In some cases the premium subsidies (assuming they exist) will reduce the monthly cost to almost $0.
Currently, hardly a week goes by that I don't get a call from someone without health insurance who is looking to buy a plan to cover a newly diagnosed condition.
Mostly it is women who are pregnant, or their spouse calling on their behalf.
Yes, some folks actually believe they can wait until they are pregnant and buy insurance for a (mostly) predictable and preventable condition. They are under the impression some health insurance carrier is crazy enough to assume the risk for a $10,000 or so claim (assuming no complications) in exchange for a premium of $100 per month or so.
Then we have this example from a fellow insurance agent.
A client's daughter called me a few months ago. Said she needed an individual health plan for her husband. He was 45 yrs old, 5'10" 300lbs on 4 blood pressure meds and had opted out of his wife's employer insurance because the $90/month to add him was too much.
They were looking to keep the same $1k deductible, but only wanted to pay around $50-60/month...
True story.
With guaranteed issue (no medical underwriting) almost upon us you can bet there will be a bunch of folks with medical conditions, some new, some that have existed for a while, that will be on the prowl for coverage.
As Bob Laszewski noted in our recent post (A Mere Pittance), it is easy to sign up sick people for health insurance, but it's really hard to get healthy people to buy.
So obvious, yet the folks who designed Obamacare apparently never considered some folks will work the system to their advantage.