Blowing off Obamacare — Idaho shows how

Washington Examiner ^ | February 17, 2017

[re_tail20]

Congressional Republicans failed to repeal or replace Obamacare. But one state has come up with a way to get around it. Idaho is dealing with Obamacare by just blowing it off. If it works, other states seem likely to follow.

Idaho’s Republican governor, Butch Otter, signed an executive order last year paving the way for non-Obamacare-compliant health insurance plans to be sold in his state, and Lt. Gov. Brad Little has since cobbled together what is sure to be the nation’s most controversial healthcare initiative. Their principal intention is to give the people of their state a way of avoiding Obamacare’s monstrous increases in insurance premiums. They want to put affordable insurance plans on the market again.

Obamacare’s spiraling premium increases have especially hurt middle-income consumers, who have had to pay the whole cost without getting the government subsidies that apply to poorer people. Those people have either gritted their teeth and bought expensive policies or, in many cases, chosen instead to break the law, pay the fine, and do without insurance. In Idaho, at least, they will be able to select from among plans that don’t fulfill all of Obamacare’s expensive criteria.

The scheme appears to flout federal law, so there was some doubt that insurers would be interested in participating at all. But this week, Blue Cross of Idaho stepped up and made it clear it would do so.

On Wednesday, the company provided information about one of the five such plans it intends to offer, called “Freedom Blue Standard.” This is designed to be comparable in most respects to Obamacare Exchange bronze plans. The two have similar deductibles, rates of coinsurance, and out-of-pocket maximums.

But there are also a few critical differences. Because it allows some health underwriting, which is pricing based on health, and because it...

[Disambiguator]

BFL

[qaz123]

Catastrophic plans and this, should cover pretty much everyone. And when they do the price comparison for their procedure to the same one at the hospital, it’s pretty gross. But like they say, they have to pay the salaries of all the administrators.

Oklahoma Doctors vs obamacare

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0uPdkhMVdMQ

[lurk]

Introduce skinny fast cheetahs and the slow fat cheetahs will have to either trim down or die.

[Republican Wildcat]

The individual mandate being gone, non-Obamacare plans are now essentially legal again because you can’t be forced to pay a fine on top of your premiums - the individual mandate was actually two mandates - you not only had to buy insurance, but you also had to buy the kind of insurance mandated by the government, otherwise you still were considered noncompliant and would be fined.

[lonevoice]

Way to go Idaho!

[Cold Heart]

Oregon approached it differently. Oregon is taxing hospitals, health care and insurance companies to keep feeding its version of Obamakare. Stupid Oregon voters passed it. Jonathon Gruber is smirking.

[minnesota_bound]

We should be able to buy insurance as an individual from many sources and in a pool of people for the best prices and not force companies to pay for it. More people would keep their jobs. The reason older workers are let go or not hired is the insurance costs.