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Comment by xnickp | Hacker News Reader

Startups and companies with younger employees will (should) early renew in December of this year, extending their current coverage til late 2013, avoiding the price increases in the short term. For the long term, partnering with a good broker and making sure you're on the right insurance plan can wring out some savings to make up for the increases.

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Yup, I think that's what we're doing.

I find it strange, though, that the insurance companies are allowing us to renew early and lock in a rate for another year if they're so sure rates would otherwise skyrocket in January.

Well insurance rates have been going up for years and insurance companies really have no idea how things are going to shake up. If they overcharge, they have to return the money anyway because of the Obamacare stipulation on the minimum percentage that must be paid to health care providers.

Heck, the only reason Obamacare passed was because Blue Shield of California announced it was raising rates upwards of 40% which reignited the fight after everyone thought it was over.

You have a low rate in the first place because they've decided there's a low chance they'll have to pay out a lot of money for you. Most likely, your premium is all or nearly all profit.

Better to keep your profitable premiums than to lose you to a cheaper state exchange. It'd only make sense to force you into the newer rate immediately if you had no other option -- but the exchanges are all about giving you more options.

It'll be interesting to see how this plays out. I imagine that a big percentage (maybe majority / plurality) of people jumping into the insurance markets are going to be people who otherwise couldn't get insurance (pre-existing conditions, whatever--high-cost clients, essentially). The only way to balance the books is to make the healthy people pay more. I expect the young-and-healthy category to pay even more than the 15-50% extra in the article. It's going to be ugly, from a dollar perspective.

About 17% of the US workforce is officially "underemployed"; that's a very large number. I would think a large chunk of that are young, healthy people who work one or more part-time jobs without benefits. They're to be forced into the health insurance marketplace as well, with government assistance if they can't afford it -- essentially, there will be a tax dollar transfer to insurers that could absorb much of the extra cost of also insuring people with pre-existing conditions. It really is hard to predict how it will play out.

The insurance companies selling through the exchange are the same insurance companies who'd be "losing you", so I don't think that's it. Since businesses aren't subject to being excluded for pre-existing conditions, group plans already have that risk factor built into their pricing. Difference being they discriminate more based on age (55-65 year olds pay 4-5X what a 25 year old pays) than they will be allowed to in January (I think the cap is 3x).

> I find it strange, though, that the insurance companies are allowing us to renew early and lock in a rate for another year if they're so sure rates would otherwise skyrocket in January.

If the coverage is starting early in December, plans may be working around some of the provisions limited to specific to plan years by starting what would otherwise be 2014 plans in December 2013.

It's the same coverage we already have. The insurance company offered to let us renew early, at a moderately higher price, rather than wait for it to renew early next year when they say it will be much, much higher.

In GP, I meant coverage under the new contract, not similar coverage under an existing contract.

> The insurance company offered to let us renew early, at a moderately higher price, rather than wait for it to renew early next year when they say it will be much, much higher.

"Renew now to avoid a big upcoming price increase" is a frequently used sales pitch, but there is no reason for a rational profit-maximizing firm to offer it unless there is something else at work.

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