Credit scores impacting new Affordable Care Act insurance plans

It's fairly common for insurance companies to use credit scores to set rates. They say that credit scores relect levels of personal responsibilities; those with lower scores are less likely to get into an auto accident, or burn down thier house. I'm not defending the practice. Just sayin'

Flame me all you want but jesus christ, America you need to get off your a_rses and pull those in government out by the teeth, those in power are criminals of the worst kind that are obviously doing nothing but there best to break you like a bad tempered dog, roll over and take it, or fight.....

imasheep
Hate to piss in your cornflakes, but taxes alone are anti Christian you fool.

Another blatant lie.

Matthew 22:20-22

20 And he saith unto them, Whose is this image and superscription?

21 They say unto him, Caesar's. Then saith he unto them, Render therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's; and unto God the things that are God's.

22 When they had heard these words, they marvelled, and left him, and went their way.

Can't deny based on pre-existing conditions.

Can deny based on prior bankruptcy.

What is the leading cause of bankruptcy filings in the U.S.?

Huge unpaid medical bills.

Weed out the BK applicants and the insurers are effectively weeding out lots of pre-existing condition.

Brilliant.

xuenchen
Now it seems some people are being asked to verify their credit scores when getting to the end of buying insurance on the websites !!!!

I'm not surprised. Obamacare is a business. It's not free health care. It's not socialize medicine. It's nothing more than an insurance scam. I wonder what Obama's kickback was .....

ANNED
I dropped out of the credit system over 20 years ago. I have no credit score and don't care to have one.

It does have a number of advantages like i have little to worry about identity theft as ID thieves find that people with no credit score are hard to steal credit from..

If i need credit i use a LLC i have with good credit.

I did the same thing, about twenty years ago to, except mine was unintentional, but I discovered that same reality not long after, my story was that I have a school loan that is in default the jobs I had in the first few years after school didn't pay enough to even cover my basic essential bills so the school loan was put into default so I could continue to feed myself and keep a roof over my head. Life was hard I couldn't get a car loan or a credit card or basically have any of the nice things everyone else had. Then the invention of identity theft happened and when I seen that I kind of laughed to myself and thought, someone would have to spend $15,000.00 to steal my identity, at which time having realized I don't think I will ever get ahead in life, so I accepted the place I was given in life and just left the school loan in default, fast forward to today, I've been living my life within the means I've had which is a degree of poverty, but that whole just enough to get by whole still having the school loan in default, I'm at about 20,000 now and job market is worse now than back then , still just getting by no advancement, but the one thing I'm glad for is that it's not worse, meaning I could have had a $100,00.00 mortgage, $50,000.00 car loans and various other super debt that if I went unemployed would never get paid back, but a small windfall of $20,000 could put me back at zero rather than needing $150,000 to get me back to zero. So having not been a part of the credit system for the last twenty years, being forced to live within my means, had turned out to be a blessing in disguise and a whole lot of hard lessons learned in the process, I'm disappointed that the last twenty years of my life were as horrible as they were but I'm also glad that they are where they are, considering they could be a whole lot worse, and I could still recover everything with a simple 20 or 30 thousand dollar windfall, which might actually be coming my way with this potential job opportunity I have in the near future.

Makes sense. You piss off the financial institutions by defaulting, they cut off your lifeline.

Just keep a decent credit score fools!

reply to post by webedoomed


God forbid any horrible life-altering accident that may befall you... Smug, aren't you?

Ten years ago I got divorced and had to file for bankruptcy by the time it was all over. As of last fall, I had a good credit score; I had worked very hard to get it back up after the divorce.

Last October my son was hit by a car. He was double-insured (I have the primary BCBS policy on him, and my ex-husband carries a secondary BCBS policy on him), plus the motorist's insurance paid out AND my underinsured motorist coverage from my auto insurance kicked in and paid. I still owe $300,000.00 in back medical bills from this accident (that someone else caused, btw. I have tried suing her but to no avail as she isn't even employed). I make $35,000.00 per year.

So, because I haven't kept up my good credit score, I'm a fool? I've been a good consumer, lived within my means, paid my bills on time, worked full time at the same job for eleven years so that we could BE insured... And now it's all for nothing, as there is no way under the sun that I could ever pay back $300K, which means I'm looking at having to file for bankruptcy again!

If it weren't for the fact that I've been able to keep my job thru this last year, I probably would not be able to afford coverage in this new market. Especially if they were to check my credit and see all of my son's medical bills that are still unpaid!

This isn't a simple matter of us "fools" keeping our credit scores "good," it's a matter of being penalized simply because something devastating and unexpected happened to us.

Well, we could all quit our jobs and apply for full health care coverage without any charge whatsoever... I wonder how much civil disobedience along those lines it would require to take down the whole house of cards.

Am I the only one wondering what odds the bookies are taking on the U.S. Government actually cutting back on the Pentagon's astronomically ridiculous budget in order to actually, y'know, spend some money on REAL problems?

imasheep
POST REMOVED BY STAFF

First of all. Yes, healthcare used to be a good wholesome christian value. Think.... Catholic hospitals.
You know what else should be considered a good christian value. Food Stamps. Christianity was founded by a man who, according to some people on these forums, was a homeless bum who refused to get a job and pay his own way. Yep, I said it, Jesus Christ was nothing more than a social leech who lived off the charity of others. He could have gotten a job and bought his own food, but noooo, he just had to go mooch his dinner off others. He also fell into the 47% who didn't pay taxes and if you actually study his teachings, you'd be surprised to find that Jesus Christ was a progressive scumbag. It's a damn good thing our founding fathers came around, wrote that constitution and saved us all from the finacial weight Jesus expected us to carry for those worthless and underserving have-nots who drain the system.

Not only that, but since when did personal responsibilty stop being a part of the GOP moral compass? Having health insurance is no different than having car insurance. The only reason the GOP wants to stop Obamacare from being implimented is because people will like it, and they didn't think of it first.
Ted Cruz doesn’t get that Obamacare *was* the compromise

“I think the reason is because President Obama can’t wait to get Americans addicted to the crack coc aine of dependency on more government health care.” “Because, once they enroll millions of more individual Americans, it will be virtually impossible for us to pull these benefits back from people,” the congresswoman explained.

GOP star: Obama peddling 'crack coc aine' of dependency

Additionally Obamacare is called the Afordable Care Act, because it really does make healthcare affordable! It offers subsidies to lower the cost of health insurance bringing the premiums to less than 9.5% of incomes between 100% and 400% of poverty level. I've been to the Calculator entered in all my information; family of 5, 43K per year and my family's total out of pocket expenses would be less than 200 a month, which is less than I was paying for single coverage over 10 years ago on a much lower income.

By the way, you need to go back to Sunday school. Taxes aren't 'anti christian', interest rates are. Jesus spent alot of time preaching against interest rates, not taxes.

Aditional sources;
In Matthew 25:31-46, Jesus proclaims that how you treat the hungry, the thirsty, the sick and other "least of these," is how you treat Jesus himself. And if you fail to help the "least of these," Jesus promises, he will send you to Hell.

Jesus was liberal

Biblical Basis for Liberal Politics

reply to post by QuantumCypher


I would be pissed if potential employers were checking my credit.

Checking your credit score can actually hurt it. You should really only check your credit score 1-2 times a year at the most.

Well what did we expect here? The Insurance Mafia and Big Pharma were allowed to write their own freakin law forcing everyone in the country to purchase their product. Of course it was going to be a horrible law, and it is one.

Say goodbye to our beloved Constitutional Republic.
Say hello to Corporate Fascist Police State!

reply to post by RegisteredUser


Haha nice!

Well, technically charging interest was frowned upon by the Jews and the Old Testament. I believe it was called, "usury".

DustbowlDebutante
reply to post by webedoomed

 

God forbid any horrible life-altering accident that may befall you... Smug, aren't you?

You're seriously going to go here?

Ten years ago I got divorced and had to file for bankruptcy by the time it was all over. As of last fall, I had a good credit score; I had worked very hard to get it back up after the divorce.

Last October my son was hit by a car. He was double-insured (I have the primary BCBS policy on him, and my ex-husband carries a secondary BCBS policy on him), plus the motorist's insurance paid out AND my underinsured motorist coverage from my auto insurance kicked in and paid. I still owe $300,000.00 in back medical bills from this accident (that someone else caused, btw. I have tried suing her but to no avail as she isn't even employed). I make $35,000.00 per year.

Sucks to be you. Not sure why you are failing to read between the lines.

So, because I haven't kept up my good credit score, I'm a fool? I've been a good consumer, lived within my means, paid my bills on time, worked full time at the same job for eleven years so that we could BE insured... And now it's all for nothing, as there is no way under the sun that I could ever pay back $300K, which means I'm looking at having to file for bankruptcy again!

No. You don't fall into the general truth that the majority of people with poor credit have made a string of poor financial decisions throughout their life.

This isn't a simple matter of us "fools" keeping our credit scores "good," it's a matter of being penalized simply because something devastating and unexpected happened to us.

It truly is. Idiots took on debts they couldn't afford, concurrently while allowing their health to deteriorate due to a lack of care and self respect. For the majority of people, it comes down to a lack of conscientiousness and knowledge. You just got the poo end of the stick.

I'm sure there are a million other cases of people who did everything correct, and still are struggling just to survive. That is dwarfed in comparison to the people who "had it all", and blew it making poor decisions in their youth.

But what none of you are touching on is that it is NOT mandatory. You can buy out for a fee. They are touting this as a way for everyone to get insurance and that everyone will be covered and it is mandatory to get coverage but if you choose, you can simply 'pay the man' for them to leave you alone.

How about you just leave me alone. Also, the fines are not to go to providing cheaper healthcare or for those that do not have it but to the IRS. They are the ones in charge of it and if you think any money that they collect with go anywhere other than their coffers than keep chasing that leprechaun at the end of the rainbow because you have as good a chance of finding that pot of gold as you do getting good, inexpensive coverage.

Also, last year the government found out exactly what you were paying for healthcare with your W-2. BOx 12 DD. So, if I was a computer programmer for the government, and I have all of that information, I would use a logarithm to call that data and present you, the consumer, with a lower, a mid and a higher premium that what you had last year. Then, as an excuse to charge you more, check your FICO score. IT IS A SCAM folks. They have your info. They know what you paid and know how to work us. FTW I want to get off this time.

ANNED
I dropped out of the credit system over 20 years ago. I have no credit score and don't care to have one.

It does have a number of advantages like i have little to worry about identity theft as ID thieves find that people with no credit score are hard to steal credit from..

If i need credit i use a LLC i have with good credit.

Me too. I stopped using all credit over 10 years ago. It's simple really. If you don't have the money you don't buy it. Do I have a lot of toys and flashy things? No. But unlike EVERYONE who has those things I live within my means. And I actually own the things that I own. But I've never given a crap about keeping up with the Joneses. Most people aren't wired that way.

RegisteredUser
It's fairly common for insurance companies to use credit scores to set rates. They say that credit scores relect levels of personal responsibilities; those with lower scores are less likely to get into an auto accident, or burn down thier house. I'm not defending the practice. Just sayin'

You're right, the problem comes in because people are mandated to buy this product under federal law or face a harsh penalty. Because low to mid income families are the ones that overwhelming suffer from not having affordable health coverage and that same demographic are the ones with lower credit scores, explain to me how this change is benefiting American citizens instead of just insurance companies?

reply to post by Malynn


Technically you don't own anything.

Even if you have paid off your home and the land it sits on, you still have to pay property tax. Failure to pay property taxes can result in seizure of your land.

If you don't pay income taxes, you could be forced to forfeit your personal property.

When I realized this a while back it mad me sad, but then I realized that no one has really ever owned anything, ever.