notshipman

The patient highlighted here had insurance coverage pre-ACA also but thought ACA would get her cheaper meds

Giantaxe

The JAMA has cleaned up its act somewhat but has a track record of editorial bias. I certainly wouldn't make the assumption that It has "nothing to do" with the AMA.

Giantaxe

Which is presumably true - her previous plan "didn’t cover her arthritis or pain medications and some routine doctor’s visits.".

Bob

Need to put the caveat, that that all depends on the state and how healthcare friendly they were to begin with :/

Made no difference down my way.

notshipman

that can be debated to the nth degree but if you have conclusive evidence you should act on it as they could lose their publishing license but several other top journals including NEJM,JACS,AFP and AJM have come out against ACA and frankly practically all the primary care physicians I know in the US wont deal with ACA plans as they pay less than medicare so arent worth their while.

Michael

Just like FOX news. Fair and balanced.

durham_lad

This is how it works with group insurance through employers. Fit young employees pay exactly the same as employees with serious medical conditions. All insurance relies on a large pool of people that make few claims.

The ACA is hoping that the mandate that everyone must buy insurance or pay a penalty through taxation will produce similar results to employer group insurance by having a large pool of healthy payers.

scrubbedexpat099

It is not a quick process to move.

The best option of course is if somebody else is paying for it, IT industry usually has a combination of good pay, younger age group and better than average Employer Health Cover.

Going it alone then you are looking at the State Exchanges, every State is different and the cost in State can be different, usually the boonies cost more than the Metro areas.

As others have said you then have issues who will accept your plan, one way of keeping prices down is to restrict where you can go, what type of drugs etc are available.

And it changes.

You can get an idea by going on the Exchange for the State you are looking at and putting in some numbers.

Be prepared for sticker shock.

Bob

Also doesn't help that he's cherry picking rubbish stories from a state that was against the ACA.

Then again, he's also not here and experiencing it first hand :/

Giantaxe

Well that certainly explains why he has relatively little clue as to the workings of the ACA...

Easy to criticize from 5000 miles away, especially when you've apparently never experienced the pre-ACA situation for individual policy holders.

kodokan

It's even more amusing at hubby's megacorp - not only are fit young employees effectively subsidizing the older, more frail ones, you have to contribute based on your salary, so fit young high-earning managers are paying perhaps three times as much as lower-paid, older, more frail shop floor workers, and seeing (often) nothing back for it.*

But nah, it's not like that nasty old socialism that the UK has with it's NHS, where everyone pays in based on their earnings and regardless of of their state of health... *headslap*

*We're helping out the older, more frail workers no end - in exchange for over $15k in premiums so far over several years, we've had a check up each, and a couple of vaccinations for the kids.

Mandad3s

Thanks for all the replies guys!
Looks like this is at least as much of a contentious issue in the US as it is the UK. We are thinking that my husband might go over alone next year once he has a contract role, complete three months and then we would follow and trial for 6 months (we have two school age children so need to do things gradually) would you recommend this?

christmasoompa

You could do that, but it seems a bit pointless to me to go through the hassle (not to mention cost) of getting your visa etc, if you're only going to potentially be there for 6 months? Your call though.

Mandad3s

Mmm, perhaps we should be looking at a year. So much to think about - I am not sure how a 10 and 13 year old will settle in to school...

Englishmum

I guess your spouse has lived for quite a few years in the UK; before he heads back to the US I strongly suggest that he becomes a British citizen (US citizens are allowed to become dual nationals, although many Americans think that they're not allowed to.) It may be the case that after moving to the US things don't work out and you all decide to move back to the UK.....far easier if you all have British passports, otherwise your spouse may need to start from scratch the immigration process to reside in the UK again.

If you look at the "Moving Back to the UK" board here, you will see how difficult it has now become for many couples/families to move to the UK in the scenario where one spouse is a British citizen but the other spouse is non-EU. New regulations came in from July 2012 (so it is clearly different from when your husband first moved to the UK) so do read the link below and take it into consideration before moving to the USA:

http://britishexpats.com/wiki/Spouse_Immigration-UK

http://britishexpats.com/forum/showthread.php?t=830478

http://britishexpats.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?f=196

The irony is that if you were say from an EU nation eg. Spain, France, Poland, Romania, Czech Republic, Bulgaria, Germany and after living in the States you all choose to move back to England then you can all enter the UK without any problem whatsoever. Unfortunately unless your husband has a British or EU country passport then he will have to meet the conditions in the first link above to be allowed to reside in the UK.