VladimirPee

Actually my company pays 2/3rds of my healthcare as part of my benefits package

My costs increased 15% this year but in order to keep it even that low the company raised deductible to $6000 from $2500 the out of pocket was raised from $5000 to $12,000. And yes this was all directly related to ACA requirements .


Now my neighbor is a Lucent retiree. His retirement package contributes $4200 per year. He pays $2100 for his family plan since he is too young for Medicare. He checked the ACA price. $2800 month with higher deductible than he has now.

Ve'hoe

MY healthcare has been what I can afford,,,,, not what everyone else owes me. I too have not used it much, but will in the future,,, how is it my sons or daughters problem to have to pay for mine,,, and "yours"???

And the instances you bring up are forced by the govt intervention,,, it doesn't mean or even promise that the process will improve. Also most of us, who had yours and my situation had relatively inexpensive health care, why must we now buck up, for others,,,, that isn't fair either.

And people going onto the ACA site and signing up are finding out that instead of a promised $2500 decrease that their rates are doubling, deductables are multiplying almost exponentially and coverage remains the same,, so what you say about health care improving isn't happening. Might I remind you, this is health insurance,,, you are not purchasing health care,,, someone has to be willing to take that low repayment fee, and of course the govt panel will have to approve it,,, sorry fatties and smokers, you are toast

VladimirPee

Let me provide a personal story on how ridiculous this ACA is.

I have a parent-child plan at work. My spouse has insurance at her work. My cost went up about $150 a month.

Now I have a 20 yr. old in college who was on my plan. I have a 23 yr. old who graduated and works full time. She makes $46,000 a year and can afford her employer provided insurance of $350 a month. But under ACA I can now add her to my parent child plan for nothing extra until age 26. She saves $350 a month. Is this fair? Hell no someone is paying for her somewhere.

Floyd Brown Loc: Milwaukee WI

It is the insurance companies setting the price. Not ACA.

The insurance companies are being asked to pay out a bigger share of premiums.

I hear so much about how good the for profit system is but perhaps It shouldn't work so well for health care.

On one hand you bring up the problem of paying more.
On the other hand there are those wishing for the states having more rights.

Because it has to be done state by state There will be things like you say.

The answers as to why they are being done is in the hands of those in each state.

If insurance companies feel that they can create enough fear then they win & will change all they can.

Ve'hoe

No,,, the "price list" has two tiers,,,,, one subsidized by the govt,, ie ME and my taxes for you and the other terminally stupid and lazy,,,, and then the REAL price for everyone else,,,,

VladimirPee

Floyd

The requirements for ACA were established Federally not locally. You cannot insure 30 Million uninsured (42 million after amnesty) add many expensive options and expect costs to go down. Its simple math.

DASHY

Dennis. I agree with one of Ve'hoe's points. We should be skeptical about published numbers. How does $12 billion in insurance company profits rise to $500 billion? Can it be?

All the comments I have read on this blog support the argument that a single-payer, Medicare For All insurance plan is the best way to protect all Americans.

I am fortunate to be covered by Medicare. I hope all Americans will be treated the same. It would be a beautiful thing. The greatest country on earth should be able to figure out how to provide universal health care for all of its citizens.

VladimirPee

Not sure what comments you refer to. Single Payer would only make things worse.

Ve'hoe

Absolutely not,,,, the govt should NOT be in this business (or any other) but then again they shouldn't be in the business of mandating insurance that we HAVE to buy or be fined!?!

Here is the problem in a microcosm. Currently I pay for top of the line NO DEDUCTABLE insurance from Humana,,, cause that is what I want. I make about $100K a year. I pay about 15% of my income. I pay about $25 K in taxes personally. Now under the govt plan I pay about the same amount but my Deductable goes up to 10K, so I now have to pay 25% of my pay for medical, what the SCOTUS called a tax increase.... then my tax rates go up too to cover the others who are "subsidized cleverly" (so it doesn't look like a tax, but my money is gone) So I am paying close to 45% of my income for my medical, my taxes and Floyd Browns medical so he can buy cigarettes and dope with his EBT card.... that is how it is working

VladimirPee

Ve'Hoe that is exactly what is happening. Its a redistribution of wealth attacking the middle and upper middle class

Ve'hoe

And it will still end up in the pockets of the wealthy,, Obama Pelosi, reed, et all. The poor will still be abused. It is a lie. Useful i***ts

Mert

Insurance is actually quite like bookmaking on horse races, but the bookies don't have nearly either the science or the basic statistical certainty that favors the insurance industry. Punters bet on horse races, wich are at best, chancy. Insurance compaines bet on the near certainty of statisical analysis, which over the entire population, rather than ten or fifteen horses in a race, is far more certain. Hence, Insurance, like bookmaking, is profitable, but nowhere near as risky.
Government, OTOH, dos not need to run a profit. Any loss is easliy covered by Armed Robery, or as we prefer to call it, voluntary taxation.
Mert

Hungry Freaks

IN Canada, at least, you wait based on need. In the US, if you don't have GOOD health insurance, you wait until some doctor in your network is willing and able.

Don't take my word for it-go to Canada and try and get health care. If you're sick enough with a life threatening illness or injury, you get it pronto. If not ,well you wait. Maybe not perfect, but better than our system where health care is rationed not by need, but by ability to pay.

This idea that government between you and your doctor will be worse that the status quo-where some bean counter at the insurance company gets between you and your doctor, just looking for any loophole in the contract that will allow them to deny coverage.

Ve'hoe

Except that you keep defaulting to that "govt lie" that you "HAVE TO HAVE INSURANCE" ..... you don't,,, the state already pays millions of dollars for acute care for indigent persons,,, no one but NO ONE is just allowed to die in the street if they make it to the emergency room,,, that is blatantly false!! You need to stop saying that, because it unfavorably taints the medical community which provides BILLIONS in free treatment yearly

Hungry Freaks

Dennis-I'm glad you have somewhat good health insurance, paid 2/3, as you say, by your employer. You should count yourself blessed.

Fact is nobody really knows what will change, whether it will change for the better or worse, or what will remain the same under the ACA.

Presidents since Eisenhower have tried to improve our nation's health care system. Obama's not breaking new ground. He's trying to expand the pool to include younger, healthier folks who, so far, have been opting out of the system until they get ill. When they get ill or injured without insurance, the rest of us pay through increased health insurance premiums. We just don't throw a 25-year-old with cancer or serious injury out on the street. Hospitals eat the bills and pass the pass on to private insurers through $1,500 emergency room visits to get a half-dozen stitches to close a would (the exact cost of my last ER room visit, on a Sunday, to close a wound i got from walking into a care door. My auto insurance and regular health insurance both claimed the other was responsible-the result being it took 11 months to get the bill paid, which fell onto my credit report as a deliquent payment. Remember, half of all bankruptcies are caused by health care debts.)

"Obama lied" is your mantra.

Obama over promised is more like it. Government doesn't do Internet based stuff very well. Telephone applications and snail mail applications for the ACA seem to be working rather well. As the old song goes, two out of three aint bad.