Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
When I retired I kept the dental and vision through COBRA. I went to the marketplace for health insurance. With the subsidy it is not too bad. You have to watch your income so that you qualify for a subsidy. Overall, it is about what I budgeted or less. When I was working, we paid part of the premium so retirement is more but not that much more.
...See if the following resonates with your younger friends who think "Medicare for All" or "Universal Healthcare" is the solution:
...
Across America, on average, we consume about $12,000 PER PERSON PER YEAR in health care goods & services, adding in everything. ...
I don't have the solution, but I know just having the government pay for the same quantity of health care goods and services doesn't reduce the total or the average of $12K per person per year. What we need is a way to rip costs out of the system - and most of those costs are administrative. They are people who work in hospitals and clinics and medical offices who sit at desks and interact with computer screens -- they don't add value and they don't care for patients; they push paper (electrons) and they earn a salary. They are also breadwinners for their families. The objective needs to be to reduce the average consumption from the pre-Covid $12K per person per year down to $11K and down to $10K and so on. The only way to do that is to take massive numbers of those administrative people who earn a living in the health care industry but don't actually deliver health care - and lay them off.
...
Aside from that, I don't have a solution.
A reduced Pentagon budget is 704 billion in 2021
This of course does not include a large amount of money hiding for all kinds of clandestine activities.
Next country with the highest budget is China: with ~260 billion or so and it made news as it grew 5% or so.
India is next,
The allegedly “mighty” Russia our populace seem to be afraid - is ~60 billion or so.
Let us look at a bit of an older graphics from 2018 to see where the highly developed societies which all have an Universal healthcare for their taxpayers stand on their military spending..
The solution is staring in our face... it is more than 2 million per a taxpayer per year
The costs of healthcare in retirement - is why some of us can’t sleep at night.
It is not even the money issues alone: imagine an aging brain having to go every year through the myriads of plans , “what ifs”, every single year!!
It is the most maddening absurd system.
My friends in the EU can’t believe that we have to re- sign every year and the amount of money we are paying.
If the coronavirus relief bill that just passed in the Senate is approved by the House, then there will be significant increases in subsidies for ACA health insurance premiums for at least two years.
"The legislation would eliminate an income cap that limits who is eligible for ACA tax credits to reduce monthly insurance premiums. It would also limit the amount households pay to only 8.5% of their income on healthcare, and it would boost subsidies to lower-income consumers."
"With the increased subsidies, costs would come down for many who buy ACA-compliant plans. For a 60-year-old with a $55,000 income, premiums would drop by around 50% to 80% depending on the plan, according to a Kaiser Family Foundation analysis."
A reduced Pentagon budget is 704 billion in 2021
This of course does not include a large amount of money hiding for all kinds of clandestine activities.
Next country with the highest budget is China: with ~260 billion or so and it made news as it grew 5% or so.
India is next,
The allegedly “mighty” Russia our populace seem to be afraid - is ~60 billion or so.
The above is 100% off-topic and irrelevant. You could cut the Pentagon budget to zero, and it wouldn't effect the nation's total outlay on health care goods and services.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Nik4me
The solution is staring in our face...
No, it is not. Nothing you've pointed to results in a change in the nation's total outlay on health care goods and services.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Nik4me
The costs of healthcare in retirement - is why some of us can’t sleep at night.
Oh, I agree 100%. Our system is messed up. It is broken without question. No one has yet been able to proffer a solution that passes the economic smell test.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Nik4me
It is the most maddening absurd system.
Oh, I agree 100%. Absurd, messed up, broken beyond repair. I've never met anyone who thinks our system is anything other than absurd, messed up, and broken. So far, no one has yet to articulate a solution that passes the economic smell test.
See if the following resonates with your younger friends who think "Medicare for All" or "Universal Healthcare" is the solution:
Across America, on average, we consume about $12,000 PER PERSON PER YEAR in health care goods & services, adding in everything. That's before the pandemic, of course.
Note this does not count health insurance premiums we collectively pay to insurance companies.
Note this isn't the "sticker price" of heath care -- the bill -- which, of course, is reduced substantially because of contracted compensation rates (we all know of examples where the hospital bill is, say, $100,000 but is reduced to, say, $15,000 because of negotiated rates with insurance companies, and of which the patient is responsible for a portion).
No, that $12,000 PER PERSON PER YEAR, on average, is the actual consumption of medical care (includes professional services, consumables including medicine, and durable equipment).
The arithmetic is ineluctable: that's how much, on average, we consume for each man, woman and child in America each year. This averages in high consumption people such as the elderly with age-related illnesses, low consumption patients such as teens and twenty-somethings, newborns, cancer patients, orthopedic basket cases as a result of high speed motorcycle accidents, people who are exceptionally healthy and haven't seen a doctor in decades and take no prescription medicines, etc etc. On average, that's how much we consume: $12,000 per person for every man, woman and child who is alive in the USA.
THEREFORE, any "Single Payer" system of health insurance, including so-called "Medicare-for-All" MUST charge insurance premiums, on average, of about $12,000 PER PERSON PER YEAR for every man, woman, and child who is alive in the USA. That's to pay for the underlying health care goods & services.
But wait - there's more. The "Single Payer" entity needs to administer the system. That's a lot of people, none of whom work for free. So in addition to the "Single Payer" insurance premium of $12,000, the governmental entity needs to charge more to pay for its administration. How much more? Well, ask yourself, how efficient are government employees?
So - your young friends - are they married? If so, that's $24K ($12K per person). Do they have kids? A family of 3 would owe $36K in premiums for "Medicare for All" ($12K per person). A family of 4 would owe $48K in premiums for "Medicare for All" ($12K per person). Actually, it is somewhat more than that - the extra would pay for government administration.
Clearly, "Medicare for All" aka "Single-Payer INSURANCE" does not solve the problem that health care costs too damn much in this country.
I don't have the solution, but I know just having the government pay for the same quantity of health care goods and services doesn't reduce the total or the average of $12K per person per year. What we need is a way to rip costs out of the system - and most of those costs are administrative. They are people who work in hospitals and clinics and medical offices who sit at desks and interact with computer screens -- they don't add value and they don't care for patients; they push paper (electrons) and they earn a salary. They are also breadwinners for their families. The objective needs to be to reduce the average consumption from the pre-Covid $12K per person per year down to $11K and down to $10K and so on. The only way to do that is to take massive numbers of those administrative people who earn a living in the health care industry but don't actually deliver health care - and lay them off.
Not likely to happen, of course.
Aside from that, I don't have a solution.
Is it really about how much as opposed to who gets the money?
If the coronavirus relief bill that just passed in the Senate is approved by the House, then there will be significant increases in subsidies for ACA health insurance premiums for at least two years.
"The legislation would eliminate an income cap that limits who is eligible for ACA tax credits to reduce monthly insurance premiums. It would also limit the amount households pay to only 8.5% of their income on healthcare, and it would boost subsidies to lower-income consumers."
"With the increased subsidies, costs would come down for many who buy ACA-compliant plans. For a 60-year-old with a $55,000 income, premiums would drop by around 50% to 80% depending on the plan, according to a Kaiser Family Foundation analysis."
The American Rescue Plan passed! Very soon, the subsidies for monthly premiums will go down for a lot of people for 2021 and 2022.
"The American Rescue Plan broadens the subsidies available under the Affordable Care Act for comprehensive health insurance — increasing them for people who are already eligible, and providing new assistance for people with incomes previously too high to qualify. "
The NYT has some of the details. These enhancements should really help people who are retired or want to retire before Medicare eligibility.
ETA: I just ran the numbers for our household using the online tool referenced in the NYT article, and it looks like our monthly premium for our current Silver plan will sink to $2.00/month (for three people). Loud cheers!
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
