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On this. I actually am not a liberal, I am an independent but do have some liberal leanings and one of them is that I want Universal Healthcare. I think letting Obamacare go and people losing coverage will be the catalyst for this to occur.
On you capitalized letters, not certain what that has to do with what I stated and of which you quoted. I stated I don't care as much as a liberal cares and that that is their downfall IMO. They are not strategizing and analyzing the situation.
I didn't mention anything about Obama either.
On your second post, please note that a huge majority of Americans have not had their premiums go up. Those of us who work have not had raises in prices like the ACA plans have had. My premiums have actually gone down by more than 50% since ACA started and my employers moved from those expensive HMO plans with co-pays to POS/HSA based plans with deductibles. I don't go to the doctor that much. I used to pay premium pre-ACA of about $800 a month. Today I pay about $200 a month for a family of 4. I know MANY people who are similar to my own family who have experienced similar decreases.
The reason why ACA plans are increasing is because of the pool of insureds constituting a high amount of sick people. When all the states didn't buy into those plans and the mandate was not made law of the land, that caused only those people who were sick to sign up for ACA. I've worked in buying HR benefits including health insurance plans and am very knowledgeable about those plans.
I don't know anyone personally who has an ACA plan. They either get insurance through work, military Tri-Care or VA, or through Medicaid or Medicare. A majority of Americans are covered via the above.
So it is easy for me, as someone who admittedly doesn't care as much as a liberal, to say, well tough luck to those of you who have no other options. You better go get a job that offers affordable health insurance!
But as stated above, one of my main liberal leans is the fact that I would like to see Universal Health care implemented. I think the Dems can come back if they took the route that Bernie Sanders did in that regard AFTER they allow the GOP to repeal ACA. UHC will also take the burden of healthcare off of employers and allow them to keep more profits and pay people in wages more instead of paying them in benefits. As stated, I have purchased health insurance in the past. When you pay that $100-$300 a month in premiums for your healthcare, your employer is usually paying an additional $200-$600 a month for you. Insurance is very expensive for businesses. I also think it would encourage small business growth to move that burden onto the public where IMO it should be.
You have to look at total healthcare costs: premiums+deductibles. If you premiums went down from $800 to $200, but you're deductibles up from $500 to $5,000 it evens each other out (generally speaking). Unless you don't use a lot of health care.
I have employer covered health care at a major multinational listed at NYSE. Before ACA I was paying $250/paycheck with a $750 deductible for a family of 4. Now I'm close to $380/paycheck with a $3,500 deductible. Here's the math:
Old: $250x26 + $750 = $7,250
Now: $380x26 + $3,500 = $13,380
That's an 84% increase over 8 years, or over 10% per year.
Before ACA the increases were marginal.
I care for others, but I don't want to subsidize the poor or uninsured the way ACA was implemented.
You have to look at total healthcare costs: premiums+deductibles. If you premiums went down from $800 to $200, but you're deductibles up from $500 to $5,000 it evens each other out (generally speaking). Unless you don't use a lot of health care.
I have employer covered health care at a major multinational listed at NYSE. Before ACA I was paying $250/paycheck with a $750 deductible for a family of 4. Now I'm close to $380/paycheck with a $3,500 deductible. Here's the math:
Old: $250x26 + $750 = $7,250
Now: $380x26 + $3,500 = $13,380
That's an 84% increase over 8 years, or over 10% per year.
Before ACA the increases were marginal.
I care for others, but I don't want to subsidize the poor or uninsured the way ACA was implemented.
You need to ask your HR to look for better plans.
Prior to ACA we paid $800 a month for a family plan. With that plan we still had to pay co-pays every time we went to the doctor and for perscriptions
Today, I pay $200 a month for a family plan. I have no deductibles and still have to pay a co-pay every time I go to the doctor - other than for my "free" visits once a year for checkups and womanly stuff
So here's the math for me:
then: $800X12=$9600 plus $80 minimum per year in co-pays for checkups
now: $200X12= $2400 plux $0 per year in co-pays for checkups
$9600-$2400 = $7200 in savings for me.
My job offers both traditional co-pay plans and a deductible plan. I did have to be on the deductible plan in the past due to my spouse's job. They have a spousal carveout and if your spouse works you cannot get the cheapo plan I have now. My spouse currently owns his own business and since he doesn't have employer sponsored health benefits, we can get the cheapo plan. Our old plan with deductibles was still lower than the $9600 per year we paid with the pre-ACA plan:
deductible plan: $200X12=$2400 plus a deductible of $2500 annually for family
My employers gives each employee on the deductible plan a $1500 credit in an HSA to go toward the deductible so I only really had to pay $1000 for a deductible, which I put into the HSA from my pre-taxed income.
So the $2400 in premiums plus $1000 in deductible would be $3400 per year. That was still $6200 less than pre-ACA plan. I also didn't have to pay for my annual checkups. Again, we rarely go to the doctor outside of those checkups so pre-ACA I was paying nearly $10000 for nothing as sometimes I didn't go for my checkups, other than the kids, because I didn't want to pay the co-pay (bad but I did it lol).
Also, please note in 2012 I worked for an employer that had a deductible plan and NONE of the employees had to pay ANYTHING for premiums. Premiums were $0 a month!!!
They also gave us an amount toward our deductible of $1600. I worked with that organization to purchase our benefits packages and when the new deductible plans came out, they were so substantially cheaper than the previous plans for our group HMO that even if we paid for the entire premium for our employees, it was over 40% cheaper than the previous amount we paid where the employee also paid $100-$200 a month for those plans. Family deductibles there were $2500. The company gave you $1600 automatically if you signed up for the welness program. Then they would give you a "bonus" to your HSA of up to $300 a month (up to your full deductible amount) if you wore a fitbit and averaged a certain amount of steps per month.
You employer evidently has a very small office and cannot get good group rates, or they are not shopping the market and are just going with the same company every year. They need to get a broker and check rates every year for the group to get the best pricing.
ETA: Also wanted to note that many of you ACA haters also ignore the fact that you no longer are paying for annual checkups, mammograms, pap smears, and other preventative testing that was out of pocket or co-pay based prior to ACA.
You also ignore the fact that due to ACA there are NO LIMITS for the amount of healthcare that you can receive. Prior to ACA even employer sponsored health insurance coverage had annual or lifetime maximums, whereas they would not pay anything else after you reached a certain dollar amount. Many of them had lifetime limits of $1 million. I know many people who battled cancer, including children and people who gave birth to micro-preemies (24-26 weeks gestation) that exceeded $1 million dollars worth of care in a year and they were stuck with hundreds of thousands of dollars in medical bills or no longer having any health coverage, potentially for the rest of their lives, until ACA came into effect.
Most people do not know what healthcare was really like pre-ACA unless they were one of those people who met a maximum or who had a pre-existing condition or who had a plan that would only cover preventative care or basic care for illnesses for less than $100 a month that if you got in a car accident or got diabetes or cancer, you'd have to pay everything out of your pocket. That stuff doesn't happen anymore because of ACA. However, I don't like ACA because I feel it is not as good as UHC for employers and for the public. IMO we are rich enough of a country that everyone should have coverage similar IMO to Medicaid but have everyone pay a co-pay for a visit and for prescription drugs.
Last edited by residinghere2007; 03-03-2017 at 08:03 PM..
It appears the game plan is to stir the pot and the country and get people riled up over everything while, I don't know, planning to take over or something. No matter how you identify yourself politically this isn't a good thing and won't have a good ending for anyone. Not even Democrats.
The way my mind works is that I don't believe people can be so divisive just out of spite or because they lost the WH and are poor sports. To me there must be some other reason for doing what they are doing, a bigger purpose, and when you start thinking about that it's hard to see a good or honorable reason for any of it. They aren't trying to help me, or save America, or do anything awesome....it's something else entirely.
Prior to ACA we paid $800 a month for a family plan. With that plan we still had to pay co-pays every time we went to the doctor and for perscriptions
Today, I pay $200 a month for a family plan. I have no deductibles and still have to pay a co-pay every time I go to the doctor - other than for my "free" visits once a year for checkups and womanly stuff
So here's the math for me:
then: $800X12=$9600 plus $80 minimum per year in co-pays for checkups
now: $200X12= $2400 plux $0 per year in co-pays for checkups
$9600-$2400 = $7200 in savings for me.
My job offers both traditional co-pay plans and a deductible plan. I did have to be on the deductible plan in the past due to my spouse's job. They have a spousal carveout and if your spouse works you cannot get the cheapo plan I have now. My spouse currently owns his own business and since he doesn't have employer sponsored health benefits, we can get the cheapo plan. Our old plan with deductibles was still lower than the $9600 per year we paid with the pre-ACA plan:
deductible plan: $200X12=$2400 plus a deductible of $2500 annually for family
My employers gives each employee on the deductible plan a $1500 credit in an HSA to go toward the deductible so I only really had to pay $1000 for a deductible, which I put into the HSA from my pre-taxed income.
So the $2400 in premiums plus $1000 in deductible would be $3400 per year. That was still $6200 less than pre-ACA plan. I also didn't have to pay for my annual checkups. Again, we rarely go to the doctor outside of those checkups so pre-ACA I was paying nearly $10000 for nothing as sometimes I didn't go for my checkups, other than the kids, because I didn't want to pay the co-pay (bad but I did it lol).
Also, please note in 2012 I worked for an employer that had a deductible plan and NONE of the employees had to pay ANYTHING for premiums. Premiums were $0 a month!!!
They also gave us an amount toward our deductible of $1600. I worked with that organization to purchase our benefits packages and when the new deductible plans came out, they were so substantially cheaper than the previous plans for our group HMO that even if we paid for the entire premium for our employees, it was over 40% cheaper than the previous amount we paid where the employee also paid $100-$200 a month for those plans. Family deductibles there were $2500. The company gave you $1600 automatically if you signed up for the welness program. Then they would give you a "bonus" to your HSA of up to $300 a month (up to your full deductible amount) if you wore a fitbit and averaged a certain amount of steps per month.
You employer evidently has a very small office and cannot get good group rates, or they are not shopping the market and are just going with the same company every year. They need to get a broker and check rates every year for the group to get the best pricing.
ETA: Also wanted to note that many of you ACA haters also ignore the fact that you no longer are paying for annual checkups, mammograms, pap smears, and other preventative testing that was out of pocket or co-pay based prior to ACA.
You also ignore the fact that due to ACA there are NO LIMITS for the amount of healthcare that you can receive. Prior to ACA even employer sponsored health insurance coverage had annual or lifetime maximums, whereas they would not pay anything else after you reached a certain dollar amount. Many of them had lifetime limits of $1 million. I know many people who battled cancer, including children and people who gave birth to micro-preemies (24-26 weeks gestation) that exceeded $1 million dollars worth of care in a year and they were stuck with hundreds of thousands of dollars in medical bills or no longer having any health coverage, potentially for the rest of their lives, until ACA came into effect.
Most people do not know what healthcare was really like pre-ACA unless they were one of those people who met a maximum or who had a pre-existing condition or who had a plan that would only cover preventative care or basic care for illnesses for less than $100 a month that if you got in a car accident or got diabetes or cancer, you'd have to pay everything out of your pocket. That stuff doesn't happen anymore because of ACA. However, I don't like ACA because I feel it is not as good as UHC for employers and for the public. IMO we are rich enough of a country that everyone should have coverage similar IMO to Medicaid but have everyone pay a co-pay for a visit and for prescription drugs.
As I mentioned before, "my" company is listed on the NYSE and has a market cap of over $75b with a B. It employees around 25,000 employees. I'm sure we are getting as good as a deal as possible. Are you a federal employee? Your plan sounds to me one of the plans that public employees get. Too good to be true. Either way, good for you. But you have to understand a lot of people, even working for large multinationals, are being screwed by ACA.
Does anyone still believe that Democrats have any interest to work together to get things done or will they just keep dividing and working against the will of the people who chose to change to back away from another Democratic President for a reason!
Not even choosing the first female President was what moved the Democrats to a win as they lost the election in the part where it counts.
Watching Schumer on NBC now saying he didn't see anything positive the President said last night seems to confirm the Democrats will fight this government on literally everything!
If Mother Theresa were alive and an American citizen, and Trump nominated her to be the Ambassador to the Vatican, you can bet the Democrats and their media lapdogs would scream what a horrible person she was and how inappropriate it was to put a Catholic in that role. It is their hysterics over anything and everything that causes many of us to just tune it all out. The boy who cried wolf and all.
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