Hacker News Reader

Comment by blobbers | Hacker News Reader

How are they getting medical costs in San Mateo County so wrong.

$11,896 with 2 children? My Kaiser $14K deductible bronze plan costs $2100 a month. That's more like $25K a year, and that's before I use it... the only reason I have it is in case something traumatic happens. This is the cheapest plan I can get on covered california.

View on HN

I assume that's not an employer sponsored plan? You can read the methodology for more, but their data is a mix of a) how much people pay into employer-sponsored health insurance plans, b) individual and small group insurance market information, where available, and c) estimated out-of-pocket expenses not covered by insurance. If you're buying a plan through a marketplace, you are almost certainly going to come in well above the median for your area.

Covered California (as indicated in my message) coveres 2M out of the 40M people in California, or 5% of the population.

Typically, it tends to cover the bottom of the income level, aka the folks who are trying to get a living wage.

Seems like their methodology is a little broken, wouldn't you agree? My out of pocket is a 14K deductible on top of 25K in premiums.

It would not surprise me to learn their methodology is flawed however under the affordable care act people below 400 percent of the poverty line pay less due to tax subsidies so we can't assume 5 percent of the population pays what you pay.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com