Author Topic: An ACA Marketplace Subsidy Calculator  (Read 2071 times)

BTDretire

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wageslave23

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Re: An ACA Marketplace Subsidy Calculator
« Reply #1 on: July 12, 2019, 02:24:57 PM »
Thank you.  I can't believe they don't have an assets test.  As a single person making $30k a year I'd still be getting almost $3500 in subsidy.

FIREstache

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Re: An ACA Marketplace Subsidy Calculator
« Reply #2 on: July 12, 2019, 02:38:37 PM »
Thank you.  I can't believe they don't have an assets test.  As a single person making $30k a year I'd still be getting almost $3500 in subsidy.

The ACA has been that way from the beginning.  It doesn't punish savers.  The same is true for expanded Medicaid.  You can have millions and qualify as long as your income levels are low enough.

BTDretire

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Re: An ACA Marketplace Subsidy Calculator
« Reply #3 on: July 12, 2019, 06:42:35 PM »
Thank you.  I can't believe they don't have an assets test.  As a single person making $30k a year I'd still be getting almost $3500 in subsidy.

  It gets worse, I have a family of 4, I used $35k income and I would get a $31,211 subsidy.
 I never signed up for Obamacare, I'm paying the price though, I never got the $2,500 reduction promised, in fact I have had a $7,900 increase since Obamacare started.
 Funny thing is my policy premium is $12,200, (family of 4) the ACA policy premium is $32,436.(same family)
  My max 'Out of Pocket ' is $10,000. From the Healthcare.gov website, "For the 2019 plan year: The out-of-pocket limit for a Marketplace plan is $7,900 for an individual plan and $15,800 for a family plan." The ACA plan is not that much better than my BCBS policy, in fact I argue, it is not better, but very similar, except it costs, 2.66 times more, to the 51% of Americans that pay Federal income tax to subsidize that ridiculous premiums.
 Also, if you look for higher subsidies you can find them, if I moved to Charlottesville, Virginia, zip 22908, the ACA premium cost is $45,408, that lucky person with a family of 4 making $35,000 will have to pay $1,224 for his families healthcare premium and the 51% that pay federal taxes will pay the rest, $44,183.
  Also, I still don't think we have over 7% of the population using Obamacare. I guess we should all be happy about that.
 "It's great to get the government involved in payments, because it has unlimited funds"

Paul der Krake

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Re: An ACA Marketplace Subsidy Calculator
« Reply #4 on: July 12, 2019, 08:05:07 PM »
I use healthsherpa.com to see the exact price of available plans.

djadziadax

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Re: An ACA Marketplace Subsidy Calculator
« Reply #5 on: July 25, 2019, 02:19:33 PM »
https://www.kff.org/interactive/subsidy-calculator/

This calculator is giving me a much higher subsidy than the NYState calculator. Plugging in the same numbers in both, I get a subsidy of $800 on this calculator and $350 on the NYS one. How is that possible?

mathlete

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Re: An ACA Marketplace Subsidy Calculator
« Reply #6 on: July 25, 2019, 02:38:29 PM »
Thank you.  I can't believe they don't have an assets test.  As a single person making $30k a year I'd still be getting almost $3500 in subsidy.

The ACA has been that way from the beginning.  It doesn't punish savers.  The same is true for expanded Medicaid.  You can have millions and qualify as long as your income levels are low enough.

I'd go further than "doesn't punish." When you look at it holistically, the whole setup is exceptionally kind to aggressive, high income savers. A person saving for a sufficiently early retirement on low spend will almost certainly reap more benefit from the system than what they pay in.

jim555

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Re: An ACA Marketplace Subsidy Calculator
« Reply #7 on: July 25, 2019, 02:40:10 PM »
https://www.kff.org/interactive/subsidy-calculator/

This calculator is giving me a much higher subsidy than the NYState calculator. Plugging in the same numbers in both, I get a subsidy of $800 on this calculator and $350 on the NYS one. How is that possible?
NYstateofhealth is the official site so I would give that more weight.

mathlete

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Re: An ACA Marketplace Subsidy Calculator
« Reply #8 on: July 25, 2019, 03:01:31 PM »
I'd go further than "doesn't punish." When you look at it holistically, the whole setup is exceptionally kind to aggressive, high income savers. A person saving for a sufficiently early retirement on low spend will almost certainly reap more benefit from the system than what they pay in.

I feel like teasing this out. Using myself as an example, my partner and I have made between north of $100K for most of our post-college lives. Thanks to 401(k)s, IRAs, and HSAs, we've been able to defer taxes on ~$40-60K of savings per year. Using current tax brackets, that means instead of paying ~22% on those savings today, and an additional 0%-15% on the capital gains down the road, we could choose to FIRE relatively early (say, at 32) on a low income ($20K-$30K) and instead pay 0% upfront, and between 0% and 10% on distributions from the savings.

Then, from age 32-65, we collect big subsidies for healthcare based on income. At age 65, having paid FICA for at least 10 years, we're eligible for Medicare Part A.

Most Americans (myself included) think that the government should provide free healthcare anyway. But that would mean that at the very least, my $100K+ household would be paying more in taxes over our working career. And that would likely mean delaying FIRE.

I consider the path to FIRE I described to be a pretty extreme perversion of the intent of social safety nets.