have to pay out more per person, premiums go up.

I mean, your job might be screwing you over regardless, but there are other explanations.

[–] Vorticity@lemmy.world 5 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

I guess my point is mainly that the increase in price for employer supplied health care is unlikely to be due to the changes in subsidies. It is more likely due to gouging by someone somewhere in the chain. We don't know enough about the impacts of losing subsidies for health care companies to adjust other prices in good faith. Someone is getting wealthy off the changes to that employer supplied health care plan.

[–] AWistfulNihilist@lemmy.world 10 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

I just want to note how ridiculous this point is as well. Not only does it again ignore that the impact to employer programs is listed in the article, you are also wrong about not knowing enough about the impacts.

Insurance companies have been planning and telegraphing these price increases for a year and explaining that the subsidies going away WILL effect commercial premiums, you are making statements from a place of total ignorance apparently.

[–] Vorticity@lemmy.world 12 points 2 weeks ago

Shit, point conceded... Thanks for correcting me.