Isn't the financing of the ACA similar to funding Social Security?

[no_hypocrisy]

Younger Americans pay more into the ACA than they (with exceptions) need. Their contributions go to older Americans who have unavoidable medical conditions and issues. By comparison, younger Americans have Social Security deducted from their paychecks (or have to pay later on April 15 if independent contractors or earn compensation otherwise) and older Americans are paid from their contributions.

Why is the issue that it's unfair for Americans to pay more for insurance premiums when they're promised benefits later in life?

[Vinca]

1. The ACA works like insurance with everyone sharing the risk.

The GOP bill eliminates shared risk which makes no sense at all. Just because a man can't get pregnant doesn't mean he should have a special policy that is cheaper because it doesn't cover maternity care. (And you'll notice they never suggest giving women cheaper policies that don't cover prostate disease.)

[wasupaloopa]

2. It is wrong to say it is younger vs older people. I am 71 and use my insurance about

twice a year on doctor visits and once a month on one prescription. Yet I pay the same in premiums as someone who has a cronic illness and sees a doctor weekly. I pay more in premiums than the cost of the doctor visits and my prescription.

We all are paying in and share the risk no matter our ages. The same would be for single payer since we all would pay taxes to fund it.

[former9thward]

3. Exact opposite of SS.

With SS everyone who pays in pays at exactly the same rate. With ACA younger people pay more.

[senaca]

4. What percentage of young people pay more?

It is my understanding that children up to age 26 are covered by their parents insurance. So up until the age of 26 they would not pay for insurance if their parents are covered. At that point what percent of younger people decide to start families.

I don't get the argument that the burden is on youth. It is hoped that they had a family member who supported them throughout their childhood and would want to make sure that their family or friend who did support them would have the health benefits needed to stay alive or if they are in assisted care are not thrown out. I would think that someone young would want the essential benefits, preexisting conditions and lifetime cap lifted as is as well as be covered until age 26.

I don't get the divide and conquer argument. We are all in this together as far as health is concerned.

[Hoyt]

5. I think fact younger people had to pay more than their "actuarial" share, was a problem under ACA.

Seems a better approach -- so that younger people didn't get screwed -- was to apportion the risk by age bracket actuarily and then provide more subsidies for those who need it in the older age band.

I suppose it is nice for us older folks, but young folks have enough problems.

[Ms. Toad]

7. Why not make sick people pay more, too.

After all under the ACA, people with chronic health care needs, are using more than their share of health care . . .

And women should pay more, too, since men can't get pregnant.



The whole point of insurance is to spread the risk over the pool. No employer that I'm aware of charges more to an older employee than a younger one, and everyone benefits from the shared risk pool over the course of their career -using a bit more on the early end than they use - and a bit less on the back end.

[Hoyt]

9. Do you understand what the word "SUBSIDIES" means? Do you pay the same insurance for a clunker car

in rural USA compared to an new car in NYC? Do you pay the same for insurance on a residence in a hollow in Appalachia vs. a home right on the beach in hurricane alley?

Sorry, even though it might impact me negatively, I don't believe we should saddle young people with the much higher costs of health care for the elderly. I don't have any problem with taxing people better off for subsidies to ease the burden. I guess that wasn't good enough for you, just stick it to the kids?

Insurance has never spread costs against all age groups from 0 - 115 years old equally. The ACA didn't do it, insurance before the ACA didn't do it.

But, hey, if you can find someone else to pay for your care -- including some teenager just starting out with his first job -- I guess I should go along with it too. [sarcasm thingie]

[alarimer]

6. You can't compare it to SS.

SS is, in every sense, and entitlement. Too bad that word has been demonized. It is paid for by payroll taxes that everyone pays and is more of a pension plan and has nothing to do with health care at all. Maybe you meant Medicare?

The ACA only requires that you buy insurance and provides regulations as to what that insurance would look like. It also controls the cost of premiums by requiring that older people can only be charges 3X as much as younger ones.

Younger people pay more only in relation to what they would have paid before, which would likely have been nothing at all because they mostly went without insurance if they did not get it through work. The ACA also disallowed the kind of cheap plans that young people did get before the ACA; cheap plans that covered almost nothing or offered only catastrophic coverage, which were nearly useless anyway.

[Buckeye_Democrat]

8. Social Security deductions are more like how Germnay manages their healthcare.

The last I heard about it on NPR, Germans have about 8% of their pay deducted to fund their universal healthcare. I think there's now some private aspects to it, but I don't recall those details right now.

No income? 8% of nothing is no cost.

Do wealthy Germans constantly complain about them "paying more for healthcare than they'll likely ever use" and the like? Maybe some of them do that, but I bet it's nowhere near the level of similar complaints that come from the extremely class-conscious elites in this country.