Hypocrisy (Warning--Health Care Thread)--updated

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 mbro wrote:

OPBN, your insurance shouldn't change.That's weird that your wife's company doesn't just offer coverage for spouses I figured that was standard procedure. Isn't she a teacher?

Also the insurance exchanges are what you'd be looking at since you're not poor or high risk, the pool thing you were talking about was a temporary thing for people who have pre-existing conditions before the law goes fully in effect. The exchanges are basically a website and a phone line that will make buying insurance easier and explains the terms to you. It allows comparison shopping. 

I'm not so sure about that TBH. My wife works for the local school system and we take the insurance offered. Under the policy that they brought in a couple of years ago, they only will allow me on the plan if I either have no insurance under my employer or the insurance offered by my employer is considered an unreasonable burden. In other words, if my employer did offer insurance, but paid no part of it and cost $1k/month, it would be considered unreasonable and they allow me to stay on the plan. During the transition, one of her co-workers husbands had to be taken off of her policy and take the insurance offered by his company. 

As it is, our insurance costs have gone already over the past few years. When my wife started 8 years or so ago, our entire insurance costs were covered. Now we are paying a couple of hundred dollars a month AND having to take a policy where we are out a significantly higher out of pocket amount. We were already discussing whether or not we would change our policy to the even higher deductible policy to lower our monthy costs. If I am booted off of this policy, our costs will go up even more, which I seriously think may be a possibility. My wife is going to call when she gets back into town to see if the person that handles the insurance has some insight to this. 

It's really easy to say that nothing will change, but some very smart people seem to be unsure of exactly how all this will play out. I hope it does work out, but If I have to start paying higher insurance premiums because I have to get my own policy and I have to pay higher taxes, things are going to seriously suck. I thing some serious reprecussions on the economy could be ahead. 