Deeming Regulations have been released!!!!
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No it's not 100% of their pay, but it is generous: Congressional Pensions Update - FactCheck.org
I have actually considered running for something like a senate seat, just for the lifetime benefits.
In the 4 years since Obamacare my rate went from $318/mo to $568/mo. Then this past December they cancelled my plan and wanted to put me on a "comparable" plan for $868/mo. This "comparable" plan had twice the deductible. So in four years my cost went up 270% and was a worse plan. And no, I did not have any health problems and had not seen a doctor in those 4 years. Anyone care to ask me what I think of the Affordable Care Act?
In the 4 years since Obamacare my rate went from $318/mo to $568/mo. Then this past December they cancelled my plan and wanted to put me on a "comparable" plan for $868/mo. This "comparable" plan had twice the deductible. So in four years my cost went up 270% and was a worse plan. And no, I did not have any health problems and had not seen a doctor in those 4 years. Anyone care to ask me what I think of the Affordable Care Act?
I keep telling people the name is misleading. It should have been called the "Unaffordable and Unusable Health insurance Act".
But, but, but I'm supposed to feel good that I was able to help subsidize other people's health insurance.
Currently, members of Congress are eligible for a pension dependent on the member's age at retirement, length of service, and salary. The pension value can be up to 80% of the member's final salary. In 2016, Congressional pay was $174,000 per year, which, at an 80% rate, equates to a lifelong pension benefit of $139,200. All benefits are taxpayer-funded.
Read more: How Congress Retirement Pay Compares to the Overall Average | Investopedia https://www.investopedia.com/articles/markets/080416/how-congress-retirement-pay-compares-overall-average.asp#ixzz5A94zxQSA
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CRS, June 13: Members of Congress are eligible for a pension at the age of 62 if they have completed at least five years of service. Members are eligible for a pension at age 50 if they have completed 20 years of service, or at any age after completing 25 years of service. The amount of the pension depends on years of service and the average of the highest three years of salary. By law, the starting amount of a Member’s retirement annuity may not exceed 80% of his or her final salary.
Congressional Pensions Update - FactCheck.org
Healthcare...
Employer Contributions [ie gov't subsidies]
Members and staff are able to receive an employer contribution toward coverage purchased through the DC SHOP. The employer contribution is calculated using the statutory formula for health plans offered under FEHB.19 The percentage of premiums paid by the federal government is calculated separately for individual, self plus one, and family coverage, but each uses the same formula. According to the formula, the employer contribution is set at 72% of the weighted average of all FEHB plan premiums, not to exceed 75% of any given plan’s premium.20 The employer contribution to a plan for a part-time worker is generally prorated, following FEHB program guidelines. OPM indicates that Member and staff contributions to premiums are collected by payroll deduction and the contributions are tax preferred, as they are for FEHB enrollees.21 After determining their monthly premium on the DC SHOP website, Members and designated staff may use the OPM "Premium Contribution Calculator" to estimate their share of the premium.22
under FEHB (healthcare in retirement)
Will my premiums increase once I retire? View less
No, you will pay the same premium as you paid while you were an employee. However, annuitants are paid on a monthly basis so you will pay them at the monthly rate. You may see an increase if you are employed by an agency, such as the Post Office, that contributes additional money towards the total premium. Retirees receive the same government contribution as most Federal employees.
Frequently Asked Questions : Insurance : Continuing FEHB Coverage into Retirement - OPM.gov
Also noted re:insurance:
The DC SHOP only varies premiums based on age, not by geography or tobacco use.
B@$t@rds
https://fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R43194.pdf
Right, and when they kill the vape-stuff market, you're supposed to feel good that you're saving the children from the horrors of nicotine addiction.But, but, but I'm supposed to feel good that I was able to help subsidize other people's health insurance.
Dang, I'm awesome!!!Right, and when they kill the vape-stuff market, you're supposed to feel good that you're saving the children from the horrors of nicotine addiction.
I am so glad the DW got a job last year with health insurance. We ended up paying $1800 a month for the first 6 months of 2017 for Obamacare, with a $6500 deductible. Now we pay less than $600 a month with a $2500 deductible. Back in 2016 the DW had to go to the emergence room, a 3 1/2 hour visit, they billed the insurance over $10,000, which was knocked down to around $6000, which was below our deductible, so we owed the whole bill. Now we have a $500 copay for emergence room visits. Obamacare SUCKS....In the 4 years since Obamacare my rate went from $318/mo to $568/mo. Then this past December they cancelled my plan and wanted to put me on a "comparable" plan for $868/mo. This "comparable" plan had twice the deductible. So in four years my cost went up 270% and was a worse plan. And no, I did not have any health problems and had not seen a doctor in those 4 years. Anyone care to ask me what I think of the Affordable Care Act?
We need another button, I can't like the post or any of the other selections. That is a disgusting cost.
That is exactly why I call it the "Unaffordable and Unusable Health Insurance Act". The high premiums make it unaffordable, and the high deductibles make it unusable for most people in most situations.
What they SHOULD have focused on with that bill, was to push down the underlying costs so that a 3.5 hour ER visit did not cost $10,000 to begin with. Doing that would have allowed insurance companies to actually lower the deductibles and copays, instead of raising them. But like so many of our laws, Congress, says "we have to do something", and instead of finding the root cause and figuring out a smart, common sense approach to solving the underlying problem, they just slap some legislation together and ram it through without worrying about if it will solve the problem or if it will make things worse. Then they proudly proclaim "we DID something" and pat each other on the back.
This is what has me worried about both the vaping/tobacco debate as well as the gun debate. Does something need to be done? Absolutely. I am just not sure I trust our government to do the RIGHT something to actually fix the problem without destroying everything in their wake.
I refused to use the marketplace (not just for cost, but partially).. Back when it first appeared ,I checked out premium costs and what worried me more was the high risk pool (which I am among, but which most "purchasers" of Obamacare also had to buy) and being in AZ, where folks were underinsured, I was pretty certain a LOT of those insurers were going to bow out, because it was completely unaffordable for not just the consumer, but also the insurance companies.
Fast forward a few years later, and AZ had ONE "reputable" insurer (sort of BCBS) but ONLY if you were under 35 or something ridiculous. The rest were those "state created" plans, to which NONE of my doctors were willing to ascribe to, and I most certainly don't blame them.
I agree focusing on bringing costs down and malpractice cases makes more reasonable sense (I am not against suing one's doctor, although I have never done so, and did have an instance where I COULD HAVE and would have most certainly won, the doctor made an UNFORGIVABLE error and forced me to take a medication I shouldn't.) The fallout was terrible and lengthy, but I actually went BACK to that doctor (after a lengthy hospital stay) and the first words out of his mouth were, "I should ask you if you want to change doctors." LOL, he felt that bad.
I reassured him I wasn't into medical malpractice claims and kept him as my doc. He was the best (public assistance) doc I ever had after that, because he really didn't want to make another mistake. Most docs feel like that, after they break me once. And, he WAS the best public assistance doc I ever had.
I'm just pointing out that for me, it would have to be extraordinarily extreme (and mine was, just not enough to qualify, in my opinion) to sue a doctor, and although I think it should be an option, it also shouldn't necessarily be so easy to do and sometimes with extreme payouts. Looking at health care generally is probably a better approach.
I will say I've had friends where Obamacare completely changed their life, including one guy who was incapable of working outside the home, and had a live in GF with OCD. They both were able to get treatment, and become far more functional, eventually returning to work (and private healthcare). That is where Obamacare really does shine in my opinion, although it remains cumbersome, unaffordable, and unnecessarily penalizes employers and individuals making a decent wage but with no health insurance. If anything, I'd like to see Obamacare as a stepping stone to "decent' insurance but it does seem to have pulled ALL insurance for the most part, down to its own level.
I also don't believe that with the crazy premiums and increases everywhere that the insurance companies are not continuing to make money. They most certainly are. Cost containment should have been THE MOST MAJOR part of Obama care and it wasn't. The insurance companies could insure EVERYONE at a decent rate, and still not go bankrupt. Maybe high up execs would have to accept a 3 million yearly pay, not a 30 million dollar one, but they wouldn't go broke, by any means.
Just my thoughts as always.
Anna
Fast forward a few years later, and AZ had ONE "reputable" insurer (sort of BCBS) but ONLY if you were under 35 or something ridiculous. The rest were those "state created" plans, to which NONE of my doctors were willing to ascribe to, and I most certainly don't blame them.
I agree focusing on bringing costs down and malpractice cases makes more reasonable sense (I am not against suing one's doctor, although I have never done so, and did have an instance where I COULD HAVE and would have most certainly won, the doctor made an UNFORGIVABLE error and forced me to take a medication I shouldn't.) The fallout was terrible and lengthy, but I actually went BACK to that doctor (after a lengthy hospital stay) and the first words out of his mouth were, "I should ask you if you want to change doctors." LOL, he felt that bad.
I reassured him I wasn't into medical malpractice claims and kept him as my doc. He was the best (public assistance) doc I ever had after that, because he really didn't want to make another mistake. Most docs feel like that, after they break me once. And, he WAS the best public assistance doc I ever had.
I'm just pointing out that for me, it would have to be extraordinarily extreme (and mine was, just not enough to qualify, in my opinion) to sue a doctor, and although I think it should be an option, it also shouldn't necessarily be so easy to do and sometimes with extreme payouts. Looking at health care generally is probably a better approach.
I will say I've had friends where Obamacare completely changed their life, including one guy who was incapable of working outside the home, and had a live in GF with OCD. They both were able to get treatment, and become far more functional, eventually returning to work (and private healthcare). That is where Obamacare really does shine in my opinion, although it remains cumbersome, unaffordable, and unnecessarily penalizes employers and individuals making a decent wage but with no health insurance. If anything, I'd like to see Obamacare as a stepping stone to "decent' insurance but it does seem to have pulled ALL insurance for the most part, down to its own level.
I also don't believe that with the crazy premiums and increases everywhere that the insurance companies are not continuing to make money. They most certainly are. Cost containment should have been THE MOST MAJOR part of Obama care and it wasn't. The insurance companies could insure EVERYONE at a decent rate, and still not go bankrupt. Maybe high up execs would have to accept a 3 million yearly pay, not a 30 million dollar one, but they wouldn't go broke, by any means.
Just my thoughts as always.
Anna
They can't do it…the reg's for underwriting by gov and carriers already has distorted prices substantially by way of institutional cost shifting paid for by the fat wallet full boat payers. That'd be you and me. It's a fat onion to peel.
Good luck.
My guess is not that they were losing money. I'm pretty sure that they weren't making as much as before, but I'm doubtful that they went "Our company will fold," it was probably more like the fact that they did not like it. Because those same insurers, with private companies, were doing fine.
Although, I will say that Tucson at least and maybe much of AZ, does have a disproportionate set of elderly, infirm, and underinsured. It also has expanded Medicaid, which does cover the "bottom set" of indigent folks, or underemployed folks. So I am rather doubtful that the companies were losing money overall. They were probably still in the green, or at least green enough to continue, they just chose not to. However, I don't know that to be fact, without doing more research, so for now, I will concede the point.
Insurance companies were doing this as far back as in the 90s however. BCBS was happy to insure me.... Until I racked up a set of medical bills including a hospitalization. Suddenly, they began to "deny" all my claims. Being an enterprising sort, I spent a long time on the phone with an agent, who explained they thought I had "other insurance." I explained to the agent that we did not have other insurance, and that it was hard to prove a negative, but that I was informing HER that we didn't. She gave me a special "number" to call with directions to state my name, details, and to state "I don't have other insurance."
Still mystified, I called, and pressed the "1" as directed, to leave my message. The phone system hung up on me, and at that point, it was quite clear that this was a sort of "intellectual" means test, and so I called back and started pressing random buttons and it took quite a few phone calls to discover that "any" number pressed other than 4 (not one) would finally allow me to leave a message. I did spend some time musing about the fact that the elderly or very infirm could have been defeated by this process, although I was not.
But, I have hated insurance companies my entire life (okay, perhaps not Cigna) and they try... stuff like this, all the time. During most of my working career, I was the one carrying the health insurance, and frantic about losing it as I was pretty sure what that would be like. I'm not wrong either, Medicare is awful but my husband's employers rarely had access to insurance due to size, or if they did it was ungodly expensive. Makes things really extraordinarily difficult to actually USE, much like car insurance. You have it, but you never want to use it.
The thing is, more than 50% of costs of medical care here are caused by billing and coding. The US system needs to be scrapped and begin over, with a reasonable set of parameters.
The type of money health insurance execs make, while providing this type of "care" doesn't sit well with me either. Etc.
Anna
Although, I will say that Tucson at least and maybe much of AZ, does have a disproportionate set of elderly, infirm, and underinsured. It also has expanded Medicaid, which does cover the "bottom set" of indigent folks, or underemployed folks. So I am rather doubtful that the companies were losing money overall. They were probably still in the green, or at least green enough to continue, they just chose not to. However, I don't know that to be fact, without doing more research, so for now, I will concede the point.
Insurance companies were doing this as far back as in the 90s however. BCBS was happy to insure me.... Until I racked up a set of medical bills including a hospitalization. Suddenly, they began to "deny" all my claims. Being an enterprising sort, I spent a long time on the phone with an agent, who explained they thought I had "other insurance." I explained to the agent that we did not have other insurance, and that it was hard to prove a negative, but that I was informing HER that we didn't. She gave me a special "number" to call with directions to state my name, details, and to state "I don't have other insurance."
Still mystified, I called, and pressed the "1" as directed, to leave my message. The phone system hung up on me, and at that point, it was quite clear that this was a sort of "intellectual" means test, and so I called back and started pressing random buttons and it took quite a few phone calls to discover that "any" number pressed other than 4 (not one) would finally allow me to leave a message. I did spend some time musing about the fact that the elderly or very infirm could have been defeated by this process, although I was not.
But, I have hated insurance companies my entire life (okay, perhaps not Cigna) and they try... stuff like this, all the time. During most of my working career, I was the one carrying the health insurance, and frantic about losing it as I was pretty sure what that would be like. I'm not wrong either, Medicare is awful but my husband's employers rarely had access to insurance due to size, or if they did it was ungodly expensive. Makes things really extraordinarily difficult to actually USE, much like car insurance. You have it, but you never want to use it.
The thing is, more than 50% of costs of medical care here are caused by billing and coding. The US system needs to be scrapped and begin over, with a reasonable set of parameters.
The type of money health insurance execs make, while providing this type of "care" doesn't sit well with me either. Etc.
Anna
You think that they were making money in the market and were projecting future profits in the market but wanted out of the market?
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