Obamacare and Crohn's Disease

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From listening to the news there are lots of canadians who rather than wait here for tests etc, that they don't have to pay for would go to the states and pay for the procedure because they don't have to wait.
 
Oh I agree with you there! The wealthy should be made to pay more in taxes! It is sick to think that they get to slip through loop holes and pay NO taxes while the mid class and poor have to pay!! That needs to change! I hope that they pass that bill where the ones making over $250K a year have to pay more! It's about time they do pay!

Oh I know. I mean a lot of people are so sue happy today. I mean yes, there are proabably a lot of times when a surgeon or doctor deserves to be sued. I read in the newspaper about a lady who her 3 year old son died because of an overdose of medication given to him in the hospital. They should be sued for that! I mean there are way too many people lying in the cemetary today due to careless mistakes made by either doctors, surgeons or hospitals. But then you get the people who want to sue for every single thing. I know my gyne told me that her insurance was getting so high it was ridiculous. She said that gyne's have to have the biggest malpractice insurance. She said peopel will try to sue the OBGYN for anything that goes wrong, even if it had nothing to do with anything the gyne did or did not do...

I know my son had a car accident not to long ago. A drunk driver cut him off. well the passenger in my sons car ended up having her femur broke in her leg. Well thankfully my son had good car insurance that covered everything since the guy who caused the accident did not even have insurnace at all! Well now my sons insurance company is now sueing the guy personally for all the money( hospital bills from the girl who broke her leg). Here is the kicker. The girls mother actually wanted to try and sue my son even though he was not at fault at all for the accident. The insurance company was nice though, they paid her mom some money and are just going after the guy who caused the whole mess.

But yeah, back to your point, yes, I agree, the rich should have to pay more than the mid class and the poor in my opinion.














Hobbes650 said:
Maybe. Corruptness definitely. Not sure how you can call it greed when poor people are getting charged the same outrageous price as the wealthy- truly greedy people are smart enough to charge wealthy people more. But those in gov't will certainly tell you they need to protect you from greedy doctors and hospitals, that's a given. I'd also like to be protected from a greedy and corrupt gov't that wants to create more gov't jobs and higher gov't paychecks and pensions at the cost of the sick. The same common sense approach that's used in auto insurance could be applied to healthcare. Auto insurance is certainly not a perfect solution, but does offer solutions that work to keep costs down. And then there's the other problem. Don't get me started on the lawyers and the cost of malpractice insurance. :)
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I thought Obamacare just changed how insurance companies can treat people. I'm being told there is going to be a government healthcare option. Is this going to be open to everyone? How much will it cost and who will be the providers?
 
Nogutsnoglory,

I posted links to the actual Obama Health Care Act. Go read them for youself so you don't get any biased comments on the matter. Don't rely on others to do your homework for you. Their answers may be wrong.
 
CLynn said:
Hospitals also are very often guilty of billing for things not given or done, everyone should go over the bills with a fine tooth comb. And pharmacuetical companies have too much power to set ridiculous prices and keep generics off the market.
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Hi Cylnn, You probably don't want to go over your bills with a fine tooth comb since it could be quite stressfull. If you do, you will discover charges that seem outragous. Problem is, the bill is only one side of the the problem- we don't see what the corresponding costs are that the hospital has to pay for. What's worse, is that under the ACA hospitals and doctors will be paid less in an effort to reduce healthcare costs- which is the dumbest idea yet. Imagine if you were upset over how high your phone bill is. Would cutting your paycheck bring your cost down? Would paying your phone company less force them to charge you less?

The ACA is about nationalizing healthcare- one size fits all for everyone, completely paid for by the taxpayer and completely controlled by the gov't. This is to correct all the inequality that occurs in healthcare. If you believe that, great you will have no problem going forward. But the reality is that the ACA will force many suppliers of healthcare (doctors, hospitals, clinics, etc) to go out of business becasue they will not be able to pay their expenses. It's just too bad that the debate in the US is not honest- nobody who favors the ACA says it's about fairness. Instead, proponets all promote how much more efficient the system will be, and how much less expensive it will be, and how much better off society will be. Total bs.

I also just learned that you can make upt to $92,000 a year, have no dependents, and be eligible for Obamacare. Yes that's right, you can make $92,000 and still be eligible for government welfare. If there is one stat that proves this bill is not about making healthcare cheaper but rather controlling it it's this one. What's next, an Affordable Housing Act where you can get a house paid for by the taxpayer as long as you make under $200,000 a year? An Affordable Car Act? How about an Affordable Television Act? I could certainly use a new plasma screen. :D
 
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Hobbes650 said:
Hi Cylnn, You probably don't want to go over your bills with a fine tooth comb since it could be quite stressfull. If you do, you will discover charges that seem outragous. Problem is, the bill is only one side of the the problem- we don't see what the corresponding costs are that the hospital has to pay for. What's worse, is that under the ACA hospitals and doctors will be paid less in an effort to reduce healthcare costs- which is the dumbest idea yet. Imagine if you were upset over how high your phone bill is. Would cutting your paycheck bring your cost down? Would paying your phone company less force them to charge you less?

The ACA is about nationalizing healthcare- one size fits all for everyone, completely paid for by the taxpayer and completely controlled by the gov't. This is to correct all the inequality that occurs in healthcare. If you believe that, great you will have no problem going forward. But the reality is that the ACA will force many suppliers of healthcare (doctors, hospitals, clinics, etc) to go out of business becasue they will not be able to pay their expenses. It's just too bad that the debate in the US is not honest- nobody who favors the ACA says it's about fairness. Instead, proponets all promote how much more efficient the system will be, and how much less expensive it will be, and how much better off society will be. Total bs.

I also just learned that you can make upt to $92,000 a year, have no dependents, and be eligible for Obamacare. Yes that's right, you can make $92,000 and still be eligible for government welfare. If there is one stat that proves this bill is not about making healthcare cheaper but rather controlling it it's this one. What's next, an Affordable Housing Act where you can get a house paid for by the taxpayer as long as you make under $200,000 a year? An Affordable Car Act? How about an Affordable Television Act? I could certainly use a new plasma screen. :D
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Love how you're comparing someone's health, something, in most cases, they have no control over. It's someones life, not some material object like a car or TV.

The American health care system is a shambles, thank God, as someone with Crohn's, I'm looked at as a patient in need as opposed to a giant check book like they do in the States.
 
IAmTheWalrus said:
Love how you're comparing someone's health, something, in most cases, they have no control over. It's someones life, not some material object like a car or TV.

The American health care system is a shambles, thank God, as someone with Crohn's, I'm looked at as a patient in need as opposed to a giant check book like they do in the States.
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Hi Walrus, I cetainly do not suggest that peoples health be treated at the same way as material objects, that's abusrd. The prices of the goods and sevices can cetainly be treated in a more similar fashion to bring prices down. A really good way to do that is to open the industry up, make it more competitive. Lasik eye surgery is a great example of one item in health that has done this and prices dropped dramatically. Sorry, I guess I should have used the lasik example to better illustrate the point iinstead of being a little absurd in order to illustrate the complete abusrdity of the situation now. The one size fits all approach to most healthcare issues in the US is the wrong approach. Having a unique and separate system for people who cannot afford healthcare is best, that's all.
 
It's definitely all about the money here in the United States when it comes to health care, unfortunately! It all comes down to hospitals charging insurance companies outrageous amounts of money for tests. Then the insurnace companies charge the people WAY too much just to have the insurance and crazy insane deductibles! The insurance companies even deny patients needed tests here.

Last year my son had to have knee surgery due to a knee injury. His orthopedic surgeon wanted him to have an MRI of his knee right away to see the extent of the damage. Get this; the insurance company tells the doctors office that they do not think he needs an MRI yet, that he has to go to physical therapy first!!!! Ummm ok, I am no doctor but I think when a person injures their knee the last thing you would want to do is have them do excercises with it without seeing the extent of damage! Well, the stupid insurance company would not budge. So my son went to PT for like 2 sessions and finally told the Therapist that he could not do anymore excercises as it was causing him to much pain. I finally called the insurance company back and told them about this. The lady at the insurance company told me that my son would have to at least go to 5 sessions of PT before they would cover an MRI. At that point I was getting really pissed. So I told the lady that fine he will go, but if he gets any worse due to you all forcing him to have PT in order for you all to ok his MRI, well you will be hearing from a lawyer! Well, finally we got the call back saying they would ok the MRI.

But the whole point is is that the US health care system is a mess, that is for certain. To much greed and you cannot trust anyone any more. Being chronically ill for the last 9 years I can honestly say that the one thing I have learned is that the doctors and insurance companies best interest is not the patients best interest as sad as it is. It is all about the money! Sad but true!
 
It seems designed to help the insurance companies NOT have to pay out any more money than they want to. I have dealt with insurance since I got Crohn's while I was in college. Over time, I see that they pay less and less of what they used to. My husband is diabetic, type I, and this year when he ordered his insulin, the cost was applied to his deductible instead of just being paid at the normal prescription benefit prices. $700.00 is alot of money, we were livid, it's not like he can choose NOT to take the medicine, it's life and death. Never in all the years I have dealt with insurance have I seen them do this with prescriptions, apply them to the medical deductible.
 
Okay I've read through a lot of these posts, some of you have made some very good points; here's how I see it. First my background, I'm a 21 year old Crohn's patient, and currently a full-time student, born and raised in Massachusetts. In January I was kicked off my parents health insurance by the state, which was a state-funded plan (Network Health). I was subsequently denied coverage from every other state offered health plan; commonwealth care, Mass Health, etc... I was forced to pay over $800 for a premium to get on my schools insurance and receive their coverage, which will expire come August, and I didn't actually get on it until February. While the Affordable Care Act will lower the cost of my medications in the long run, it also reduces the ratio between how much the insurance companies can charge for young-old peoples premiums. "Those provisions would drive premiums down for 55-year-olds but would drive them up for 25-year-olds—who are then implicitly subsidizing older adults. According to the Urban Institute, many young people could see their premiums double, whereas premiums for older adults could be cut in half" [1]. So while I will be spending less on my medications, I will be hit much harder regarding my health insurance premiums. Possibly in the aggregate this will save me more money than it will cost, but from my preliminary estimates that is not the case, in fact far from it. Also, while I cannot be denied for having a pre-existing condition, this was not a factor in me being denied all health coverage from the state earlier this year. Also, disregarding pre-existing conditions does have downsides: "That concept [the 'guaranteed issue'] applied to fire insurance would require fire insurers to cover applicants who waited until their home caught on fire to call for coverage" [2]. It will also be harder to see your specialist once the Affordable Care Act is fully in place, "Access to care will become a huge issue as waiting times to see doctors and enter hospitals grows" [2]. To me, this is a scary notion; as many of you know Crohn's is unstable, flare-ups can come without notice, I for one do not want to have to wait months to see my specialist while I'm dropping weight at alarming rates and spending a third of my day in the bathroom!!! More over, as the son of a second generation small business owner who has worked in my father's manufacturing company since the age of 8, I have already seen the effects of the ACA on small business taxes, and I've seen first hand the stresses this will put on our nation's business owners (who make up most of your employers by the way!). Obamacare is going to force a lot of small businesses to cease paying for their employees health insurance, forcing more people onto government funded programs; guess who pays for that, my tax money.

Overall, while there are some ways in which I will benefit from the Affordable Care Act, there are far more negatives. From my initial analysis it will end up costing me more than it saves me, as well as making it harder to see my doctor; these are only several of the negative points that I have decided to present to you, and I would be more than happy to go into further detail. Ask some Canadians how they feel about universal health care though, and you will hear pros and cons from everyone. Stories of local government officials literally picking names from a hat to determine who would be allowed to see a doctor that month, yet other stories of universal health care making life easier. Part of me thinks acceptance of this legislation involves a liberal mindset, and maybe that's why I have trouble in doing so... _________________________________________________________________
References: (sorry it won't let me post the links)
[1] "ObamaCare: A Bad Deal for Young Adults" by Aaron Yelowitz, CATO Institute, November 5, 2009
[2] "Look Out Below, The Obamacare Crisis Is Coming" by Peter Ferrara, Forbes, April 7, 2013
 
There are a few positives in this bill they are few and far apart. I am just at the point with tax's and premiums and everything else I see that I do not want to pay for other people's stuff.

How many people here have seen someone use one of them free food cards EBT or whatever they are called then see them in parking lot in 70,000 dollar vehicle. This system will be abused like so many others.
 
amrycrohns said:
There are a few positives in this bill they are few and far apart. I am just at the point with tax's and premiums and everything else I see that I do not want to pay for other people's stuff.

How many people here have seen someone use one of them free food cards EBT or whatever they are called then see them in parking lot in 70,000 dollar vehicle. This system will be abused like so many others.
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You are right. The system will benefit some but many others will use it to their advantage at the expense of others.
 
Didn't know that using beneficial aspects of the ACA means you are taking advantage of others. ACA has already cut my expenses by about $9000.00 per year, just by allowing employers to offer high deductible health plans.

I am not a liberal by any means, but the fact is that most small employers in Utah have never offered health insurance to their employees. The ACA is not responsible for small employers not offering health insurance because of the cost. They were not offering it even before the ACA.
 
If you are entitled to it, then use it but there will be those who will make themselves using various ways to make themselves entitled.
 
DougUte said:
Didn't know that using beneficial aspects of the ACA means you are taking advantage of others. ACA has already cut my expenses by about $9000.00 per year, just by allowing employers to offer high deductible health plans.
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My comment was geared more toward people living off of our system then people who work and earn a living. SSD, welfare, food stamps, free medical and everything that can be abused is being abused. Some people really need it and I don't mind that too much. When you are having more kids to get more money or saying your baby's daddy lives somewhere else so you don't have to count thier income. People work under the table pay no tax's and collect aid from the goverment and let's not forget the drug dealers making more money then most honest people and getting free aid.

I am glad your medical costs went down, most people I know who pay a premium had significant increase's in premiums with in months of ACA being upheld. My premiums only went up slightly nothing to lose sleep about since my entire family gets 100% everything no co pays.
 
seebee said:
If you are entitled to it, then use it but there will be those who will make themselves using various ways to make themselves entitled.
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Perhaps that is the very reason to steer away from these ad hock measures.

No matter what welfare/assistance etc is on offer you will always have those that abuse the system but does that mean we don't offer these basic services?

Universal health care is paid through taxes and yes, there will be those that avoid paying taxes too. But you can earn a billion dollars or nothing and still access the same public hospital, the same doctor. Of course for those that choose to they can also opt for private health care which does allow greater choice.

It is all about everyone having access to decent hospital care full stop, at no added cost to the consumer.

I will be honest and say that knowing my children will never have the full burden of their health care is comfort indeed. I have paid my taxes from the time I left school and I can say i never received back what I put in as far as services are concerned. I spent nigh on 25 years or more subsiding the health care system through my taxes and didn't use it, well aside from the births of my children, but I am certainly seeing the benefits of it now with 2 children with Crohn's. Our time did come but even it didn't I wouldn't mind as I believe it to be a basic human right.

Does the system have problems? Of course it does, just as any system does. Is it free? Of course not, we all pay for it through a levy via the tax system. I am just happy it is there.

The health system in the US and rest of the developed countries took different paths and for the US it would never be as simple as adopt this or that system and all will be well. Your infrastructure is based on your system and that makes widespread change difficult. I just hope that a way forward is found that makes affordable healthcare a right, not a privilege, as there is nothing more heartbreaking than coming to the forum and reading that someone can't proceed with a given treatment and/or go to the ER because of the cost. :(

Just my two cents worth, :wink:

Dusty. :)
 
I am personally in favor of ACA. I am also very fortunate that my husband's job provides excellent insurance, so while it pays less than other jobs he considered, we decided the health care was worth it. But I hate the fact that he chose a job in part because of the health insurance. A coworker would love to stay home with her kids (and they can afford it) but because she carries the health insurance in her family, she can't. I wish they had gone farther and instituted universal health care.

After college, I had a soul-sucking job working for Empire Blue Cross and Blue Shield. We called it the Evil Empire. My entire job was to find ways to deny claims. The idea was, if we denied claims, even ones that should be paid, a certain percentage would never question it and the company wouldn't have to pay.

I do not trust insurance companies. I really wish the ACA didn't require them as middlemen paying for care.
 
The Affordable Care Act is a big step in the right direction. The primary fix is the requirement to carry insurance. I know too many people who don't carry insurance because they don't want to pay for it - but then when there is a major medical disaster, they can't pay the high bills incurred. When that happens, Medicare steps in and reimburses the facility and providers for the unpaid bills. This is an enormous drain on the Medicare system, and it's why the ACA will help to stop the shortage in Medicare. If billions are saved by not needing to pay unpaid hospital bills, Medicare has more funds available to cover the enrolees, as well as to close the prescription doughnut hole that often forced seniors to choose between medication and food. Allowing children to stay on their parents' insurance is another huge part, because kids in college or just getting started in life who don't have insurance can have their credit damaged literally for life if a medical emergency happens and they can't pay for it. Requiring more employers to offer the insurance also helps everyone, even those employers who feel like they are being ripped off.
The third and arguably best part of the ACA is the elimination of disqualification based on pre-existing conditions. What a joke that has always been, that the business administration of some insurance company could dictate whether an enrolee's necessary medical care could be denied because they had the condition prior to starting with that particular company. This was a senseless rule and I'm so glad to see it going by the wayside.
 
amrycrohns, you already pay for everyone else's stuff. that's how taxation works. Currently you pay taxes in to the Medicare system, which pays out billions to hospitals to cover bills incurred by those who had no insurance. When people are forced to carry insurance, they will not be able to ring up those huge unpaid bills and the Medicare system will save money. There is no perfect system but I believe our President was right in introducing this program because something had to be done. It's not fair that we all pay in to the tax system but only certain people can reap the benefits. The middle class bears the brunt of those expenses.
 
One other thing I'd like to mention is that when my husband first graduated from law school, he worked as a bankruptcy attorney. All but 3 or 4 of his cases involved either a death in the family, a divorce or a health crises. He will tell you that the overwhelming majority are health crises. These people would be so far in debt that bankruptcy was the only way to get out of it. And most of them had insurance. A good friend of mine lost her son to CF. After a year that started with an infection that led to multiple ICU visits and months in the hospital, he died. And then she and her husband had to declare bankruptcy because even though they had insurance, they had a half million dollars in medical debt. She said that she eventually turned her phone off, because while in the ICU with her son, collection agencies would call.

No one should have to go through that. Ever.
 
One more good thing about the ACA, which will apply to what you've said, Linda, is the insurance exchange. Few industries are as confusing as the insurance industry. The exchange will force all insurance companies to be listed in one place, with a clear description of enrollment costs, deductibles, out-of-pocket annual limits, and more. Consumers will be able to choose an insurance that fits their spending limits. Some companies require a higher participation cost but offer more coverage on hospital visits and testing. This can make a procedure that costs thousands of dollars literally only cost a hundred or two. More people should also receive finance education in high school though - most Americans live at or beyond their means and when unexpected bills come up, they don't have the reserve to pay for them as they should.
 
mccindy said:
More people should also receive finance education in high school though - most Americans live at or beyond their means and when unexpected bills come up, they don't have the reserve to pay for them as they should.
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While I agree with this statement, when a medical crises arises, and you or a family member is in the hospital for any length of time, unless you have a very large savings, it won't cover the costs as they are now. My first bowel resection, in 1995, cost almost $70,000. But my insurance back then picked up the entire tab. With my second, in 2006, it was around $100k. I can't imagine what they cost now. No working person could afford that with savings.
 
Linda - that's what I mean, the reserve would be to cover the out-of-pocket portion of the bill after insurance picks up the main portion. I didn't mean people should have enough reserve to cover procedures without any insurance. That would be a nightmare and unattainable!
 
mccindy said:
Linda - that's what I mean, the reserve would be to cover the out-of-pocket portion of the bill after insurance picks up the main portion. I didn't mean people should have enough reserve to cover procedures without any insurance. That would be a nightmare and unattainable!
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Oh. Even still, my friend had insurance, and the non-covered portion was so much that there was no way she could afford it. She and her husband still had to declare bankruptcy. And they lost their house, because they decided to pay bills so care would continue, instead of their mortgage (although I doubt they wanted to live there any more without their son). Now, about 5 years later, they are finally getting back on their feet. It is horrific enough to lose your child, but then to also have to declare bankruptcy is just insulting.

Hopefully, over the next few years, this legislation will get tweaked so that can't happen.
 
I certainly hope so. How awful, to lose a child and then still have to go through all that financial difficulty as well. I hope that the ACA is able to force insurance companies to do what they are actually supposed to do, pay for the medical bills that the premiums are meant to cover. It's sad that the insurance industry has become such a money-hungry entity, fattening the pockets of executives to the detriment of the health of America.
 
What an incredibly well-spoken woman. To go through all that, share her story and do so well to share both the pain and humiliation she felt during that time. She articulates well the very need our society has to protect the family during times of hardship - I know there are some who might say that one of the parents should have gone back to work to support them and prevent the financial losses, but imagine the mental and emotional toll on the parent who would have missed the end of the child's life. I hope that her testimony made some difference.
 
I am a proponent of the ACA but surprisingly some of my doctors say its bad and they won't be reimbursed as much. These aren't conservatives either but NY liberal docs. Do they know something we don't know? Why would this bill effect their reimbursement?
 
I have heard that also. But I also know doctors that are all for it because patients are able to better afford care.
 
Docs will be affected because reimbursements are changing. More careful screening needs to be done because if procedures are performed and then denied, payment won't be received. Plus providers are being held much more accountable for care and that affects reimbursement also. For example, if a patient contracts pneumonia more than 48 hours after being admitted to the hospital, it is a hospital-acquired pneumonia and the hospital and all providers are held responsible for that infection. No reimbursement will be given for any care for the patient because it is considered the hospital's responsibility that the patient contracted pneumonia while in their care.
 
I believe that every citizen in the world is born entitled to an education, a decent job, safe, modest housing, healthy food and good healthcare. Obamacare is a tiny step in the right direction.

Our 19 year old has been able to stay on my husband's insuance because of Obamacare. She earns a little over minimum wage and would not be able to afford decent insurance on her own.

The U.S. is a very wealthy country. We can afford to treat our citizens decently.
 
Amy2 said:
The U.S. is a very wealthy country. We can afford to treat our citizens decently.
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We are something like 17 trillion dollars in debt. I have been to 3rd world countries and we live better then them. But we also have a ton of etitlement programs that we can not afford and are living off of borrowed money.
 
The National Debt is something of a joke, to be honest. We owe money in reparations to countries with whom we had a military conflict or war. We owe money to countries with whom we trade goods. If we spent less on defense and unnecessary research projects, and stopped the leakage that occurs with government spending, programs designed to help people could be properly funded and so could our educational system. We could also make more money by increasing taxes on companies that choose to move facilities overseas and then ship their goods back into the U.S., and taxing corporations at a rate equal to what ordinary citizens pay.
 
Our debt has been higher as a percentage of the GDP in the past. We just need to start collecting taxes from the rich at a much higher rate (like we used to). Eliminating spending for education that results in a continued decline in American competitiveness will not make the U.S. stronger. Any approach that results in significant declines in standards of living for average working Americans will result in a corresponding drop in tax receipts and actually make our debt worse. It's time to spend on education and infrastructure, which will create jobs. Of course we should raise minimum wage, too.
 
Unfortunately the GOP just voted to eliminate overtime pay, more detriment to the middle class and benefiting the rich. Again.
 
We are getting off the subject of ACA a little now and getting into political views. Which will vary from person to person. I am middle class, me and my wife both come from being very poor. We do very well for ourselves now a days after many years of sacrifice. The ACA has not one benefit for me personally or my family. It has however raised our premiums slightly as insurance companies prepare for ACA to go into full effect. I am paying more tax's now then ever and see some of the other benefits afforded to me for being in the military being cut. So in the end I am paying more and getting less.
 
You're either middle class OR you do very well for yourselves, can't be both. ;)
People mean different things when they say middle class. Some people who call themselves middle class make $40K, others make $200K. Huge difference. Once my husband passed the $100K mark, our lives got much easier, much less stressful and much more fun. I never complain about the taxes we pay! Also, when we were poor, it wasn't because we didn't work hard or sacrifice, we just had a run of bad luck, like many people do. Don't you think health care should be a right?
 
I agree amrycrohns, ACA will not benefit my son either. He is fixing to enter college but from my research it would benefit him more healthcare wise to encourage him to pick up minimum wage job rather than get and education and better himself. The premiums he'll have to pay at his projected salary will put the premiums too high to consider self sufficiency

Our insurance was established before 2010 so according to ACA they don't have to provide until he's 26. Our insurance will cover him until 26 as long as he is a full time student.

And above a poster said Medicare was overburdened because they had to pick up the unpaid bills of those that opted not to get insurance then had an a medical emergency. I don't follow that at all since there are guidelines to be picked up by Medicare and if you don't meet those guidelines Medicare is NOT going to puck up your unpaid hospital bill. If you do qualify the Medicare would pick it up regardless when you applied. Unpaid hospital bills(depending on the type of hospital) are written off and the cost passed down to tax payers and insured patients.
 
I recall seeing a report the other day that I found interesting. It found that young men will be paying much more for the new health care act.

"Obamacare Kicks Young Men While They’re Down"

http://blogs.the-american-interest.com/wrm/2013/05/14/obamacare-kicks-young-men-while-theyre-down/

Young men will be the biggest losers in the transition to Obamacare, according to a new report by the actuarial and consulting firm Milliman. The report estimates that males as a whole will see an 11 percent increase in insurance premiums, while females as a whole will see a nine percent decrease. Men under 40 will face insurance hikes of 18 to 31 percent; females under 40 will benefit from 13 to 19 percent decreases.

But here’s the real kicker: premiums for young men ages 25-36 could increase by more than 50 percent, and females 25-29 will face a 4 percent increase. In other words, if you’re young, you lose. If you’re a man, you lose. If you’re a young man, you really lose.

Recent news about Obamacare premium costs has tended to focus on whether the premiums will go up or down on average. What this data shows is that these broader national or state averages hide scarier changes in the group-by-group breakdowns. Young people are already the hardest hit by the recession and by the plethora of other entitlement programs that subsidize the boomers. Young men, in particular, are especially hurt by some of the country’s current economic shifts. Passing a law that forces them to shoulder an even greater economic burden and then spending tons of money to convince them to sign up for this raw deal is both cruel and irresponsible.
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amrycrohns said:
You can live very well in the middle class if you live with in you means. We make about 100k, thats not including 100% medical for family and life insurance. No healthcare shouldn't be a right, I don't mind it being provided to people who need it and can't get there own, its all the people that need it that are to lazy to work and live off goverment programs.
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You are already paying for the uninsured, after their problems get big enough that they head to the ER. Do you want to live in a country where people are turned away in the ER? If not, then it's better to pay for their preventative care, from a purely financial POV.

People in the US just aren't used to thinking of healthcare as a right, but we have lots of other rights, that cost others money. If you leave your stove on and your house catches on fire, my tax dollars will help send a fire truck to your house. Is a house more important than a body? Or do you think only people who can afford to pay the firefighters should get to have their houses put out?
 
Beach said:
I recall seeing a report the other day that I found interesting. It found that young men will be paying much more for the new health care act.

"Obamacare Kicks Young Men While They’re Down"

http://blogs.the-american-interest.com/wrm/2013/05/14/obamacare-kicks-young-men-while-theyre-down/
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I have a young male relative who will have healthcare for the first time since he left his parent's house. He works full time, but because he makes so little, it will essentially be paid for by other people. There are plenty of young men in low paying jobs just like his.
 
Gets me that Americans see owning guns as a right, yet sees healthcare as needed only for the people who can afford it... (bit of generalisation there I know :p )

Percentage wise how many people do you really think play the benefits system now, I'm sure its pretty low compared to the people who really need it.

I pay into our healthcare system by means of tax, and tell you the truth I'd rather be healthy and not get my money's worth
 
The sad part about the new unpopular Obamacare is that something new could have been written, that could have helped people much better. How the new generally works is that largest group that has been uninsured are young Americans. They must now buy premium health insurance, buying items they don't really need. This helps out older Americans, keeping health insurance costs down for them. To not buy insurance is to leave one open to IRS penalties - which with the recent IRS bias scandal is a frightening thought.

As can be imagined every health group in the country is lobbying to be included with the mandatory insurance coverage. They are lobbying politicians, as to be left out can be hurtful for ones business. The most powerful lady in the government overlooking health care was even recently playing into this. Katheleen Sebelius mentioned that companies should volunteer money to help raise further awareness that young Americans need to buy health insurance. I'm guessing plenty of companies and health groups will be helping the Health Secretary out, to be richly rewarded later.

As for expanding the rat hole of Medicaid, which is what the AHA does, another report came out in the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine highlighting how poorly this program works to help improve the poors' health.

Our old health care system wasn't all that great. It's easy to see why the new AHA act isn't popular today.

It's a political article, but on the Medicaid study.

"More Trouble for ObamaCare"

http://www.commentarymagazine.com/2013/05/02/more-trouble-for-obamacare/

snippet from the article:

In March 2011, Avik Roy wrote about something that constituted, in his opinion, “simply put, the greatest scandal in America. Bigger than Madoff, bigger than the Wall Street bailout, bigger even than the plight of the uninsured.” The scandal was a study demonstrating that “despite the fact that we will soon spend more than $500 billion a year on Medicaid, Medicaid beneficiaries, on average, fared worse than those with no insurance at all.” (Emphasis in the original.)

Indeed, Medicaid does not tend to fare well when tested. But yesterday’s news was among the worst that proponents of expanded Medicaid and its larger ObamaCare policy disaster could have received. The New England Journal of Medicine reported the results of a study conducted by major health-policy scholars–including ObamaCare advisor Jonathan Gruber–further showing that Medicaid is an expensive bust. The conclusion from the study authors:

We found no significant effect of Medicaid coverage on the prevalence or diagnosis of hypertension or high cholesterol levels or on the use of medication for these conditions. Medicaid coverage significantly increased the probability of a diagnosis of diabetes and the use of diabetes medication, but we observed no significant effect on average glycated hemoglobin levels or on the percentage of participants with levels of 6.5% or higher. Medicaid coverage decreased the probability of a positive screening for depression (−9.15 percentage points; 95% confidence interval, −16.70 to −1.60; P=0.02), increased the use of many preventive services, and nearly eliminated catastrophic out-of-pocket medical expenditures.

In other words, it’s a middle class-financed bailout of Medicaid beneficiaries, not a health care program. But it’s expensive, and it’s a major component of increased insurance coverage under ObamaCare. None of this is too surprising to conservative health policy analysts, who have been pointing this out for years. But it may come as a surprise to liberal supporters of ObamaCare who, as their reaction to opening arguments at the Supreme Court last year demonstrated, were shielded from the data by their furious commitment to epistemic closure.

It was difficult to argue that Medicaid expansion was the right way to go, since the data don’t support such a claim. And it was patently absurd to claim–though ObamaCare boosters tried anyway–that if you liked your insurance, you could keep it (ObamaCare was specifically designed to undercut such a claim, and the government knew it). So without the data or, in many cases, simple logic on their side, ObamaCare proponents resorted to the accusation that opposing ObamaCare was akin to attempted mass murder.

But liberals also resorted to all manner of claims about the current American health-care sector that would be fixed by passing their favored legislation. Megan McArdle, at the time writing for the Atlantic, noted:

Judging by the statistics that have been used to sell this thing, over and over, liberals are expecting big things.

1) Ezra Klein is confidently predicting that it will save hundreds of thousands of lives.

2) Nick Kristoff (sic) expects miraculous improvement in our national life expectancy.

3) Michael Moore thinks this will stop people from getting thrown out of their homes in a Medical bankruptcy.

4) At least one of you must be willing to claim massive improvements in infant mortality, after you’ve cited those statistics to me over and over.

McArdle proposed simply that we hold liberals to their predictions, allowing them some leeway for overstatement in the heat of the moment. In a follow-up post, McArdle responded to ObamaCare’s proponents who had objected to the suggestion that they be held accountable for their claims.

McArdle, now with the Daily Beast, reacts to the new Medicaid study, as do Avik Roy and Phil Klein. This is big news, McArdle concludes:

And it’s actually bigger, and more important than Obamacare. We should all be revising our priors about how much health insurance–or at least Medicaid–really promotes health. What this really tells us is how little we know about health care, and making people healthy–and how often data can confound even our most powerful intuitions.

McArdle is right that ObamaCare was supposed to bend the cost curve down and save lives, and this sort of thing should have us rethinking the issue. The big question is: will the introduction of important new facts change the opinions of ObamaCare supporters on the left? It’s difficult to imagine that happening, because the ObamaCare fight was never about data or empirical scholarship; for the left, it was about ideology....
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Clash and amry - you are both mistaken. Clash first - it doesn't matter if the insurance was established prior to 2010, under ACA they do have to provide insurance for your son until he is 26. The only area where time of establishment is critical at this point is for pre-existing conditions, and that stipulation goes away next year.
amry - ACA does benefit you, and everyone else. The Medicare program shoulders an enormous burden by reimbursing medical facilities for unpaid hospital bills literally in the billions, incurred by the uninsured. If this were to continue unchecked, the Medicare program would fail within a matter of years. However, under ACA, with millions more people insured and a push for wellness and prevention rather than treatment after the fact, Medicare will save billions of dollars each year and continue to remain a viable program.
I know many people who are working at places where health care is not available. Under ACA some of those employers will be forced to offer insurance, or pay a fine. The employees will be forced to carry insurance, or pay a fine. I don't have a problem with that. I don't mind my taxes going to a program that helps cover insurance for everyone, but I don't like them going to pay bills for people who aren't carrying insurance, don't go the doctor, and then incur enormous bills when they do get so sick they have to be emergently admitted to the hospital and treated.

Also, read carefully when researching the ACA. Premiums will increase for young men, but ONLY if they are picking up insurance directly from the exchange and not from their employer. Part of the reason for this is that the risk pool is being expanded to include the elderly, and insurance companies cannot charge different premiums based on gender. Previously women were charged more than men were, and now that is no longer the case - so the rise in men's premiums and the decrease in women's is a change to bring more equality to the cost.
http://money.cnn.com/2013/05/14/news/economy/obamacare-premiums/index.html
 
McCindy - I wish I held your enthusiasm that current prevention measures will save money. It is an old saying that we hear. Government has been involved in our medical system for over 60 years at this point, with each generation of politicians saying they will cut medical costs. That hasn't exactly happened with our medical system though. Medical costs have exploded upwards. Some recent estimates put our medical wasteful spending at 800 billion and upwards - more than we spend on national defense.

Sadly also there have been a number of articles of late showing the opposite when it comes to current prevention care options with the new health care law. For example ~

"Think preventive medicine will save money? Think again"

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/01/29/us-preventive-economics-idUSBRE90S05M20130129

As your CNN article points out, historically fewer men seek to see doctors. As a result, due to a higher number of visits by females, costs have historically been higher for women. Makes sense.

And that is where one way a difference could be made with improving our medical system, and seeing less of our economy going toward the health care industry. People need choices and incentives to stay healthy, and choose medical options that might be equal in care, but less in cost.

One country, with a high life expectancy and Universal care is Singapore. Their medical costs though are around half of what other countries pay for Universal care. That is due to giving their citizens choices, and greater incentives to exercise and eat healthy.

"What we can learn from Singapore's health-care model"

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/03/AR2010030301396.html

&

"In Praise of Discrimination in the Health Insurance Market"

http://reason.com/archives/2012/06/28/in-praise-of-discrimination-in-the-healt

From John Stossel's article:

...Above all, discrimination is what makes insurance work. An insurance regime where everyone pays the same amount is called "community rating." That sounds fair. No more cruel discrimination against the obese or people with cancer. But community rating is as destructive as ordering flood insurance companies to charge me nothing extra to insure my very vulnerable beach house, or ordering car insurance companies to charge Lindsay Lohan no more than they charge you. Such one-size-fits-all rules take away insurance companies' best tool: risk-based pricing. Risk-based pricing encourages us to take better care of ourselves.

Car insurance works because companies reward good drivers and charge the Lindsay Lohans more. If the state forces insurance companies to stop discriminating, that kills the business model.

No-discrimination insurance isn't insurance. It's welfare. If the politicians' plan was to create another government welfare program, they ought to own up to that instead of hiding the cost.

Obama—and the Clintons before him—expressed outrage that insurance companies charged people different rates based on their risk profiles. They want everyone covered for the same "fair" price.

The health insurance industry was happy to play along. They even offered to give up on gender differences. Women go to the doctor more often than men and spend more on medicines. Their lifetime medical costs are much higher, and so it makes all the sense in the world to charge women higher premiums. But Sen. John Kerry pandered, saying, "The disparity between women and men in the individual insurance market is just plain wrong, and it has to change!" The industry caved. The president of its trade group, Karen M. Ignagni, said that disparities "should be eliminated."

Caving was safer than fighting the president and Congress, and caving seemed to provide the industry with benefits. Insurance companies wouldn't have to work as hard. They wouldn't have to carefully analyze risk. They'd be partners with government—fat and lazy, another sleepy bureaucracy feeding off the welfare state. Alcoholics, drug addicts and the obese won't have to pay any more than the rest of us.

But this just kills off a useful part of insurance: encouraging healthy behavior. Charging heavy drinkers more for insurance gives them one more incentive to quit. "No-discrimination" pricing makes health care costs rise even faster. Is it too much to expect our rulers to understand this?

Of course, the average citizen doesn't understand either. When I argue that medical insurance makes people indifferent to costs, I get online comments like: "I guess the 47 million people who don't have health care should just die, right, John?"

The truth is, almost all people do get health care, even if they don't have health insurance. Hospitals rarely turn people away; Medicaid and charities pay for care; some individuals pay cash; some doctors forgive bills. I wish people would stop conflating the terms "health care," "health insurance" and "Obamacare." Reporters ask guests things like: "Should Congress repeal health care?" I sure don't want anyone's health care repealed.

Reporters also routinely called Obamacare health "reform." But the definition of reform is: making something better. More government control won't do that. We should call politicians' insurance demands "big intrusive complex government micromanagement."

Let the private sector work. Let it discriminate.
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The Affordable Care Act requires plans and issuers that offer coverage to children on their parents’ plan to make the coverage available until the adult child reaches the age of 26. The issued regulations state that young adults are eligible for this coverage regardless of any, or a combination of any, of the following factors: financial dependency, residency with parent, student status, employment and marital status. This applies to all plans in the individual market and to employer plans created after the date of enactment (March 23, 2010). For employer plans that were in existence prior to the date of enactment, young adults can qualify for dependent coverage only if they are not eligible for an employment-based health insurance plan until 2014. Beginning in 2014, young adults can choose to stay on their parent’s health plan until age 26, even if they are eligible for their own employer-sponsored insurance plan. This law does not require that a plan or issuer offer dependent coverage but that if coverage is offered it must be extended to young adults up to age 26.
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http://www.ncsl.org/issues-research/health/dependent-health-coverage-state-implementation.aspx

There are, at this time, caveats still in place for insurance policies established before 2010

And again medicare does NOT cover uninsured's unpaid bills, it only covers bills for those who qualify for medicare and it would pay those bills regardless of when they apply for medicare.

Lastly, saying that he will only have to go through the exchanges is making assumptions that employers will in fact be offering insurance at a less expensive rate. Insurance companies under the ACA are still for-profit companies, to compensate, premiums have already started going up through employers. Employers will only offer policies if it benefits them to do so, for some they will come out cheaper per employee to pay the fine.
 
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I found this interesting as well:


http://kff.org/infographic/the-requirement-to-buy-coverage-under-the-affordable-care-act/

and this:

http://101.communitycatalyst.org/aca_provisions/coverage_tiers

There is no argument that implementation of the ACA will affect how much we pay and how much we are covered. I have no problem with a healthcare fix but I at least expect to receive the same level of coverage for the same price that I have now and I would expect, regardless of ability to pay, everyone would get the same level of coverage.
 
Clash, Medicare does reimburse for uninsured bills. I've worked in hospitals for years and I can promise you, that is exactly what happens. Uninsured people choose not to seek medical attention for minor conditions because they don't want to incur the bills. Then when they get very sick, they need to be seen emergently and usually admitted. The cost of this care when compared to the preventative care which would have happened had they been insured and sought out care is astronomically higher. Those bills are unpaid because obviously an uninsured person cannot afford the tens of thousands of dollars in bills they've built up. The Medicare system reimburses all participating facilities for those bills. I've personally seen time and again someone who started with a minor infection admitted with full-blown pneumonia or sepsis and end up intubated, on a ventilator, in critical care. The cost per day is $10,000 to $20,000 and they are usually in for two weeks to a month. How can any logical person think that preventative care could ever cost more than treating an illness? A doctor's office visit costs $150-$300. A prescription, again anywhere from $50 to $200, average. If people are educated to take care of themselves (dietary and nutrition, exercise, tobacco cessation and limited alcohol consumption), the cost of the health care system drops dramatically. Honestly I think our entire country would be better off if the public school system had required courses in health and wellness, and physical fitness again became a focus. The laziness of the everyman and the affordability of processed food with poor nutritional value is half of what is causing health care costs to rise.

And no, I don't have a problem with charging smokers and drinkers and those who choose not to exercise more for insurance. But to charge women more than men? Most of those costs should be shared. Women's health care costs more than men primarily because of either pregnancy and women's health issues or pregnancy prevention. And if you don't believe men should share that cost, then perhaps you don't believe men should have a say in their rights when it comes to their own children. I believe both of those things.
 
Mccindy, what you are saying doesn't make any sense. If you make below the income amount and meet other requirements you qualify for medicare, if you make above that amount you don't qualify for medicare. If you are uninsured and show up at the hospital with pneumonia and receive treatment you owe a bill, when they check and see that you qualify for medicare, then medicare picks up the bill. When they check and see that you don't qualify for medicare then the hospital writes it off and it is passed down to tax payers and through cost to the insured.

Having insurance doesn't make you any more likely to go to the doctor, there are many, many, many, insured patients and medicare patients that started with a minor infection and don't go to the doctor and end up at the hospital with pneumonia.

I have no idea where you get the opinion that I would think men should be charged more than women the increases that are headed down the pipeline will hit both men and women, the largest will be seen among the young adults.
 
As far as preventive care, as long as it is health preventive and not cost preventive then it is a great thing. But the United States Preventative Task Force has twice made reccomendations that are cost preventative but greatly opposed by the AMA, one being mammograms.

It would be great if on every corner there was a vegetable stand instead of a fast food restaurant. The best preventative care in that situation is the parent but you can't roll back time things are what they are today and didn't Clinton institute a health/nutrition class in school and demand that healthy food be served but when lobbyists came forward they labeled school pizza a vegetable.

I think you have alot of passion for what you believe in and I think that is awesome, it is part of what makes us indivual, our beliefs. But I've researched as well and although my son may benefit(if our ins didn't already stipulate it) from the "until 26 law" there will be many, many other things about the ACA that will affect him negatively. That is just my opinion, from my research, I do though respect your opinion and will end any further debate on my part.
 
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Clash - Just for a bit of a mental exercise - you seem to be pro-free market healthcare. So justify the belief of superiority of free market healthcare given the cost. For reference, the US pays around 17% of GDP in healthcare costs, compared to between 7% and 10% for most other developed countries. Lets assume that the results are equal (considering there is some evidence that the US has worse outcomes this is at least a reasonable, at most a generous assupption). Doesn't this show that the free market healthcare is failing utterly?

For reference, I think the ACA is more of the same - there are benefits and drawbacks. I think it gives some more surety, at the cost of higher rates for young private insurance buyers.
 
I think it gives some more surety, at the cost of higher rates for young private insurance buyers.
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You are just repeating what I am saying. If you are going to replace a broken system I just perfer it not be replaced with another broken system.
 
Sounds like you are holding class professor Gcluk. :ybiggrin: I'm sure Clash will answer for him/her self, just wanted to offer that here in the US there was a recent show debating free market medicine verses the 3rd payer insurance and government run system we have here in the US, by and large. Thought it was interesting viewing.

"Free Market Medicine (Airs Sunday at 10PM ET on FNC)"

Obamacare promises to cover the uninsured, and somehow... lower costs. How can it do both?
Wyoming senator, and licensed orthopedic surgeon, John Barrasso, explains that Obamacare is incredibly complicated.
Pediatrician Steve Auerbach says ObamaCare doesn't go far enough... and America needs more government control. He debates orthopedic surgeon Lee Hieb who says free market medicine would be much better.
Congressman Ted Poe, R-Texas, shows me the government's gigantic book of medical codes. Medical code W6161XA means a patient has been bitten by a duck. But W6162XA means a patient has been STRUCK by a duck. Doctors must use these codes when billing insurance companies and Medicare. Next year, they will have to use a new code book that's 10 times bigger.
Not all health care is dominated by government and other third-party deciders. Special correspondent, Kennedy, visited a cosmetic dermatologist and a Lasik eye surgeon. In those specialties, prices stay lower because patients pay for their own care. They shop around. Doctors work hard to win their business.
Can we bring free market medicine back to more important procedures...like heart surgery? Dr. Keith Smith says we can. He founded a Surgery Center in Oklahoma where doctors rarely deal with insurance. Prices are much lower..and listed on their website.
Even my dog, Luca, is threatened by government rules.
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Read more: http://www.foxbusiness.com/on-air/s...edicine-airs-sunday-10pm-et-fnc#ixzz2TVLl2LOD
 
Beach:

Ok, so doctors that don't need the overhead of billing insurance (which obviously doesn't want to have to pay) offer more reasonable rates. This is obvious. The US spends ~200 BILLION a year on insurance administration.

Now the question is, what is the reasonable response? Greater reliance on private healthcare which REQUIRES insurance for general critical illness (a decent hospital stay for someone with Crohn's could easily run $100k or more - do you expect the average family could afford that?). I don't think so - but maybe someone could convince me that it was feasible.

I believe the preponderance of evidence says that public single-payer healthcare provides a better cross-sectional return than a private insurance program. Perfect? No - Wait times are often a bit excessive. However, private clinics could alleviate this, which is one issue I take with Canada's healthecare system. Further, in the event of major 'backup' of main public health facilities (say due to shutdown at a public hospital of an MRI machine, or simply unmet demand), then private channels could be rented in order to bridge the gap.

I didn't particularly like the bit - it was very fox newsy, ok, so that's the code for getting bit/hit by a duck. Very funny and a good way at poking fun at bureaucrats, but at the end of the day what does it tell us? That there is a specific way to bill an insurance company. Do you think for a second that insurance companies want to be billed on an ad-hoc basis?

At the end of the day, at least in the US, the big argument is - is Health care a basic requirement, or an elective? I think instead the argument should be what part of Healthcare is a basic requirement and which part is elective. Lets assume you're outside one day, and a person decides to assault you. You call a socialized 911, which responds with a socialized policeman, who drives on socialized (for the most part) roads. So obviously some public safety is socialized. However, as soon as that man is successful and hurts you, you go to the hospital, and you are given a bill.

This might be a bit of a contrived situation, and there are counter arguments to that situation. But lets take a realistic look at private insurance. The way that insurance premiums work is that people are grouped together in a set. Lets say that for an insurer that serves 10,000 people, it is broken into 100 groups of 100. I'm sure we can imagine that by pure chance, some of these groups will have more people come down with expensive illness than others. This group, when renewing insurance in the next year, will have higher premiums due to the groups higher risk pool. This is group re-underwriting.

Lets say there are 10 unhealthy people, and 90 healthy people, compared to an average groups 1 unhealthy and 99 healthy. At the end of the year, many of these healthy people will be attracted to buy into, at a lower premium, a new group, either at another insurance company, or simply by changing plans with the current insurance company. Therefore, at the end of the next year there are 10 unhealthy people, and only maybe 40 healthy people. Premiums will have to go up again, and more healthy people will leave for better premiums in fresh groups. It's called the death spiral. In the end, the unhealthy, who can't buy in to new groups will have increasing premiums until they are simply unaffordable and they must either forgo health insurance, or be paying the cost of their illness anyways.

Even if group re-underwriting was made illegal this would happen. Any insurance company that happened to have higher than average illness, and so costs, would have to increase its premiums. This would lead to healthy clients moving to more affordable companies with a lower disease load, while the sick had to stay - they can't buy in at a new company due to their illness.

Sorry for the book - I just don't like the health care debate. I think anyone with the right information can see it's all a big shell game.
 
Gculk - I think what is important today is to add or keep flexibility with our health care system. You might think of health care in a similar way as changes going on in schools and Universities, with MOOCs, and now, with student debt levels reaches a crisis, with some promoting the idea of Stuff learned over Time served on campus for obtaining degrees.

I think in theory it could be said that single payer national health care insurance, as Canada has, would cost less, and provide decent health care coverage here in the US.

Then again that likely would not happen in America in my opinion. One example often shown in the US where government largely has a monopoly that is performing poorly is with our government schooling. Costs are high and quality is poor with our government run school system. I believe we spend more than any other western nation per student for education, and yet our students tend to score poorly in testing.

Many of the same arguments made with improving our schools are frequently made in health care. Parents should be given a choice on where they can send their kids. Kids should not be forced to attend failing schools. Private schools cost less on average. Yet as can be imagined, intrenched interests are not interested in seeing improvements. Doing so costs jobs, and hurt some poorly performing districts. Poorly performing schools though do not help kids and the nations future.

Overall, regardless of the system, change is coming with health care. Technology and the internet is transforming how we perform medicine. Additionally many doctors are moving away from the current insurance system. For example ~

"The End of Health Insurance as We Know It?"

http://blogs.the-american-interest.com/wrm/2013/05/15/the-end-of-health-insurance-as-we-know-it/

& on changing health care

"Robots to Health Care Workers: Give Us Your Jobs, Please"

http://blogs.the-american-interest....health-care-workers-give-us-your-jobs-please/

& since I know of someone that moved to Central America recently, found this interesting - on the costs in particular, and the competition aspect. It's somewhat similar to the Singapore health care article posted earlier.

"Want Cheaper Health Care? Retire Abroad"

http://blogs.the-american-interest.com/wrm/2013/04/18/want-cheaper-health-care-retire-abroad/

&

Not to post to many articles about America's health care, but another problem with single payer health care in America can be seen with our VA Hospitals.

"VA Hospital Scandal Points to Madness of Single-Payer Health Care"

http://blogs.the-american-interest....oints-to-madness-of-single-payer-health-care/

Advocates of single-payer have long pointed to VA hospitals as examples of how a single-payer, government-run health care system can work in America. But this NYT story on a whistleblower’s letter complaining about a “pattern of problems” at one Mississippi VA hospital paints a much less appealing portrait of these institutions:
The problems over the last six years include poor sterilization procedures, chronic understaffing of the primary care unit and missed diagnoses by the radiology department…
The final whistle-blower, a retired ophthalmologist who was active in the physician’s union at the medical center, told the special counsel that a former radiologist at the hospital “regularly marked patients’ radiology images as ‘read’ when, in fact, he failed to properly review the images and at times failed to review them at all,” the special counsel’s letter to the White House says. In some cases, fatal diseases were not diagnosed, the letter says.
One hospital, of course, can’t justify a sweeping indictment of a whole health care concept—except for the fact that, as the NYT says, this particular facility “had been considered one of the better medical centers in the department’s sprawling system of 150 hospitals.” If systematically poor treatment can persist unaddressed for six years at the top of the VA hospital system, what goes on at the bottom?
One lesson of this story is that—just possibly—putting the whole health care system under government control wouldn’t work here. There are certain fiscal advantages to a single-payer system, but too many people have focused on these cost savings without also noticing the failures and limits that come with them. Both this scandal and the revelations earlier this year of horrific conditions in a Stafford hospital in single-payer Britain give us a preview of those pitfalls.
More importantly, a single-payer system can’t keep up with the pace of innovation and change in health care. Top-down government controls that regulate drugs, technologies, and new treatment delivery mechanisms are by nature complex, clumsy, and reactive. They aren’t good at responding quickly to new developments, and they’re susceptible to groups with vested interests who are skilled at using government controls to keep us mired in the status quo.
This Mississippi VA hospital is a foretaste of what could happen if we cede more control of health care to government-run systems. Let’s hope we don’t go down that road.
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You know what? For the United States I'd have to agree. Your system is so top down and ass backwards that it would never work - your politicians are way too arrogant.

What you've said about schools is right on the money. US lawmakers have failed in constantly increasing ineffective standardized tests. Now US schools are teaching to the standardized tests, and all efforts for reform are attempts to get test scores up, such as No Child Left Behind. More standardized testing, and then if one school does poorly on standardized testing, sending children to schools where they've taught to the test better.

Your politicians - of all stripes - need to be humbled severely. Your system has bills authored wholly by untrained lawmakers (No Child Left Behind was proposed by Bush, ex military, then Business training, and was authored by two lawyers and a business administrator). I'm not going to only pick on the Republicans - Not one of the people who created Obamacare had any background in medicine either. The closest that any ideas came to being from a medical professional was that some ideas were taken from Bob Dole to increase bipartisan support - and he worked as a clerk in a drug store once.

A better method would be to delegate more responsibility to the Departments. Lawmakers should state goals. These goals should be submitted to Departments to have trained professionals to provide a 'how' to the goal, and feedback on if it is a good goal. Then these programs should be ratified.

Man I'm glad I'm Canadian.
 
Yeah, a sad bit about No Child Left Behind has been the cheating scandals that have followed. If student test scores are down, cheat to make them look better. One example that made the nation news for awhile ~

"By Any Means Necessary"

http://isteve.blogspot.com/2011/07/by-any-means-necessary.html

snippet from Steve Sailor's article:

...Investigation into APS cheating finds unethical behavior across every level

By Heather Vogell

Across Atlanta Public Schools, staff worked feverishly in secret to transform testing failures into successes.

Teachers and principals erased and corrected mistakes on students’ answer sheets.

Area superintendents silenced whistle-blowers and rewarded subordinates who met academic goals by any means possible.

Superintendent Beverly Hall and her top aides ignored, buried, destroyed or altered complaints about misconduct, claimed ignorance of wrongdoing and accused naysayers of failing to believe in poor children’s ability to learn.

For years — as long as a decade — this was how the Atlanta school district produced gains on state curriculum tests. The scores soared so dramatically they brought national acclaim to Hall and the district, according to an investigative report released Tuesday by Gov. Nathan Deal.


Yeah, this is bad, but what do you expect? From CBS News:

"We were told that we needed to get the scores by any means necessary, and we were told that our jobs were on the line," former Atlanta Public Schools teacher Sidney Fells said.


The Republican President of the United States and the hereditary dynastic leader of the Democrats, Ted Kennedy, got together a decade ago and made up a law, No Child Left Behind, that said that every public school student in America had to score Proficient (on a scale that runs Below Basic, Basic, Proficient, Advanced) on tests that will be given about 34 months from now.

But, the states could make up, administer, and grade their own tests.

What else did Bush, Kennedy, and the press expect other than massive fraud?

The whole foundation of education in America is based on lying and punishing truth-tellers (e.g., James Watson), so what else could have happened?
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Amy2 said:
You are already paying for the uninsured, after their problems get big enough that they head to the ER. Do you want to live in a country where people are turned away in the ER? If not, then it's better to pay for their preventative care, from a purely financial POV.

People in the US just aren't used to thinking of healthcare as a right, but we have lots of other rights, that cost others money. If you leave your stove on and your house catches on fire, my tax dollars will help send a fire truck to your house. Is a house more important than a body? Or do you think only people who can afford to pay the firefighters should get to have their houses put out?
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If you go to the ER without insurance you should get a bill, why should I get a bill? No one should be able to sit in their house on their butt, and get free housing, free food, and free medical off of the dime of the working.

Non of the above things should be rights, these are all things worked for. We have volunteer firefighters, we pay for our fire trucks via Bingo and 4 events we hold a year BBQ, 5k run and other activities we also donate to the fire company yearly as a community. We still owe over 300,000.00 on our trucks, and we don't want you to pay for it.

The only people I don't mind helping out are the disabled and I mean the really disabled, not the people that fool the system with a back problem and carry around 80lb bags of concrete working under the table.

Why do so many people in the US feel entitled to everything?
 
amry:

Nobody likes the welfare cheats living in government housing, using government food, using government healthcare. What's the solution?

Credit check if you get hit by a car? Do you lay in the bed bleeding out, surgeons on either side, with an accountant standing in front of you with an ipad in one hand running the credit check and a meter stick to smack any impetuous surgeon who starts operating before the verdict is in?

No, emergency care must be delivered previous to any financial consideration. However, if we give emergency care previous to financial consideration, then welfare cheats who simply won't work either way will be a strain on the system as they will, if left to their own devices, be dying of malnutrition and the elements - don't expect charity shelters to manage everything, they're hard up enough as is. It is cheaper to offer maintenance welfare (housing and food) to the cheats than it is to offer them help only in the ER.

I hate welfare cheats as much as the next guy. But for whatever reason, shelter or no, they simply refuse to work. Instead of looking at welfare cheats as a problem in and of themselves, look for effective ways to get them off of welfare - education, and opportunity.

Before you feel particularly harshly about these people, remember that they aren't necessarily 'choosing' this lifestyle, by and large. They may be essentially choosing it by not choosing to do something else, but stories like this:

http://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/insp...ollege-for-crime-filled-fla-neighborhood.html

Indicate to me that this style of abject poverty without physical disability is a societal problem, not a simple matter of choice.
 
Societies decide what rights 'should' be, it's ever changing, not concrete. I'd like to live in a society where everyone gets medical care, regardless of their ability to pay. And that's how it is in most civilized countries.

Preventative care is the most humane and the most cost effective.

So, unless you want everyone who can't pay in the ER turned away, you should advocate for paying for preventative care. Sending a bill to someone too poor to ever pay that bill is ridiculous. So, what's it going to be; pay for preventative care or turn them away at the ER?

Do you honestly think people would put up with being turned away at the ER? They arrive with a bleeding child and are simply told to go home. "Sorry, Sonny, I guess you are going to die." Desparate people do desparate things.

You sound like one of those bitter people, "No one gave me anything...I had to work for everything I have..." Which isn't true (for anyone). You made it because other people helped you make it. They built the roads, schools, power lines, etc. that allowed you to do pretty much everything you have ever done. And most people want to work, but many of the good jobs have vanished in recent decades and they aren't coming back.
That's certainly not the fault of the little guy who is now sitting on his couch because he collects more from uninsurance than he would from working full time at McDonalds.

The rich are really good at pitting the middle class against the poor, especially the lower middle class who work their butts off for so little.

We can collectively change where the bottom is. Clean water, air, education, health care, housing, a decent job and healthy food sounds like a reasonable bottom to me.

There is a reason Norway is the happiest place on earth.
 
I recall seeing that last week, and thinking truly that could be good news. I hope it turns out better for Obamacare than many groups such as the CBO have been predicting.

For another view on Obamacare costs coming in for California, Oregon and Washington, and services being offered.

"Obamacare Victories Carry a Heavy Cost"

http://blogs.the-american-interest.com/wrm/2013/05/28/obamacare-victories-carry-a-heavy-cost/

&

"ObamaCare Health Insurance Exchanges Are A Downgrade"

http://news.investors.com/ibd-edito...860-obamacare-exchanges-hurt-medical-care.htm
 
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My family is having some issues and I was wondering if anyone else had run into this:

My father is retiring and moving full time to the home my mother and him share. He has commuted for years between their home and an apt where his business is located. Because of this he has used a GP in that area. He is now looking to transfer to a GP in the area he is moving to. My Mom has been with a doc in this area since 1993 and asked that his med records be sent to this doc. When she called her doc she was informed that the GP was not taking new patients. When she asked further she was told it was really that the GP didn't want to take Medicare patients, so no new patients at all. She was told Medicare pays the doc little over two dollars for a standard blood test and it would serve the doc better to sstop taking patients, serve the ones he has and spend two days at a state funded facility on salary. She has contacted the other GP groups in town and received the same story...no new patients or limited New patients. One group has taken my Dad under consideration and will be contacting Mom to let her know if they will take him. She is now starting to contact other offices in nearby cities.

This is just the GP he also sees a cardiologist and we are afraid we will face the same situation.

Anyone else faced this or have any advice on how to move forward? I hate that they may have to travel just to find a GP.
 
Clash,

We had the same issue with my adult disabled daughter. It was Medicaid for us, but the policies of all of the doctors we encountered were the same for Medicare.

The only place we could find to take here was a public health clinic. It was absolutely miserable AND incompetent. They used too small of a cuff and diagnosed her with hypertension! When I brought up cuff size I was dismissed summarily. Seriously? They were clearly accustomed to compliant, medically ignorant patients.

The only thing Obamacare did positive was when they mandated medical coverage for adult children. We snuck in to an excellent GP with that. They allowed her because of our private insurance. She is now aged out but she gets to stay and now she wants to move! Sigh! She does NOT get it due to her disability.

Here's a kicker... my daughter's on SSI because she's permanently disabled (intellectual delays) so she gets Medicaid. We're forced to use any private insurance available. Think about that for a minute.... Private insurance has premiums, deductibles and co-pays. Private citizens are not allowed to bill Medicaid for services. All of the GPs we encountered refused to bill Medicaid as her secondary so we, as parents of a 25 year old adult disabled child, were then obligated to her $500 deductible and all of her co-pays.

Of course we paid it, but we pay thousands monthly in taxes and provide an enormous amount of support for our daughter, and will for the rest of our life and beyond. My husband chose his career and employer for the health coverage exclusively. We've made sacrifices in our life for him to be where he is to ensure we have high quality insurance because we saw the writing on the wall with my health.

If we slip into national health care, which IS the intention of the ACA, my coverage is going to suffer. My current coverage flies me to my specialists every three months. Is Obamacare going to cover that?

I am on double doses of Enbrel for my Ankylosing Spondolitis, I know a man with the same disease on Medicaid in my state, and we have excellent medicaid coverage in Alaska, trust me I know this after moving my daughter to Washington and comparing coverage. The state only allows him a shot every other week in spite of the fact his paralysis is progressing; that is a 1/4 of the dose I need to stay pain free. Do you really believe a nationalized health care is going to adequately meet my very expensive medical requirements? Pffft!
 
Sounds like it would make more sense to take her off of private insurance so there wouldn't be a copay. I have Medicaid and everything is paid for 100% minus ER trips ($5 co-pay).
 
AiaA, I have a couple of questions:

We snuck in to an excellent GP with that. They allowed her because of our private insurance. She is now aged out but she gets to stay and now she wants to move! Sigh! She does NOT get it due to her disability.
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Are you saying that your daughter aged out of the insurance stipulation created by Obamacare(meaning she is now older than 26) or that she has aged out of the doctor's practice?(as in it was a pediatric practice?)

I completely understand what you are saying AinA, I had the same experience when my kids were on our states version of CHIP/Medicaid while I was in college. I jumped at the chance for employment while still in school and budgeted everything to get them on the employer's private insurance! The difference in QOC was staggering!

Jennifer, it seems AinA is implying that you are forced to use private insurance if it is available to you.

Here's a kicker... my daughter's on SSI because she's permanently disabled (intellectual delays) so she gets Medicaid. We're forced to use any private insurance available.
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I believe my ex SIL was recently faced with the same dilema, son was on SSI/medicaid and now is eligible to be on his Mom's newly acquired health insurance due to the extention of age on adult children. Her pros and cons were the same as AinA's better quality of care but now paying co-pays, deductibles etc with the added financial burden of having a child that is and will be a dependent in their household for her life and beyond. The deductibles and co-pays should be done away with in 2014 though, as that is when the next step of Obamacare should go into effect.
 
Clash said:
Jennifer, it seems AinA is implying that you are forced to use private insurance if it is available to you.
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If you're low income (receiving only SSI) and an adult there's no way you can afford private insurance so I'm failing to see how you could be forced to use it by Medicaid.
 
The daughter has access to her parents private insurance since Obamacare enacted the age extention to 26. So now you can remain on your parents private insurance plan until you are 26 years old, I think the daughter she is referring to is 25 so she has another year of eligibility on her parents plan, unless I am reading it completely wrong.
 
Also, I'm not sure but I think she is saying that medicaid would pick up what private insurance doesn't cover(not sure if that would include the deductibles/co-pay or just the coverage percentages the private insurance doesn't pay like 90/10, 80/20 etc.) but the doctors' offices she goes to doesn't file for the medicaid after filing private insurance for the primary since they will make more money with her paying what private doesn't pay.

I
 
Ah, they're going to the wrong doctor offices then. Have to go somewhere that will actually bill Medicaid. They charge the private insurance first and use Medicaid as a secondary insurance. In the end you don't pay anything.
 
Jennifer said:
Sounds like it would make more sense to take her off of private insurance so there wouldn't be a copay. I have Medicaid and everything is paid for 100% minus ER trips ($5 co-pay).
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My wife is on Medicare (the federal program). If Medicaid works the same way Medicare does then there should be very little that needs to be paid for out of pocket. I have insurance through my work, which my wife is also covered by. My private insurance is primary. Medicare covers the stuff I would have to pay out of pocket - the deductibles and co-pays on everything except Prescriptions. (We don't qualify for Medicare D).
 
Jennifer, yeah I think that is what she was saying, that she got her in with a great GP because of the private insurance but they won't file the medicaid as secondary.
 
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I'm sure there's a doctor just as good that you wont have to pay out of pocket for. There's an office here where I live that has multiple doctors working in it (Community Health Centers of the Central Coast here in California) and I've tried out almost every single one until I found one I liked. You don't have to stick with the same GP if there are others working in that same office. You are able to switch doctors until you find one that works for you.
 
Arrgh! Lost my first post...

Jennifer, with Medicaid you are by law required to use any private insurance first so we had no choice. The only clinic that would double bill was the public health clinic that misdiagnosed her with hypertension by using a too small cuff. Plus the place was filthy and I've been to bush clinics in Alaska so my bar isn't that high.

It could be in CA there is some type of law that stipulates they must bill public secondary? Also, since she's disabled and gets Medicaid through SSI they do not restrict their coverage like normal Medicaid - meaning she could not select a specific provider from the state's list and in two years I was only able to talk one private provider into taking her in spite of her "open" card. They all refused without their name as the designated provider.

The one office manager I managed to convince to take her stopped serving her after 2 mos in spite of being paid? Main office caught her. Total catch 22. Plus that clinic maintained separate appointment books! Medicaid patients, even for a sick call, had a very restricted number of appts. She had bacterial pneumonia (her brother and father both had it) and the clinic initially made an appt that afternoon until they realized she was Medicaid, then it was end of day three days later! I have zero faith in public health care.

Doug, are you able to submit your own bills to Medicare? I can't say why the private practitioner's in that area just absolutely refused to double bill. If she went to the hospital they did double bill (whew on that one... Broken ankle) and we did not have to cover the copay on that at all.

Clash, you're pretty much spot on. She was 25 when the policy came into effect. She's now 26 so she has since aged out. She is still able to go to the clinic with the good GP because she is now considered an established patient.

At the time I was trying to find medical care for her, it became very apparent to me what was going on with seniors. It broke my heart because those seniors and that move from their home area or if their doctor retires, are completely left hanging high and dry! Is it possible for your father to temporarily purchase a high deductible policy in order to get his foot in the door at the clinic your mother goes to? Is it too late for him to take advantage of the COBRA policy from his former employer?
 
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AinA, I had a bad experience with state sponsored insurance for my kids as well. I think each persons experience with public health care is as individual as CD can be for each person.

At the time my kids were on state funded healthcare we didn't have the choices among pediatricians or GPs since most refused medicaid, now they just refuse new patients. The groups that did accept medicaid were such a step down in QOC.

As far as my father, he was self-employed and has reamained on as a consultant while the sell of his business went through. Mom got a call from the office that stated they were taking limited patients, they were turned down again.

So that was all of the groups in our area, Mom is going to start contacting groups in a nearby city tomorrow. Hopefully she can find some one to take him.

I'm wondering if a referral to a cardiologist from his present GP or cardiologist might help when we start the process for finding a new cardiologist?
 
AinA said:
Doug, are you able to submit your own bills to Medicare? I can't say why the private practitioner's in that area just absolutely refused to double bill. If she went to the hospital they did double bill (whew on that one... Broken ankle) and we did not have to cover the copay on that at all.

?
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We have never had the problem with a practitioner refusing to double bill.Some try to bill medicare as primary even though they are told otherwise, but a call to the Billing office has always fixed it. So I don't know if an individual can bill medicare.
 
All I know is that since Socialized medicine has been passed my insurance has gone up and up and now my company is thinking of dropping our care altogether, I may have a high deductible but have excellent script coverage and I cant lose that or I am in big trouble. And to top it off, they are cutting most people back to 28 hours so they wont have to have the insurance or the fines. This program was not well thought out at all and even the Dems are saying it is a train wreck waiting to happen. I would love this program to work but I am skeptical to say the least.
 
superzeeman said:
All I know is that since Socialized medicine has been passed my insurance has gone up and up and now my company is thinking of dropping our care altogether, I may have a high deductible but have excellent script coverage and I cant lose that or I am in big trouble. And to top it off, they are cutting most people back to 28 hours so they wont have to have the insurance or the fines. This program was not well thought out at all and even the Dems are saying it is a train wreck waiting to happen. I would love this program to work but I am skeptical to say the least.
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Sad to say this playing out across the country many of my family members are already suffering from ACA. Just for instance my brothers insurance rates nearly doubled in past year, forcing his wife back to work so they can afford health insurance. How I see this so far is the only people that are benefiting are the ones that already live off the government and it's at the cost to the working people. Maybe some college students that can stay on their parents plans.

2 of the specialist I see are going to cash only business in 2014, they claim that the overhead on paperwork does not justify them taking insurance in private practice.
 
Normally, I avoid discussions on the healthcare system and insurance system in the United States, but I would like to share a story related to healthcare with everyone here because it's a type of story that nobody hears about or talks about when they talk about how the United States healthcare system works or doesn't work.

So.

I'm in my 30s.

For all of my life, I have had a genetic blood disorder that makes me chronically fatigued. Though the body adapts and adjusts on its own, it doesn't take away the fact that fatigue can become a chronic and life-invasive problem, iron overload can end up crippling organs like the pancreas and liver and heart over time, and that in times of sickness, blood transfusions may be needed... which in turn accelerates the body's need for chelation - to remove the excess iron before iron damage is accelerated as well.

Through my father, I had great health insurance and I - and my family - took 'good insurance' for granted... up until the time I went to university.

At the time, health insurance from parents only extended to students IF AND ONLY IF they were full time students... and not all health insurance policies did this. My father's policy did this... as a 'courtesy'.

At that time also, if you were a student, and you had parents, and unless you were working full time to the tune of being able to fully 100% support yourself, you were considered a dependent and any and all government-related applications took into account your family/the people who the government assumed would help to support you.

This applied to FAFSA... and this also applied to things like government-subsidized/funded healthcare plans and systems.

Well, as life happens, I got hellishly sick, and ended up being withdrawn from school by my own university's medical clinic and I was also forced to quit my part-time job and move back home with family.

Desperately sick with mononucleosis while having a genetic blood disorder that already predisposed me towards extreme fatigue and blood-related issues including an enlarged spleen which only got dangerously worse with mono, I lost my health insurance.

No big deal, right? Just buy another policy.

WRONG.

Remember what I said about the pre-existing condition? The genetic blood disorder?

It automatically made me ineligible to purchase ANY individual policies and because the GROUP insurance dropped me and not because my father lost his job or some such, I was ALSO ineligible for COBRA.

Before the ACA, you got your policy one of five ways:

1) Through work.

2) Through individual policies THAT REQUIRE PRE-SCREENING AND UNDERWRITING WHICH DENIES PEOPLE WITH PRE-EXISTING CONDITIONS THE RIGHT TO PURCHASE A POLICY.

3) Through COBRA - IF you remembered to sign up for COBRA at the loss of your job AND it was limited to only a certain amount of time AND it cost 150% percent MORE than the premium once did at full price without company pay-in.

4) And once THAT exhausted... you could get a HIPAA policy... which cost just as much and was more often than not a horrible 'catastrophic' policy.

5) Through the government.

Oh! So then I should have gotten government-subsidized insurance, right?

ALSO WRONG.

My state had government-subsidized healthcare policies at the time that tied in with the federal government's, but because my family wasn't COMPLETELY IMPOVERISHED and because even though I had lost my job, lost my schooling, and was struggling with severe illness on top of a severe flareup of a pre-existing genetic condition, I WASN'T PREGNANT and so I didn't qualify.

Oh! Then disability!

AGAIN, WRONG.

Because I didn't have an 'automatic disability', I was put through the 'alternative' qualifying system and because I was in my early to mid-twenties and though I had worked part-time, I hadn't worked enough hours accumulated to qualify and my condition - though 'a struggle' wasn't 'so bad I needed disability'.

And so for a year and a half until I was able to return to school, I - along with my family who helped - was forced to foot 100% of any and all uninsured medical bills that piled up and that included hospital bills, ambulance bills, and diagnostics bills.

I liquidated any and all savings and went into medical debt by the thousands all in one shot. I went bankrupt without going bankrupt and would live for the next several years on credit.

My bills that I couldn't pay totaled to over 20% of my parents' yearly income (the government thinks med bills ought not total to more than 10% of a year's wages - HA!) and my parents still had a minor who was dependent-dependent on them and mortage payments to pay.

And we weren't done. Far from done.

Eventually, things improved enough for me to return to school and go back to work... but not enough to school fulltime and not enough to work fulltime and not enough to get on the company's policy which only extended insurance at the time to fulltimers, and during this time, my father's insurance policy changed... to include adult children who were students up until they are age 25.

My parents begged my father's HR department to reconsider my situation and eventually, I was put back on the policy regardless of my schooling status as I was deemed 'an adult child who has a disability' by my father's HR and benefits department.

So until I was 25, I had my father's insurance plan again and in the meanwhile, I struggled to finish school and struggled to hold down a job and.

After being so sick for so long, it was hell on earth to do either and a few years later, the GI problems started in the worst of ways like they are wont to do... and RIGHT as my 25th birthday passed and my insurance policy had dropped and RIGHT when I was out of town.

Because of the pre-existing blood disorder, I should have been hospitalized because I was vomiting and having explosive diarrhea that wouldn't quit while also being blown up with bloating like a bullfrog and in so much pain I was cold sweating and had a high fever that wouldn't go down... but I wasn't.

We were still paying off all the OTHER &%$#ing stupid medical bills from before that I refused to go to the ER.

If I were to go, I would be billed TENS of thousands, and even if I was already bankrupt (which I was, AND STILL IN DEBT from previous medical) and even if I was working part-time to help support myself (I WAS until that episode)... I would not (and did not, I tried) to qualify for aid of any sort and neither would my family.

So I didn't go and I sat in a hotel's bathtub of cold water with the shower running to keep my fever down and lunged for the toilet to either vomit or have diarrhea or both and I did this for 12 hours until finally, nothing else could possibly come up of substance and I was able to stand a drive back home.

Going back to the insurance issue, I was dropped owing to age, but since it wasn't like last time where I was 'faulted' for causing my policy to drop, my father was able to buy COBRA... at 150% the 100% premium cost.

Again, because my family wasn't destitute and because I lived with them, I was denied any kind of government-subsidized policies or programs and again, because of a pre-existing condition, I was denied access to any individual policies, and again, because I hadn't qualified in my working hours, I didn't qualify for disability.

COBRA was my one and only and very expensive option and I was on COBRA for 3 years - the maximum the policies allow - and after that, I went on a HIPAA plan... where I stayed until the ACA began.

During the COBRA years and beyond, I WENT BROKE, BROKE, AND MORE BROKE, lost jobs because of illness, forced myself to work again despite being sick because I needed to pay for my illness, and got sick, got sick, got sick.

My parents footed my insurance policy because it would otherwise cost me 50%+ of my year's wages and they refused to charge me rent even though I volunteered to pay a little... and I paid for everything else with what I could earn.

When the ACA came around, ONE OF THE MOST IMPORTANT THINGS IT DID THAT THE INSURANCE COMPANIES COULD HAVE DONE SOONER BUT NEVER DID BECAUSE THEY WOULD LOSE MONEY OTHERWISE was remove the %$#@ed pre-existing conditions clause that ended up blacklisting people who had pre-existing conditions from buying health insurance.

Don't blame the ACA.

Blame the fact that insurance companies were allowed to cherry pick and do underwriting and legally discriminate against people who have health disorders that they can't be faulted for.

Blame the fact that because of how insurance works and because of how a broken welfare system works, hospitals and doctors are allowed to and are sometimes forced to hyperinflate the costs of medical care.

There's this assumption that everyone was covered 'just fine' before the ACA went into effect and that's just wrong.

If you had fulltime work or was married to someone who could get a company policy, then you were covered.

If you were 100% HEALTHY or you LIED on the health screening, you could get cheap 'THIS IS ONLY FOR HEALTHY PEOPLE' insurance.

If you were pregnant, destitute, someone who had no ID or social security number because you were not of this country, you could get 'you deserve government aid' insurance and other financial aid.

But if you were a citizen, had a pre-existing condition, was trying to earn wages, was being helped by struggling parents of the disappearing middle class, and NOT pregnant, fat chance.

God, I can still remember the person who helped me at the local government office who joked about me being automatically approved for services if only I were pregnant.

With the ACA - and NO it is NOT perfect - for the first time in my ADULT LIFE, I could apply for individual insurance that didn't depend on my health status or my work status and YES, EVEN THOUGH IT IS NOT CHEAP, it's still CHEAPER than the alternative (COBRA, HIPAA) and better than NOT having anything at all (paying 100% out of pocket) and better than sitting in a hotel bathroom and bathtub in freezing cold water with a high fever while having diarrhea and vomiting and crippling pain.

Everyone's angry about the ACA but the reality of the situation is, I think most people never truly understood the cost of medical care and health insurance in the United States to BEGIN with.

Healthy people got away with paying $50 a month regardless of their socioeconomic status.

Desperately sick people who were denied individual policies and denied government-sponsored care because they weren't drop-dead destitute (or pregnant) but were constantly drowning in medical debt were paying 100-150+% that amount and I was -YOUNG- at the time.

How everyone else got their 'cheap' insurance was because the costs were being footed 100% by those who were sick and those whom the insurance companies could gouge money from... like myself and my parents.

The idea of aborting fetuses known to have debilitating genetic disorders is abhorrent, and yet the idea of spreading out the cost to help support - yes, HELP SUPPORT - the people who are sick through not fault of their own is just as abhorrent and just as abominable - enough to make people want to impeach a president and declare the ACA unconstitutional.

But hey, life's about luck, right, and according to my insurance carrier, privilege.

Being able to afford health insurance is a 'privilege', everyone, not a right.

Guess it must feel great to be born 100% healthy and to never worry about things like this.

Oh well; life moves on.
 
The affordable care act limits my working.With my aca insurance if I make above a certain amount I get bumped to a higher premium bracket.In other words,I can't get a part time job to supplement my full time job to help pay medical bills.I would get bumped to a bracket I can't afford because I'm trying to work hard and pull my weight.I'm being told I can't try to get ahead.I am penalized for working!

Obama care is deeply flawed.It's designed to keep us struggling financially and sick.Americas health care system is not designed to get us well.We are more profitable if we are sick.Can't bill us if we get well!!

I really feel Obama wants to perpetuate dependence on government.Working use to be perceived as a good thing.Now it is something someone else does so the unwilling can get a check.I didn't say unable,there are many who truly need assistance.I may be one of them soon.Generations have been raised to avoid work and feel entitled.

I would also like to get the health care I would be entitled to if I came here illegally.Obama seems to care less about Americans who work hard each day and more about an illegal coming here to exploit the system.Americas working poor supports this corrupt system,never getting ahead because we would be penalized if we tried.

I vote for people,not parties.America is screwed.

America and it's health care is like a chronie.It doesn't look sick,but if you really take a close look inside....
 
ACA plus my state's combined policies regarding ACA said that if I made below a certain number in terms of income, I couldn't even qualify to -buy- insurance at all no matter how much I wanted to and was willing to fork over and that I would be forced - not even an option - to apply for the state-funded policies that were supposedly expanded to include more people.

Ironically, I got rejected and denied in both tiers because they were saying that I belonged in the other tier. Tier 1 said Tier 0 and Tier 0 said Tier 1 and nobody agreed and the deadline passed without any agreement.

I ended up having to buy outside that particular system and bought into an individual policy that didn't have any relation to the government save for having to follow certain new regulations.

But I never would have been able to do that before - buy ANY insurance for myself outside of work - before ACA.

It IS a deeply flawed system and it needs an overhaul, but the older system was no better, either, in my honest opinion and the problems in the system have been longstanding.

Being totally and completely unable to buy health insurance (pre-existing could never buy into individual and if you lost your job or only worked part-time, you couldn't get insurance through work) in a country where health insurance is almost mandatory to make individual healthcare costs affordable is like punishing people for working which disqualifies them for things... except it's punishing people for pre-existing conditions instead.

I totally can see what you mean by being punished for working; I need to either work more or not work at all to fit into a 'bracket' that's entirely of the government's construction and since I don't fit, I get punished for it.

I struggle to make ends meet and dangit, I DO STILL WORK.

But you're right; it's as if I've been punished this entire time because I keep trying instead of completely giving up.
 
Ice said:
I struggle to make ends meet and dangit, I DO STILL WORK.

But you're right; it's as if I've been punished this entire time because I keep trying instead of completely giving up.
Click to expand...

This is exactly what I mean.We are punished for trying.We try to be productive and improve our quality of life.We watch someone who makes no effort and wallows in pity get a free ride.There only real affliction is ignorance and apathy.

Those people,and the politicians who enable them,screw over the ones who really need help.

Wow,I'm totally depressed now.I have to get ready for work.:rof:
 

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