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I heard today that five of the states only have one insurer left that people can buy from. Opening the borders would help. My insurance premium is increasing more that 300 dollars in January. Every year since AZZhatobummer care was started I have less coverage and a higher premium.
One thing I don't get is this. I have been informed of what my new premium is. So, they know what the new rates are, but won't release them until the 15 of Oct. so I can compare. Then, I can't change anything til the first of Nov. and I have a few weeks to do so. This whole act puts everyone on the same schedule. I'd like to do away with that.
Do you not understand that childish terms like this just make you look uneducated and petulant? The sad thing is the rest of your post makes perfect sense.
Do you not understand that childish terms like this just make you look uneducated and petulant? The sad thing is the rest of your post makes perfect sense.
All of that is true, but even if the young/healthy segment of the population was opting-in to ACA, it still would not make rates go down.
Healthcare costs in the US last year were about $3 trillion. That is cost for services delivered and have nothing to do with insurance. That comes out to $10,000 per person, on average. Somebody has to pay that bill. If the government did not subsidize any healthcare, and the costs were evenly distributed (which is the whole idea behind insurance), we would each be paying $10k.
We can shift the way we pay, but it still does not change that $3 trillion annual cost. We can have the government pay it, and all our taxes go up, or we can pay it through premiums, which leads to the failures of ACA since people just don't pay up. There is no magic way to have it cost less for each person unless/until we get the total cost of healthcare lower in the US.
Personally, I think Medicare should be available for everyone, which means all of our taxes go up. But that is the price you pay for being a responsible member of society in which we take care of the sick and those less fortunate than others. Since it is paid through taxes, there is no longer an "opt-out" option. We all pay and we all get a minimum level of coverage. You can get supplemental insurance (the young/healthy probably won't) to get higher coverage, but that is up to the individual. It is not nationalized healthcare, but it is nationalized health insurance.
Everybody has their own opinion. I do not want my taxes to increase and do not feel that those "less fortunate" than me are my responsibility. I pay too much in taxes as it is for the amount that I work.
So your self-employment started after the ACA? The ACA pretty much shut by business down. I could pay doctor bills when I had them but I simply couldn't afford insurance. I paid the penalty the first year but had to shut down and get a job that paid most of my premiums for me.
To be honest about things, if your business was tipped over by PPACA, it would not have been on very solid ground anyway and likely would have been tipped over by something else soon enough. Those after all were very tough times for small business, thanks to the Great Recession.
Quote:
Originally Posted by cowdog
Expanding welfare (which is what Medicare is) does not equal success.
Medicare is an insurance program. Part-A covers in-patient hospitalization and is almost entirely paid for by payroll taxes and taxes on the taxable portion of Social Security benefits. Part-B covers out-patient services and doctor's office costs. Like employment-based health care, the premiums are paid partly by the subscriber (about 25%) and partly by the government (about 73%).
Quote:
Originally Posted by cowdog
It's actually the opposite as the more the government has to pay the more we are failing.
Not sure of the logic there. The program is functioning as designed.
I take it you are not 65. Once you are, you too will be enjoying "welfare" of Medicare. It is essentially forced on you. We had private insurance up until age 64 at which time the insurance company told us that we are required to sign up for Medicare upon reaching 65. Our previous full-coverage private insurance just flipped over to a Medicare "gap" plan that supplements Medicare. It might be "welfare" but it is how the majority of Americans over the age of 65 are insured.
Right, Medicare as the primary cover and a private plan as secondary is the most common arrangement. And out-of-pocket premiums should have dropped dramatically at the point of conversion. Secondary coverage under Part-B is a back-up that picks up any costs that Medicare might not. It allows you to pay nothing or very close to nothing in terms of out-of-pocket expenses for most health care services.
But Medicare is not "welfare" any more than mass transit, airplanes, or national parks are welfare. Users do not cover the full costs of any of those things either, and they are just a few examples from what is rather a long list.
Everybody has their own opinion. I do not want my taxes to increase and do not feel that those "less fortunate" than me are my responsibility. I pay too much in taxes as it is for the amount that I work.
Taxes are different from charitable contributions. You don't get to decide much when it comes to taxes. You just do what you are told to do. That's how it works in a representative democracy.
Taxes are different from charitable contributions. You don't get to decide much when it comes to taxes. You just do what you are told to do. That's how it works in a representative democracy.
Maybe that is what this country has DEVOLVED into, but it certainly not how it was supposed to "work in a representative democracy".
"The people" shouldn't have "just do what we are told to do". That is how it works in dictatorships, communism, despots, etc. totally the opposite of what this country was designed to be like.
It hasn't worked out so well here in Arizona.....quite a few insurance companies have dropped out of the Healthcare Marketplace for the upcoming enrollment period, and I believe there's still one county here which has no insurance companies making a bid/offer. (can't remember the right term for it)
Right, Medicare as the primary cover and a private plan as secondary is the most common arrangement. And out-of-pocket premiums should have dropped dramatically at the point of conversion. Secondary coverage under Part-B is a back-up that picks up any costs that Medicare might not. It allows you to pay nothing or very close to nothing in terms of out-of-pocket expenses for most health care services.
But Medicare is not "welfare" any more than mass transit, airplanes, or national parks are welfare. Users do not cover the full costs of any of those things either, and they are just a few examples from what is rather a long list.
Thank you for posting that. I am an advocate of a strong military, but it seems rather absurd to me that some of posters associate spending all sorts of money on the military's killing machines is valid, while anything for human beings is welfare.
Your premiums went up so that unhealthy people can be covered. Before ACA, unhealthy people were rejected by insurance companies. Only the healthy had insurance.
So who is supposed to pay for the healthcare costs of the unhealthy segment of the population? Your choices are: (1) They are on their own and we ignore them, which is how it was before ACA, (2) We let them participate in insurance but then all of our premiums go up to cover their costs, (3) We cover the unhealthy but through some government plan like Medicare, but then instead of paying high premiums you are paying high taxes.
So unless you want to abandon the unhealthy people in our society, you can either pay higher premiums or you can pay higher taxes. Which do you prefer?
BTW, being unhealthy arises from a lot of things. I had a cancer scare a few years ago and was said to have a pre-existing condition and could only get insurance through work. Before ACA I was one of the unlucky people who could not get insurance otherwise. Is that fair?
As to the OP - ACA helped provide access to insurance but did nothing to lower healthcare costs. The latter has to be addressed at some point but doing so requires a major overhaul of how medical care is delivered in this country. My feeling is ACA will be replaced with single payer at some point anyway.
I don't think this is accurate.
Before ACA the poor had medicaid. The ketch there was that you had to become poor and stay that way to receive free health care. Plenty of people walked away from emergency room bills and never paid them. No one was left with zero access to any of it because we are a compassionate nation.
What we have now isn't better, just different and makes everyone poorer across the board.
I'm self employed and don't get the breaks other do that get insurance through work or qualify for a subsidy. It doesn't seem fair to me. I spent the better part of 2013 fighting cancer paying huge premiums and two deductibles of 10 grand. Obama care has nearly doubled my premiums and I have to pay them knowing my cancer could come back. Is this fair?
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