Employees Start to Feel the Squeeze of High-Deductible Health Plans
You can argue that the ACA improved the healthcare system overall. But it's been tough for people who were already covered by employer insurance.I think people fail to appreciate that prior to the ACA, when the healthcare system worked, it actually worked really well. I got very sick at the age of 20 while I was still on my parents very modest insurance (pre-ACA). Within 48 hours I had an appointment at the best oncology hospital within 500 miles, and I was able to get scans, tests, etc on a very short turnarounds. Ultimately I had two major surgeries in 4 months, and the whole thing probably cost the insurance company a couple hundred thousand dollars. Since my parents had already hit their out-of-pocket maximum, the marginal cost to us was 0.Now, the "when it worked" caveat is a big one. The story would be very different if my parents didn't have insurance at all or if I hadn't been eligible to be on it. But the same story today on my insurance would cost me a lot more money out of pocket due to a much higher deductible and a higher out-of-pocket maximum.My perspective is that the ACA made things significantly better for a small group and modestly worse for most people. I'm open to moral arguments that the tradeoff was worth it (although that's not what I believe.) But I dislike rhetoric that pretends there's no tradeoff at all.Edit: Added substance to a one-liner.