Dave, Just to make Pete's point in another way.... Your states insurance commissioners allowed your old plan to exist. It worked for you because you did not find the holes in that policy and you liked the price. Your state's insurance commissioner would deal with the individual complaints for people who fell through that policy. The people could complain and get screwed by their insurance company but that was it. (part of the reason that insurance reform was the issue in the 08 election)
The ACA set a national standard for just what a policy had to cover. So your current policy had to change and come up to the national standard.... Your insurance commissioner must enforce the new law. So, like all insurance, if you don't use some of it... you think you are overpaying... eg materinity care... I doubt you have much need for that but it's nominally included because the law demands non discrimination against women .... Now your insurance company knows you won't need maternity care for you and the family at 50 plus... but they can blame the cost increase on this and gouge you another way.
The solution is to actually have more insurance companies in your state... In some states, one company owns 90% of the market.... it is impossible for another company to come in... find docs and hospitals and start competing. Right now,.... you have your old company.. with their individual plans... and the ACA spec policies offered by your old company but meeting the national standard. ... that is NOT competition that works for you.
In either case, what you are buying is from a private company. There is nothing free market about health insurance tho.... it is just Private and the ACA added some government regulations... eg spend 80% premium on medical payouts or send a rebate... Stock holders of the insurance companies benift because they get more customers with the ACA.
You are not getting goverment health care now... Medicare is public government run health insurance... as is Tricare for the military... as is Medicaid for poor people.. You are not using any of these public systems.
Thanks Mark for explaining the way the new plan is working. I did not like the price of my old plan and it was just high deductible catastrophic insurance, but they did drop the deductible to 5,500 from 10,000 which I have no choice. I have only met my deductible once in34 years so I would rather have a high deductible and put the money I save in a HSA account to pay if I need to go to the doctor. Now I have to pay 5,500 extra each year so no extra to pay for the doctor should I need to go. I do realize that cost were going to go up some because of the new laws in health care just not over double what I was paying. Your explanation of the way the new market place works is not very promising to me to get much better rates since most insurance companies prices don't seem to be that different and I guess the highest deductible is 5,500 bronze plan.
