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By the way, in response to someone that claimed patients were gaming their Health Insurance by visiting the doctor for every little thing.
Here is a graph from the OECD on the number of doctor visits by country.
The US is well below the OECD average.
My family's primary care office has many Medicare patients who visit once or twice a week. It fills a social need and includes the patient's favorite topic, me, me, me.
He set up group appointments for those with similar conditions, mostly diabetes. His patients resisted and moaned and groaned and then something clicked. Suddenly they had a pack of new friends. The MD then delegated these appointment to one of his Physisican Assistants. His patients were skeptical. Then they liked her better than him.
After the group appointment, the pack heads to a nearby coffee shop for pie and coffee where they trash talk politics and long for the good ole days. If a regular misses an appointment, they call and check in.
I've never seen anything like this in my practice nor heard about such a thing in my town.
By the way, in response to someone that claimed patients were gaming their Health Insurance by visiting the doctor for every little thing.
Here is a graph from the OECD on the number of doctor visits by country.
The US is well below the OECD average.
I refuse to buy health insurance until I can tailor my plan for me. I don't need to have all that female junk added for me since I am a guy.
Get rid of the mandate.
Well, women don't have prostate or testicles either. One half of men over the age of 60 will develop BPH (Benign Prostatic Hyperplasia) which requires tests, examination (the old bend over and cough), frequent insertion of indwelling catheters, the old roto rooter, surgery, etc.
There are other organs that you don't need to have covered because you don't appear to have them.
I agree-get rid of the mandate, and when you require treatment in an ER, PAY UPFRONT.
Well, women don't have prostate or testicles either. One half of men over the age of 60 will develop BPH (Benign Prostatic Hyperplasia) which requires tests, examination (the old bend over and cough), frequent insertion of indwelling catheters, the old roto rooter, surgery, etc.
There are other organs that you don't need to have covered because you don't appear to have them.
I agree-get rid of the mandate, and when you require treatment in an ER, PAY UPFRONT.
Most people will eventially move from the normal pool to the high-risk pool. Even if you are perfectly healthy one day, something minor such as a benign breast lump or an enlarged prostate or a funny looking mole(that wasn't skin cancer after it was checked) could put someone in the pre-existing category, even if they didn't have cancer and surgery/prescription wasn't necessary for their situation.
Even someone with migraines can be considered high-risk and fall into the pre-existing category, even if they have nothing else wrong. Get bronchitis one winter could put someonel= into the pre-existing category(true story, a family member of mine had bronchitis and it was deemed preexisting even though just a simple doctors visit and prescription for antibiotic occurred).
This is the scary part - you could decide to open your own business and be healthy and buy insurance in the open(individual market) and the next year you might fall into the pre-existing condition category for some minor illness that you had (such as got your appendix removed) even though you are 100% healthy again. Once into pre-existing category, you might be uninsurabe for the rest of your life.
Do you have red hair and freckles and had 3 sunburns in your life? This might put you at risk for skin cancer and could be a pre-existing condition.
I was denied health insurance except for one very high priced plan (over $800/more than half of my take home income at the time if memory serves with a 5 figure deductible) when I was 22. Why? Because I had sought counseling after a rape, had a bladder condition that I grew out of more than a decade prior, and had PCOS that was controlled by diet and exercise.
I went without until I found a job with benefits, which was a challenge at the height of the recession as a recent grad. 4 months later, I was diagnosed with stage IV cancer. Had I been diagnosed a few months earlier, I would have been screwed - and not for lack of trying to do the right thing! With lifelong side effects I will have to deal with that are manageable, but still require medical intervention, I would never be able to purchase insurance on the open market again.
My boyfriend was able to open a small business that has been very successful, now employing 5 people in a very hard hit area of the Rust Belt as a result of the ACA. With severe, sometimes debilitating IBS, he couldn't find insurance that would cover him until the ACA rolled around. One of his employees is his mother who lost her job at 59 years old and was just going to hope for the best until she qualified for Medicare due to the lack of employment opportunities with benefits. She lost her job after being out for a few months due to surgery, so it's not like she was going to be able to purchase her own insurance either.
There's a huge gap between qualifying for Medicaid and being able to afford insurance if you have preexisting conditions. The ACA isn't perfect, but everyone needs insurance. You can be a relatively healthy 23 year old and be diagnosed with stage IV cancer, like me. You're only healthy until you're not.
My friends in the young adult cancer world are quite concerned.
4 months later, I was diagnosed with stage IV cancer. Had I been diagnosed a few months earlier, I would have been screwed - and not for lack of trying to do the right thing!
You wouldn't be screwed, you would be dead. You wouldn't have gone in until you were so sick that the cancer would have spread. Because thats what you do when you can't afford it.
Thats how my mom died. Got sick, never went in until a ambulance took her because she couldn't afford it she said.
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