Why Do I Have to Pay 9.5% of my Income Towards Insurance?
According to the math, someone who makes $20,000 a year at most (6.3% credit) should be paying $105 a month on health insurance, while someone (like me) who makes $35,000 a year (with 9.5% credit) has to pay $277 a month on health insurance.
So even though I make less than twice the amount, I have to pay almost three times the amount on insurance?
Not to mention I’m a student and as far as I’m aware, being a student isn’t taken into consideration.
Why do I have to pay 9.5% of my income towards insurance (just insurance, that doesn’t even cover any appointments I actually make, meaning if I never visit the doctor I’m still spending $3,325 a year on nothing)? How is that reasonable?
Answer
The typical family can pay up to 20% of their income towards health insurance. 9.5% is considered affordable for an individual. Healthcare is expensive for our country and most Americans, even with the new assistance.
The underlying cost of healthcare, and it's affects on our country, is often referred to as a "health care crisis". (For instance over 60% of bankruptcies are medical related).
Aside from limiting the maximum amount any one person can spend on premiums, or out-of-pocket in-network covered benefits (which is a whole other set of medical costs for Americans), the PPACA also includes loads of cost curbing provisions and regulations that have helped decrease the growth in healthcare spending by record amounts. The hope is that this will curb federal spending on healthcare and lower costs for American families.
- Taxpayers are benefitting as costs and spending are held down. Last year, health care spending grew at the slowest rate on record (since 1960). Meanwhile, health care price inflation is at its lowest rate in 50 years.
- Record-breaking recovery of $19.2 billion from health care fraudsters. Over the last five years, the administration’s enforcement efforts, combined with new tools provided by the Affordable Care Act, have recovered $19.2 billion in taxpayer funds, up dramatically from $9.4 billion over the previous five-year period.
- And as we build a better, smarter, healthier delivery system, we have seen a historic slowdown in the growth of health care costs that is generating savings for workers, business, and taxpayers. Slow growth in the cost of health care has continued, with health care price inflation remaining at low levels not seen in decades, employer premium growth tying record lows, and Medicare spending per beneficiary essentially unchanged in fiscal year 2014.
See the full fact list from the February 2015 HHS report here.