The Affordable HealthCare Decision

[pennview]

Farmer, please. Because one opposes illegal immigration, does NOT mean that HATE is involved as you imply by your statements. This country has immigration laws and they should be followed, not ignored. This is a country of laws and they should be obeyed. Period!

[Ed in Tampa]

I have a few problems with the plan.
One is it forces you to have insurance or you pay a penalty (2.6% of income in 2016) if you don't have insurance. Even if you don't need it and don't want it (such as self insured or excellent health).

Second it forces certain size companies to offer health insurance. I can forsee people be laidoff to get below the number.

It does little or nothing to address the cost of health insurance. They say no one can be declined, but the company can charge you the highest rate they have. Such a deal!


The real problem is the cost of health care. It is totally crazy, unmoraled people have exploited the health insurance situation and drove prices through the roof.

Most drug research is done under government grants yet when asked to explain the high cost of medicine the drug companies cite R&D. I can guarantee you if there wasn't health care insurance in this country they drug cost would be way down.

Most doctors charge what the insurance companies allow instead of what they should charge. When asked about this they say they are making sure by requesting extra tests and such.

Medical machines are priced not by what they are worth but by what the company knows the insurance companies will pay. Some machines have a expected live of 20 years and they are completely paid for within the first 6 months of usage. If the hospital is non profit they will actually tose the machine and get the latest and newest just so they don't show a profit.

CEO's of Medical equipment companies, of Drug companies, and of hospital and medical services are often paid out landish bonuses for doing nothing more than running the company or hospital in an out landish fashion.


I would love to know why a birth control pill from the sixties that I don't know what the cost was but can't imagine with was more than a $1 a pill now is being used for cancer treatment and those patients are being charged $100 a pill/day. Oh yes the pill when used for birth control was shown to produce deformed babies and was withdrawn from the market for birthcontrol.

My wife takes some pills if I order them from a US pharmancy I pay a little more than $400 a month but if I buy them from the canadian pharmancy and have them shipped in factory packaging I get them for $200. If I buy the generic which isn't sold in this country the price is under $150.

That is what is wrong with the health care in this country.

If I were king I would string up the drug CEO's, Hospital CEO's, Medical equipmant manufacture CEO's and keep them hanging there until they found a way to reduce health care cost of the American public.

We would not let the farmers and merchants play the same games with our food supply why do we allow this to go on with our health care?

There I do feel better and I do apologize to all for standing on the soap box so long.

[robinson46176]

The biggest problem with the health care reform is that almost nobody knows what is in it, what it does or does not do and if it helps them or not. In true human form however we don't let that stop us from having strong opinions.
I recently read a news item on a survey. In that survey the "against" factor was ultra high. Then they were all asked about each individual item one at a time and almost all were in favor of each item across the board separately. In the early part of the survey most didn't even have a clue of the contents of the plan...
Sad...

Now... I for one truly believe that medical care is too important to be left to the money grubbers. There are a million things that the government should get out of but medical care is is one place where only they are powerful enough to protect the people from the money grubbers.
I would venture to say that there are very few members here that with honesty can say that a catastrophic medical event (or events) could not destroy them financially... Some get pretty comfortable because they have always had good insurance but only a total fool would believe that such coverage is invincible. I have known personally a lot of guys that were quite arrogant about having "taken care of themselves" by having good coverage only to later be choking down humble pie because for some reason beyond their control it went away... One friend had great coverage and also had a half million dollars put away in supposedly safe investments all ready so he could retire and live well. About 2007 he lost most of it including the great coverage. Last I talked with him a few years ago he still had no decent insurance and didn't have a clue when he would ever be able to retire... You can sit around patting yourself on the back and feeling all warm and fuzzy but he could be any of us tomorrow...
I keep running out of cash but my balance on my financial statement is "very" good but I have no illusions that I couldn't be wiped out next year by a series of medical events and lose everything I have worked building my whole life... It is living in a dream world to not understand that.

I have internet friends all over the world and many are incredulous that we do not have general coverage. Just good preventive care can have tremendous payback in long term cost reductions. One of those friends in Canada said that to her the biggest benefit up front was if one of her kids got sick that having the money or not was not part of the decision making process as to whether to seek medical assistance or not.
There is a lot of selfish "I have mine let him get his" attitude coming across in this country today and that saddens me greatly.
Others scream "I don't want the government making decisions about my health care"... OK, so you would rather trust a company that only has one single goal? Making a buck. At least the government is supposed to be on your side. The Insurance company is only on their side... If you don't understand that I have a bridge I'd like to sell you.
Of course only silly people believe that it can all form and jump into place totally trouble free without any problems but I can tell you that what we have is not working very well for most Americans and is completely unsustainable by us long term without serious intervention.


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[robinson46176]

Poll questions are really hard to write. These are pretty good but as usual they never quite fit. I listed that I was on a fixed income because we are retired from the work force and draw Social Security. On the other hand I can change my cash income somewhat by changing what I do and have the resources to restart any of the things we were doing before to make a living if need be. My income has never been just a paycheck from one job and still isn't in retirement just a SS check. Restarting something is of course with the full knowledge that I work a lot slower than I used to...

I also put that I have insurance but that is just Medicare and supplemental not a basic private policy.


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[dlbristol]

I sit on a clinic board, and know that the actual cost of providing a service, ie time, supplies, admin, billing ect, will probably not be changed at least downward by any Federal plan. The Federal Government as a practical matter sets most medical procedure costs now, buy setting Medicare payment amounts. Everyone else works off of those to some degree or another. So when the last attempt to "lower medical costs" came down, the actual cost to render a service was not changed, but the payment was lowered. So the Federal program " saved" money, and our clinic made up the difference. Costs stayed the same, who paid changed. In a nut shell, that is what I think may happen with this plan.
I question the actuarial validity of adding some 40 million folks, eliminating preexisting exclusions and then saying the cost will be less. I am not sure how this will all work out, I hope it works, I fear it will not.

[fredsheldon]

I sit on a clinic board, and know that the actual cost of providing a service, ie time, supplies, admin, billing ect, will probably not be changed at least downward by any Federal plan. The Federal Government as a practical matter sets most medical procedure costs now, buy setting Medicare payment amounts. Everyone else works off of those to some degree or another. So when the last attempt to "lower medical costs" came down, the actual cost to render a service was not changed, but the payment was lowered. So the Federal program " saved" money, and our clinic made up the difference. Costs stayed the same, who paid changed. In a nut shell, that is what I think may happen with this plan.
I question the actuarial validity of adding some 40 million folks, eliminating preexisting exclusions and then saying the cost will be less. I am not sure how this will all work out, I hope it works, I fear it will not.

So, how about we give this plan a try and if 8 years from now it's not working we can change it. Doing nothing is not necessarly the best solution, which I believe is what we have been doing for the previous 8 years.

[paulmcohen]

I curious, why do people think it's a bad think to have health-care for everyone? Every other Western country has health coverage for ALL of it's citizens.

FYI, lack of health insurance is the leading cause of bankruptcy.

Because nothing is FREE, Europe is bankrupt, Britain is "killing" really sick seniors to make room for younger people, Canadians come to the US when they are really sick.

One of the main reasons everyone does not have health insurance is it is too expensive. Why am I paying for help in stopping smoking, drug and alcohol usage when I don't do any of them and there are 100's of other things I am required to be insured for that I will never use? Why can't I buy an inexpensive major medical policy that is affordable? Where are we going to get the extra TRILLION dollars to pay for Obamacare, borrow it from our children or China? I could go on but you get the point.

[paulmcohen]

No, what I am saying is if health insurance were mandatory that all would pay reduced costs into a larger pool, this in NOT socialism this is a basic principle of insurance.

Obama-care removes the basic principle of insurance, by caping prices. My healthy 21 year old son can't be charged more then 3X more than my 99 year old grandmother with cancer living with 24 hour nursing care.

Insurance is about risk arbitrage, people with higher risk pay more. Currently a healthy young family pays about $12K per year for a great health insurance package, for $700 they can skip buying insurance and pay a tax. When they get sick, then and only then apply for guaranteed acceptance insurance. This is not insurance.

Why not wait to buy car insurance until after I get in an accident?

[paulmcohen]

If it does, the fine for a single person with no insurance is $95 a year.

It starts there and goes up but that is the issue. What is already happening is companies and individuals are dropping their insurance and paying the TAX. A good friend is a health insurance broker and they had a huge number of healthy people call yesterday and today to CANCEL their insurance. Why have insurance, if they get sick they apply and get accepted and now we all pay for their irresponsible behavior.

Before you purchased insurance when you were healthy so that if you got sick you had insurance, now you can wait until you get sick then buy "insurance".

[paulmcohen]

That is what is wrong with the health care in this country.

If I were king I would string up the drug CEO's, Hospital CEO's, Medical equipment manufacture CEO's and keep them hanging there until they found a way to reduce health care cost of the American public.

We would not let the farmers and merchants play the same games with our food supply why do we allow this to go on with our health care?

Why has Lazik and breast augmentation surgery gone down in cost (in absolute dollars) by over 400% in the past 10 years but other medical cost gone up? I am shocked that Ed knows what things cost. If any of us was paying for care we would ask the cost and effectiveness. Because insurance pays for everything and lawyers sue if enough tests are not run costs are out of control. I don't have dental insurance and I shop for lower costs, the same does not happen for medical expenses where insurance pays for everything.