Within my website, I decided several years back to be a nice resource concerning Obamacare. Naturally, we provide much about my dental practice and our brand of delivery of dental care in other sections which we invite you to peruse. However, in this post, we are notifying you about the higher costs coming for Obamacare in 2016.
Through the federal insurance marketplace of Healthcare.gov, the most popular plans are the Silver plans. These plans are the only ones that offer added cost-saving assistance. For these Silver plans, the amount of these cost-savings is a sliding scale depending upon income. Over two thirds of individuals purchasing through Healthcare.gov bought from these Silver plans. As a result, we will focus on them. For 2016, the average premium increase of these plans through the federal marketplace is 15%. For 2016, the lowest-premium plan will be a different plan from what one currently has, much more often than not. A number of new plans have joined the federal marketplace with lower premiums.
For this reason, the Kaiser Foundation, a non-partisan health policy organization, as well as the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, both urge individuals purchasing within the federal marketplace to shop plans. By shopping plans, they say, you can find a lower premium. Based on their research, half of the individuals have automatically-renewed plans, which will not allow for shopping plans. Also based on their research, of those who did stay in the federal marketplace and shopped plans last year, over one-third of them changed their plans. For this coming renewal, they estimate even more individuals will change plans to obtain a lower premium.
With this said, if you are indeed searching for lower premiums, please look at what you may be giving up. Yes, a 40 year-old can save anywhere from $322 to $1000 for 2016. However, what are the changes in the deductible, the co-payments, the provider networks, and in the drug formularies? You want to find this out. Also, be sure to understand what cost-saving assistance and/or tax credits apply to you. Yes, I know this is more complicated than you may want. But this is Obamacare.
The deadline for obtaining care starting on January 1, 2016, is December 15, 2015. Open enrollment for 2016 ends on January 31, 2016.
For more of our posts concerning Obamacare, we invite you to follow this link.
My sources for this information include the Kaiser Foundation, the Washington Post, the Associated Press, and the Huffington Post.
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