Health Care Insurance Questions

JimM68 wrote:
As a small business owner, I've always had no choice but to buy individual health insurance. I've used most of the biggies in the industry over the years, and currently use blue cross blue shield of illinois.

Many years ago, I made the choice to get a high deductible major medical policy. Our card gives us discounts, but until that 5k deductible is met, we pay every dime.

For a family of 4 in Illinois, we've been at $450/month. Over the past 10 years, annual increases have been 10% or more. We've never met a deductible, they have never paid a dime.

With the "new system", our previous policy is flat gone. BCBS will not renew it after 1-1-14 even if we pay the penalty.
I've been unable to get far enough thru healthcare.gov to get a quote, tried several times.
On the BCBSIL site, they give me a bunch of choices for "conforming" plans. In all cases, my deductible is up 20%, a bunch of coverage I don't need is included (maternity? contraception? pediatric dental?)
The cost is DOUBLE what I have been paying.
But even with my near 6 figure income, I qualify for a $321 per month federal subsidy, which brings it down to a mere 25% increase over last year.

But that I have to get from healthcare.gov, and I cannot get that far without an error of some sort.

At the risk of stepping over the politics line, why the heck would our government WANT to put me on welfare?

I don't understand why you consider taking a subsidy to be the same as putting you on welfare. An effort is being made to make healthcare more affordable. Medicare is a subsidy and was called Socialist when it was enacted. Today most people consider it to be a standard part of life in the US. Healthcare coverage could have been expanded by making it like Medicare but the decision was made to manage it through the private sector. As a result the only way to "level" prices is to subsidize the premiums.