Cheaper to be uninsured with the proposed Oregon insurance rates under Obamacare

The Oregon Insurance Division recently posted the 2014 individual and small-group health insurance rate requests at its rate review website: www.oregonhealthrates.org.

The tables it spits out are pretty hard to decipher, so I put together a graph.

Under Obamacare, insurance is classified into three categories: Bronze, Silver, and Gold. The big difference between each category is how much patients have to pay out of pocket. With Bronze, insurance pays an estimated 60 percent of medical costs. With Silver, it's 70 percent. With Gold, it's 80 percent.

The graph shows the cost at each age for a Bronze Plan. In each case, the highest price plan is offered by FamilyCare Health Plans and the lowest priced plan is offered by Moda Health Plan (formerly ODS).

Are these rates high?

Let's just say that under the penalties/taxes/whatever that Obamacare imposes for not carrying insurance (1 percent of income), for almost anyone it would be cheaper to drop their insurance and pay the penalty.

• Age 21: If you earn less than $158,400, you are better off paying the penalty.
• Age 40: If you earn less than $202,800, you are better off paying the penalty.
• Age 60: If you earn less than $430,800, you are better off paying the penalty.