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People have to pay for Obamacare policies, and the deductibles are quite high, so what's the difference?
High-risk insurance pools didn't deny coverage for pre-existing conditions. In fact, that's why they exist: to insure such individuals.
Most states enabled insurers to discriminate against those with pre- existing medical conditions.
Some states maintained high risk insurance pools. They were not tely funded and left millions uninsured.
When you look at the stats, percentage of people , younger than 65, with Diabetes, heart disease and various cancer diagnosis you begin to grasp the enormity of the challenges and costs associated with insuring pre-existing conditions.
Anyway you slice it, the risks of pre-existing conditions become mutualized- fed or state or premiums or a combination.
Most states enabled insurers to discriminate against those with pre- existing medical conditions.
Some states maintained high risk insurance pools. They were not tely funded and left millions uninsured.
Most states maintained high risk insurance pools. And Obamacare is also unfunded. Many people have to pay high premiums and absurdly high deductibles for their Obamacare policies.
You have got to properly connect the dots when it comes to what was not financed and/or affordable before the ACA vs now. Also consider what the purpose or goal of the ACA in terms of how to reduce medical care costs that were fast rising before Obama finally ushered in a better way -- that will take time to prove itself out!
From your own article, yes, "Physician Praveen Arla is witnessing a reversal of health care fortunes: Poor, long-uninsured patients are getting Medicaid through Obamacare and finally coming to his office for care. But middle-class workers are increasingly staying away."
Consider the first part of this statement -- PLEASE.
Then consider the second part. Now an approach that requires a higher deductible for more people is actually causing people to think a little harder before visiting doctors too soon or perhaps unnecessarily. Generally, if we are all paying more-or-less according to our means, and if we are not all visiting doctors when maybe we didn't need to, also taking less pricey prescriptions less frequently that the pharmaceutical companies love to push with no restrictions or end in sight..., you begin to apply at least some pressure to reverse the cost trend upward that has been going on long before the ACA!
In the past, over the years, lots of people with good coverage and low deductibles used up health care coverage expense that really wasn't warranted or really necessary. Now no one with serious medical life-threatening issues will be kept from visiting a doctor like so many millions were prevented before, but many will think a little harder before going to their doctor like they did perhaps a little too inexpensively before. Of course those "inexpensive" visits worked their way into the growing cost of health care coverage for those who could get it as well! A cost largely getting absorbed by the companies who paid or shared the cost of those premiums that only were going up and up and up.
Now, no one foregoes seeing a doctor over a life-or-death matter unless the person in question has pretty poor judgment about their own condition, but we can't legislate away bad judgment.
This is a significant simplification of the basics here, but one really does need to understand all aspects of these changes now being forced into the system before passing rash judgment!
Or, we can simply agree that those who have always been against the concept of accessible health care for all will always see the negatives above all else no matter what. That might be the easiest truth or fact to mutually accept when it comes to this subject in this forum and in America in general...
You have got to properly connect the dots when it comes to what was not financed and/or affordable before the ACA vs now. Also consider what the purpose or goal of the ACA in terms of how to reduce medical care costs that were fast rising before Obama finally ushered in a better way -- that will take time to prove itself out!
The middle class doesn't have time. They're getting crushed by Obamacare premiums and deductibles, now! They're having to go without medical care and prescription drugs, now!
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"[Full name deleted, but it's in the article] got insurance through the Affordable Care Act this year, and with good reason: She suffered a brain hemorrhage in 2011, spending weeks in a hospital intensive care unit, and has a second, smaller aneurysm that needs monitoring.
But her new plan has a $6,000 annual deductible, meaning that Ms. Wanderlich, who works part time at a landscaping company outside Chicago, has to pay for most of her medical services up to that amount. She is skipping this year’s brain scan and hoping for the best.
“To spend thousands of dollars just making sure it hasn’t grown?” said Ms. Wanderlich, 61. “I don’t have that money.”
“My employer-paid plan has a $5K deductible, so I don’t get medical services if I can help it,” said Ed, 61, from Winston-Salem, N.C. "I forgo blood pressure meds and colonoscopy,” he continued, even though his last test found polyps that should be monitored. While the Affordable Care Act mandates the coverage of certain screening services at no cost to patients, any resulting treatment means money out of pocket."
"But her new plan has a $6,000 annual deductible, meaning that Ms. Wanderlich, who works part time at a landscaping company outside Chicago, has to pay for most of her medical services up to that amount. She is skipping this year’s brain scan and hoping for the best."
You just today brushed off all the Obama "sob stories" but all your stories are somehow different? These snippets of facts, without knowing what the full story? What plan or health condition was this woman's before the ACA vs now she suddenly has a deductible of $6,000 without explanation?
Where is the rest of the story?
What plan did she have before that now requires so much higher a deductible, why? Was she covered under a company plan before and did the company decide to change the terms of coverage? Was she paying for her own plan? Was the coverage through her husband's plan? What sort of plan???
There are a good many details that need to be fully understood here before we can confirm the right or wrong of these changes, and if clearly wrong, bad or a mistake, corrections will need to be made!
Or again, we can simply admit that if against the concept of accessible health care for all at the beginning, nothing is likely to change your mind on this either.
Confirmation bias is a formidable force not to be reckoned with!
"But her new plan has a $6,000 annual deductible, meaning that Ms. Wanderlich, who works part time at a landscaping company outside Chicago, has to pay for most of her medical services up to that amount. She is skipping this year’s brain scan and hoping for the best."
You just today brushed off all the Obama "sob stories" but all your stories are somehow different?
People had access to high-risk insurance pools before Obamacare. What has changed now with Obamacare is that the middle class cannot afford the high Obamacare premiums and deductibles.
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These snippets of facts, without knowing what the full story? What plan or health condition was this woman's before the ACA vs now she suddenly has a deductible of $6,000 without explanation?
Yes, that's a pretty standard deductible for Obamacare Bronze plans:
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"Coleman pointed out that for 2015, the Internal Revenue Service's definition of a high-deductible plan will be $1,300 for individuals, and $2,600 for families.
For the Obamacare plans, "they're well beyond that definition," Coleman said. Individual Silver plans on average are more than twice the IRS benchmark for high-deductible plans, and such bronze plans are nearly four times the benchmark, he said. "
People who complain about both ISIS and Syria miss the important fact that they are fighting each other. If we oppose Assad's government, we help ISIS. If we oppose ISIS, we help Assad's government. The choice is being made to oppose ISIS, which helps Assad, and helps the Iranians. That is the right choice, and it allows the US to limit direct involvement in the conflict.
The right choice would be to withdraw every US serviceman and every piece of equipment from the area immediately and let these two festering piles of dung bleed one another to death.
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Of course, the rise of ISIS is a consequence of the Iraq War. Iraq has become, for practical matters, three separate countries--the Shi'a government in Baghdad, the quasi-independent Kurdish territory centered around Kirkuk, and the Sunni territory part of the ISIS wars on Iraq and Syria.
The middle east has been a cesspool of mindless violence for millennia before Iraq or the USA ever existed. Today's senseless slaughter is nothing more than the current incarnation of this never-ending cycle.
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I think the two most significant stability concerns for the region are interrelated: 1) long-term weakness in the oil markets make parts of the region vulnerable to unrest and conflict, and 2) limited water supplies create significant instability. The best long-term solution to both of these problems may be widespread, civilian nuclear power (plus solar), used for local generation (especially to move water around).
And the Iran nuclear deal makes that a possibility. It will take time to see the effects, but they have very significant potential to undermine the region's instability.
Agreed.
The Iran deal is our best bet for reducing the current boiling-over violence to a simmer.
Much like WorkingClassHero's tax return, these individual examples are highly suspect if not ridiculous in terms of their construed purpose. Hard to even know if they are real examples, and how many have we seen debunked only to move onto the next...? In the same way, InformedConsent doesn't seem to know anybody now with medical care coverage who was not able to get coverage before the ACA. Hmm..., drawing all you know from limited personal experience, anecdotes, news articles (lefty or otherwise) and opinion pieces doesn't do the trick either. If you want to really understand what is happening beyond the propaganda, you have got to look at the overall numbers -- all of them -- the statistics.
NEWS RELEASE
Health Coverage Grows Under Affordable Care Act
Insurance coverage has increased across all types of insurance since the major provisions of the federal Affordable Care Act took effect, with a net total of 16.9 million people becoming newly enrolled through February 2015.
“The Affordable Care Act has greatly expanded health insurance coverage, but it has caused little change in the way most previously-covered Americans are getting health insurance coverage,” saidKatherine Carman, the study's lead author and an economist at RAND, a nonprofit research organization. “The law has expanded coverage to more Americans using all parts of the health insurance system.”
I did post facts. Even according to the IRS, Obamacare deductibles are 2 to 4 times more costly than what the IRS considers to be high-deductible plans.
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"Coleman pointed out that for 2015, the Internal Revenue Service's definition of a high-deductible plan will be $1,300 for individuals, and $2,600 for families.
For the Obamacare plans, "they're well beyond that definition," Coleman said. Individual Silver plans on average are more than twice the IRS benchmark for high-deductible plans, and such bronze plans are nearly four times the benchmark, he said."
"Low health literacy continues to be a barrier and many consumers still struggle with the complexity of health insurance terminology."
Pay the lowest premium possible and you end up with a high deductible. What's new? Makes sense does it not? Maybe even common sense...
Plan Basics
The below information is for families and individuals. This information does not include the two types of federal subsidies: premiums and cost-sharing, click here if you want to learn Are You Qualified for Premium Subsidies? or if interested to learn, Are You Qualified for Cost-Sharing Subsidies?
Or, we can simply agree that if you were anti-Obama and anti-Obamacare in the first place, none of the facts really matter. At a minimum, unless the confirmation bias is extreme (as it truly seems to be here), one should be able to recognize all the facts for what they are, the good as well as the bad. Call me reasonable...
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