CLASS DISCUSSION REPONSE

Peer initial posting:

Many Who Buy ACA Health Plans For 2019 Find Lower Prices And More Choice focuses on the stabilization of the health care market after the removal of some “structural underpinnings” in 2017. The cost for health insurance rose steeply from 2017 to 2018 with the average premium going up by over 10% for most states (Rau, 2018). A portion of the price increase was driven by insurance monopolies, so, with no competition, insurance companies had no fear about raising premiums while reducing coverage.

The cost of health care has been a hot topic for a long time, especially as prices have been going up. The cost to insure a single person in 2018 has become similar to the average cost of family coverage 20 years ago (NCSL, 2018). For many people, the question of health care is how much is a person willing to pay for their health on average, which becomes problematic very quickly as the averages can be relatively easily skewed. Even for people who receive health insurance through work, the average cost of insurance premiums is $5,714 and additional out-of-pocket costs, which bring up the average spending on health to 11.7% of total income per year (NCSL, 2018). While there is good news for the public at large at the reduced costs for 2019 insurance plans, there are still many problems with health insurance. Insurances only cover certain providers, hospitals, or services, and for people with established providers, this may mean finding a new provider or paying more for their insurance, and those are only options if there is even an insurance company that works with that provider. Overall, I am not optimistic about a system where the cost of a service can be difficult to obtain and the response of most customers is basically “at this point, I’ll take whatever I can get” (Rau, 2018).

Link:    https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2018/11/23/667466242/many-who-buy-aca-health-plans-for-2019-find-lower-prices-and-more-choice

References

Rau, J. (2018)  Many Who Buy ACA Health Plans For 2019 Find Lower Prices And More Choice Retrieved from https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2018/11/23/667466242/many-who-buy-aca-health-plans-for-2019-find-lower-prices-and-more-choice

NCSL (2018) Health Insurance: Premiums and Increases Retrieved from https://www.ncsl.org/research/health/health-insurance-premiums.aspx

INSTRUCTIONS

Review the initial postings from your peers. Click on the link provided in the initial response to read/listen to the story. Respond to one peer according to the following prompts and the grading rubric.

1. What are your overall thoughts about this posting/topic?
2. Do your share common or differing thoughts from the other student? Explain.
3. Your post must be supported with at least one source of literature (can use required readings) but must also incorporate at least one source in addition to those provided to receive full points. The date of publishing should be within the past 2 years. APA Style 7th edition.