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MinnEcon Blog
Paul Tosto

Is your health care deal better than the House plan?

Go Deeper.

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Take a look and let me know how it compares to what you pay now, either in total dollars or percent of income. Is it substantially different than what you pay now? If you don't have insurance, how much of your income would you have had to pay to get basic coverage? You can post below or contact me directly.

For comparison's sake, the Kaiser Family Foundation estimates the premium for employer-sponsored family health coverage in Minnesota ran $13,639 last year.

In the House bill, a family earning $78,000 would pay $8,800 in premiums, get a $500 subsidy, and have about $5,000 in co-pays for a total of $13,800 or 18 percent of income.

Caveats: These are averages and estimates for the regulated, subsidized health insurance exchanges called for in the House bill. It's a snapshot of expenses for a low-cost plan in 2016. "Cost-sharing" is essentially a co-pay. It's all subject to change and will change as the Senate takes it under consideration.

Family of Four

Single person

Again, numbers are subject to change. Compared to a Senate Finance Committee version, CBO notes the House bill "restricts more sharply the extent to which premiums can vary by age, which would make the exchanges less attractive to younger people (who tend to have lower health care costs) and more attractive to older people (who tend to have higher health care costs)."