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e_blazer

e_blazer

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No, I'm not talking about Tennessee's defense against the Ducks. In case you haven't heard, Cover Oregon is Oregon's implementation of Obamacare....the so called Affordable Health Care Act. As a self-employed person who would qualify to be covered under the program, this crap is about to get very real for me and my wife in a big hurry. Sign-ups begin in October, with the program slated to go into affect January 1 (assuming Congress doesn't somehow pull the plug or it doesn't get delayed by the White House).

I spent a bit of time playing with the calculator for individuals and families on the Cover Oregon website. http://www.coveroregon.com/calculators/individual-calculator/

I'm going to share my personal situation with my fellow S2-ers just so you can see how this thing impacts someone like me.

I'll be 61 when this thing goes into affect (yeah, I'm an old fart, but I've been a Blazers fan for 40 years so show a little respect) and coverage for me and my wife is projected to cost $1,553.00 per month (yeah, that's affordable). Now, there's a sliding scale of federal tax credits that will offset a portion of this cost as long as our Modified Adjusted Gross Income doesn't exceed approximately $62,000 (the cap for a family of 2). If I keep my MAGI to $62,000 my share of the monthly premium would be $491 per month and the remaining 68% would be covered by tax credits. Make a few bucks more and apparently I'd be on the hook for the full $1,553 per month. The Cover Oregon website doesn't say whether that's for a Gold, Silver or Bronze plan, but I'm guessing it's the Silver, which covers 70% of costs up to the out-of-pocket cap.

I'm a land use planning consultant and my clients are primarily land owners, school districts and developers who have to process permits through local governments. As you can imagine, the recession caused a major hit on my business. Presently, I'm considerably under the $62K income cap, but things are picking up again. If I bust my tail and try to add accounts and max out my work load, I could probably net $125K or so. I could dump about $18K into my IRA and HSA, but I'd be well over the $62K income limit and would have to pay my own insurance without any government support. I presently have a health insurance policy that costs $800 per month and bascially only covers major medical. We try to put money into our HSA to cover our out-of-pocket costs. When things have been tight, that doesn't happen. Under Obamacare, this plan can be grandfathered in and allowed to continue, but it has none of the preventive care coverages that are a part of Obamacare. So, as I see it, I have the following options:

1. Continue my present plan, work like a dog and make as much money as I can until I retire at age 66. I'll pay about $5-$10K more per year for my insurance and out-of-pocket expenses than I would if we were under a Cover Oregon plan.

2. File for a plan under Cover Oregon, work just hard enough to max out my IRA and HSA contributions, but make damn sure I don't exceed a MAGI of $62K per year. I'm going to have to do some serious looking at this option to see how our budget would work on this restricted of an income.

3. Go for the total leech option. Downsize my house, pay cash for a car, qualify for Food Stamps and whatever other assistance I can get to make my cost of living as low as possible, have my health insurance paid for almost entirely by other suckers (I mean hard working individuals) and play the system for all its worth.

What scares me is that I don't even know what I don't know at this point. I'm going to have to do some serious research over the next few months.

What a wonderful system.
 
2 things, one, would you please send me some info on this. I am a freelance employee and have no benefits for me and my family and am very excited about this. For just health care for me my wife and kids, I'm spending $1500 a month and it is killing us! I would love to bug you if you don't mind, I have a ton of questions about this.

And two, the commercial with all the people dancing at a BBQ..... These are 3 really good friends of mine hip hop group The LifeSavas. Very proud of them!


Sent from HCPs Baller-Ass iPhone 5...FAMS!
 
Just curious.... Will you guys be paying more or less under Cover Oregon? How much more or less?
 
What do you mean by shit hitting the fan. Anything that can help me afford insurance for my children is a good thing right?
 
BLAZINGGIANTS said:
Just curious.... Will you guys be paying more or less under Cover Oregon? How much more or less?
Click to expand...

You must not have read his post.

e_blazer said:
I'll be 61... and coverage for me and my wife is projected to cost $1,553.00 per month...If I keep my MAGI to $62,000 my share of the monthly premium would be $491...Make a few bucks more and apparently I'd be on the hook for the full $1,553 per month. The Cover Oregon website doesn't say whether that's for a Gold, Silver or Bronze plan, but I'm guessing it's the Silver, which covers 70% of costs up to the out-of-pocket cap...I presently have a health insurance policy that costs $800 per month and bascially only covers major medical.
Click to expand...

Silver will increase your coverage, right? As you start seeing the doctor more often in your 60s, the better insurance will save on his fees more than your current policy. So you should subtract the savings from the cost.

As for your question about how much to earn, it's simple. Keep your Adjusted Gross Income out of the $62-75,000 range. 75,000 = 62,000 + 12 X (1553- 491). Above 75K you make the same dollars per unit of effort that you would have. Between 62-75 you make less, to pay for more coverage, which may pay for itself if the 60s hit you hard.
 
I thought this thread was going to be about that horrible commercial.
 
e, I think the best option for you is #2. Put as much away as you can to defer taxes (I think you can increase contributions at the end) and make 62K/yr . . . determining your salary is the luxury you get being self employed. This might even allow you to cruise a little going into retirement. If you want to work like a dog the last 5 years, there should be ways to invest it in your business and cash it out later. I keep playing with the idea of buying a building and dumping a big part of my salary into paying off the mortgage, then at the end I can sell the building. But ask me, it a no brainer to go on cruise control of maxing out all deferred compensation programs, bring home 62K and enjoying life.
 
HCP said:
Ouch! You're talking about my boys there Nate.
Click to expand...

What bothers me about the commercial is that it is a total stereotype of the portland lifestyle. It is almost like a skit on portlandia.

Sent from my SCH-I535 using Tapatalk 2
 
Are you talking about the BBQ music video type commercial?
 
If so, I think you are thinking too much. I'm biased because those guys are lifelong friends of mine. But it just shows a bunch of family and friends having a great time. And growing up in N.E. Portland, we grew up having get togethers like that all the time. Reading too much into it.......maybe you need to come into the city and enjoy a good old fashioned black BBQ!

[video=youtube;43R_7UKvy2Y]
 
A premium of $1553 sounds like it's Gold, not Silver. Your present catastrophe-only insurance compares to Bronze, so your price and breakeven income will be lower than the above numbers. If you make under $62K you take home $3700 more than before Obamacare, 12 X (800 - 491). So on $62,000 you'll live like $65,700 now.
 
jlprk said:
You must not have read his post.



Silver will increase your coverage, right? As you start seeing the doctor more often in your 60s, the better insurance will save on his fees more than your current policy. So you should subtract the savings from the cost.

As for your question about how much to earn, it's simple. Keep your Adjusted Gross Income out of the $62-75,000 range. 75,000 = 62,000 + 12 X (1553- 491). Above 75K you make the same dollars per unit of effort that you would have. Between 62-75 you make less, to pay for more coverage, which may pay for itself if the 60s hit you hard.
Click to expand...

He could deduct the 10 brain surgeries that he isn't having from his cost, too. It's a wonderful thing this free health care.
 
Incentives matter. How do people think focusing on NOT making money will effect the economy?

As for HCP, quality health care is expensive. Sacrifice is always tough, but there couldn't be a better reason than for your kids. And right now, you health insurance costs may decrease a bit, but they're expected to skyrocket. The quality of your care will also decrease, as with fewer doctors making less money and spending more time on administration rather than care ripples through the system.

There's an assumption in the US that we get as much health care as we want whenever we want it. In Canada, they wait months for an MRI. In the UK, the survival rate for breast cancer is 77%. In the US, it's 94%. I think we can all agree that those 17 percentage points matter more than saving a few bucks on "free" health insurance.

There are those of us who have been screaming at the top of our lungs about the disaster that's looming with the ACA. Few have listened or even bothered to look at the track record of other countries with socialized medicine: more bureaucracy; worse outcomes; longer waits; rationed services; and governing of your lifestyle (as it's the government's business now). And if you don't think we're not on a road to single-payer, you're simply not paying attention.

The only way people are going to learn, sadly, is when they're denied care. There's going to be a lot of pain experienced by people who put their faith in this Administration, and it could have been avoided.
 
e_blazer said:
No, I'm not talking about Tennessee's defense against the Ducks. In case you haven't heard, Cover Oregon is Oregon's implementation of Obamacare....the so called Affordable Health Care Act. As a self-employed person who would qualify to be covered under the program, this crap is about to get very real for me and my wife in a big hurry. Sign-ups begin in October, with the program slated to go into affect January 1 (assuming Congress doesn't somehow pull the plug or it doesn't get delayed by the White House).

I spent a bit of time playing with the calculator for individuals and families on the Cover Oregon website. http://www.coveroregon.com/calculators/individual-calculator/

I'm going to share my personal situation with my fellow S2-ers just so you can see how this thing impacts someone like me.

I'll be 61 when this thing goes into affect (yeah, I'm an old fart, but I've been a Blazers fan for 40 years so show a little respect) and coverage for me and my wife is projected to cost $1,553.00 per month (yeah, that's affordable). Now, there's a sliding scale of federal tax credits that will offset a portion of this cost as long as our Modified Adjusted Gross Income doesn't exceed approximately $62,000 (the cap for a family of 2). If I keep my MAGI to $62,000 my share of the monthly premium would be $491 per month and the remaining 68% would be covered by tax credits. Make a few bucks more and apparently I'd be on the hook for the full $1,553 per month. The Cover Oregon website doesn't say whether that's for a Gold, Silver or Bronze plan, but I'm guessing it's the Silver, which covers 70% of costs up to the out-of-pocket cap.

I'm a land use planning consultant and my clients are primarily land owners, school districts and developers who have to process permits through local governments. As you can imagine, the recession caused a major hit on my business. Presently, I'm considerably under the $62K income cap, but things are picking up again. If I bust my tail and try to add accounts and max out my work load, I could probably net $125K or so. I could dump about $18K into my IRA and HSA, but I'd be well over the $62K income limit and would have to pay my own insurance without any government support. I presently have a health insurance policy that costs $800 per month and bascially only covers major medical. We try to put money into our HSA to cover our out-of-pocket costs. When things have been tight, that doesn't happen. Under Obamacare, this plan can be grandfathered in and allowed to continue, but it has none of the preventive care coverages that are a part of Obamacare. So, as I see it, I have the following options:

1. Continue my present plan, work like a dog and make as much money as I can until I retire at age 66. I'll pay about $5-$10K more per year for my insurance and out-of-pocket expenses than I would if we were under a Cover Oregon plan.

2. File for a plan under Cover Oregon, work just hard enough to max out my IRA and HSA contributions, but make damn sure I don't exceed a MAGI of $62K per year. I'm going to have to do some serious looking at this option to see how our budget would work on this restricted of an income.

3. Go for the total leech option. Downsize my house, pay cash for a car, qualify for Food Stamps and whatever other assistance I can get to make my cost of living as low as possible, have my health insurance paid for almost entirely by other suckers (I mean hard working individuals) and play the system for all its worth.

What scares me is that I don't even know what I don't know at this point. I'm going to have to do some serious research over the next few months.

What a wonderful system.
Click to expand...

So option one is that someone else gets cheaper health care than you, but you still net 115k$/year or you could have option two where you "get it easy" and only make 62k$/year. That seems like a win/win to me. But what do I know, I'm struggling to break 33k$/year.
 
Eastoff said:
So option one is that someone else gets cheaper health care than you, but you still net 115k$/year or you could have option two where you "get it easy" and only make 62k$/year. That seems like a win/win to me. But what do I know, I'm struggling to break 33k$/year.
Click to expand...

And you making $33K a year somehow becomes society's problem? Imagine an entire class of people deciding to "take it easy" and making under $62K rather than striving and contributing and making $125K. Is that the society in which you would choose to live? That's how economies stop growing. And how do you think you pay for all these "free" government goodies when our economy stops growing and tax receipts decline?

It will sound insensitive, but people have the responsibility to take care of themselves. Other people's health insurance isn't my problem. When you're incentivized to have to work harder to take care of your family or attain the lifestyle you want, everyone benefits. When you're incentivized to sit on your ass, everyone suffers.
 
maxiep said:
And you making $33K a year somehow becomes society's problem? Imagine an entire class of people deciding to "take it easy" and making under $62K rather than striving and contributing and making $125K. Is that the society in which you would choose to live? That's how economies stop growing. And how do you think you pay for all these "free" government goodies when our economy stops growing and tax receipts decline?

It will sound insensitive, but people have the responsibility to take care of themselves. Other people's health insurance isn't my problem. When you're incentivized to have to work harder to take care of your family or attain the lifestyle you want, everyone benefits. When you're incentivized to sit on your ass, everyone suffers.
Click to expand...

I guess I should have been a writing major, instead of a Physics major. My point was that it sounds like he isn't in a bad situation. It sounds like he is still better off working hard and making the most money he can. I wasn't trying to blame anyone else for my shortcomings; I was just trying to remind him that not everyone is in his position.
 
Eastoff said:
I guess I should have been a writing major, instead of a Physics major. My point was that it sounds like he isn't in a bad situation. It sounds like he is still better off working hard and making the most money he can. I wasn't trying to blame anyone else for my shortcomings; I was just trying to remind him that not everyone is in his position.
Click to expand...

I guess you should take care of yourself, instead of asking the rest of us to subsidize your lifestyle. For the record, physics majors tend to do better than writing majors (whatever the fuck that major is; my guess is you meant English).

And you're missing the point of his post. He wasn't bitching, he was using his personal circumstance to highlight how fucking insane the incentives are for health coverage under the ACA. It's like the incentives in welfare where you're better off not working, but that's now being applied to the most productive members of society instead of to the least.

To put it in physics terms, think of the incentives as Newtonian laws. eblazer was in motion, and an external force has acted up him. Now he's at rest. Guess where he's going to stay?
 
Eastoff said:
I guess I should have been a writing major, instead of a Physics major. My point was that it sounds like he isn't in a bad situation. It sounds like he is still better off working hard and making the most money he can. I wasn't trying to blame anyone else for my shortcomings; I was just trying to remind him that not everyone is in his position.
Click to expand...

I consider it to be a "bad situation". First, I generally share maxiep's philosophical and economic objections to the entire system. I think productivity suffers when incentives to work are removed. Second, I think that the implementation of this system is horrid. Why isn't there a more graduated fall-off in the tax credit system? I'm being put in a situation where I either have to agree to get by on a really tight budget or pay astronomical health insurance costs. Sure, everything's relative, but when you've got a mortgage, a car payment, and other typical living costs, getting by on the after-tax money from a roughly $5,000 monthly gross income doesn't leave much slush. And, if something unexpected comes along, like a furnace blowing up or something, I can't simply choose to work a few more hours to pay for it or I'll kick my MAGI over the cap and potentially have to pay back a full year's worth of tax credits. Finally, I'm reluctant to give up my current plan because I wouldn't be allowed to go back to it if this whole house of Obamacare cards comes crashing down...as I pretty much expect it to. I don't think young people are going to buy into it because it's economically disadvantageous for them to do so. The penalties for not carrying insurance are much lower than the cost of the insurance and there don't appear to be any restrictions against signing up for coverage when a health problem does arise. Without the young people playing along, this thing simply won't work.
 
e_blazer said:
I consider it to be a "bad situation". First, I generally share maxiep's philosophical and economic objections to the entire system. I think productivity suffers when incentives to work are removed. Second, I think that the implementation of this system is horrid. Why isn't there a more graduated fall-off in the tax credit system? I'm being put in a situation where I either have to agree to get by on a really tight budget or pay astronomical health insurance costs. Sure, everything's relative, but when you've got a mortgage, a car payment, and other typical living costs, getting by on the after-tax money from a roughly $5,000 monthly gross income doesn't leave much slush. And, if something unexpected comes along, like a furnace blowing up or something, I can't simply choose to work a few more hours to pay for it or I'll kick my MAGI over the cap and potentially have to pay back a full year's worth of tax credits. Finally, I'm reluctant to give up my current plan because I wouldn't be allowed to go back to it if this whole house of Obamacare cards comes crashing down...as I pretty much expect it to. I don't think young people are going to buy into it because it's economically disadvantageous for them to do so. The penalties for not carrying insurance are much lower than the cost of the insurance and there don't appear to be any restrictions against signing up for coverage when a health problem does arise. Without the young people playing along, this thing simply won't work.
Click to expand...

I have lately come to the conclusion that the ACA was designed not to work. It's the public sector version of dumping (made popular by the Japanese steel industry in the 1980s). You bankrupt all the private insurance companies. Then the only answer is single-payer.

If my supposition is correct, it is the cruelest means of achieving a policy end in American history. People are going to suffer economically and others will die due to the intentional degradation of health care in this country.
 
Man, if I only had a job that came with health insurance , I know I'd sleep better at night.


Sent from my baller ass iPad FAMS!
 
I'd be curious as to what the younger people on this board who presently do not have health insurance are planning to do with regards to Cover Oregon.
 
e_blazer said:
I'd be curious as to what the younger people on this board who presently do not have health insurance are planning to do with regards to Cover Oregon.
Click to expand...

I am almost 30 and have health insurance. I know it doesn't answer your question, I just wanted to say "I would answer if applicable."
 
e_blazer said:
I'd be curious as to what the younger people on this board who presently do not have health insurance are planning to do with regards to Cover Oregon.
Click to expand...

My work pays my insurance for myself and my family, so it's not applicable. But most of the friends I have my age and a few years younger that don't have coverage are in panic mode wondering WTF they're going to do. Another is getting help from parents, even at 26 (hey, he paid his own way through college, so his parents are jumping in for the short-term to help him out).
 
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