Obamacare = god's gift to insurance companies

Most people who work for a company providing health insurance who make $40k are expected to pay a portion of their insurance costs, and it's frequently at least $300. How much do you spend on your cell phone, Internet, going out to dinner, etc.? When did we raise a generation or two who believes that health care insurance is optional? And do they realize how much that reckless and stupid behavior (or in the case of the borderline poor who can't afford Medicaid) raises the cost of health care for all?

$300 a month for health care insurance is CHEAP these days. One hospitalization for appendicitis will set you back a huge amount. There are many things to like about the ACA, most readily apparent are the provisions extending dependent coverage until 26 and prohibiting exclusions for pre-existing conditions, which was draconian on so many levels.

Call your representatives, and tell them to quit obstructing the first (admittedly flawed) legislation that attempts to make reasonable affordable health care available to all. And if you're in a red state that has done everything possible to prohibit exchanges, please keep an open mind and monitor what's happening in states that are not trying to thwart these efforts at all costs.

Is this a perfect system? No, and given the partisan nature of congress I'm stunned it was passed. But people need reasonable access to health care, and I don't think any country that can't provide the same to the majority of its populace deserves to be called a first-world country.

>Call your representatives,

Call your representatives? Who do you think reads this board? We are all represented by Chuck and Gilli and a democratic congressman or congresswoman who is in favor of all this.

$3600 per year out of pocket for a healthy 20-something - no, this doesn't make "affordable" healthcare available to _all_.

>But people need reasonable access to health care
This is an insurance program. Not healthcare.

>and I don't think any country that can't provide the same to the majority of its populace deserves to be called a first-world country.

Well, if it doesn't meet the modern international "aboutready" universal standard ...

If you think the ACA benefits insurance companies, then I recommend that you actually read the Act. Or,even better, read the actual quarterly financials of any health insurance company that has been required to be in compliance with the Act for the last two years. Between the required minimum loss ratios and the rebates to participants (yes, rebates, which most of the public is grossly uninformed of), health care companies are certainly NOT the beneficiaries.

$300 per month is ridiculously expensive but it is quite a bit cheaper than individual health insurance policies pre-ACA. Obamacare is far from perfect but its a good first step and hopefully will evolve and be expanded so its truly affordable for all Americans.

"...first step and hopefully will evolve and be expanded so its truly affordable for all Americans."
Right. Most likely, the next step will be bankrupt yourself buying a product you don't need for any price a seller feels like setting, or mandatory 5 years in the clink. Why not.
For the insurance companies, it's literally a paradise now. They can tell you, $15000 starting tomorrow, and f*ck you.
Let's see it the way it is: corporate lobbies win. Chuck and Gilli and little Nadler et al. are just politicians, meaning corporate money don't stink.
This is really awful. Seriously.
Let's start with our congress persons: go bak to work, change the law so it's for the people/taxpayers, not the insurance industry.

I did a search and the lowest price I was quoted was $184.

I agree with dollar ... we need to switch to single-payer National Health Service.

I'll agree with that.

Well AH, AR, you guys & gals deserve single payer.

Punishing citizens for not spending money they don't have on the products they don't need does smell of a mild form of dictatorship. Call your congress rep! I just did. The smug drones in his office took down my message which was: 1. I want the same insurance he has; 2. get back to work and make the new law really for the taxpayers, not the industry.

We all deserve single payer. Ok, you don't have insurance, you don't get emergency room medical care. Done.

What kind of emergency room care might someone need without insurance?

What about auto insurance? Is that a product you don't need if you have a car and should thus be optional? What about highway maintenance? If you don't use them should you pay less taxes (even though many of the goods you buy are delivered by trucks that do use them)? What about the police? I've never called the police, nor have I directly used their services. Should my taxes pay for them?

Hb, that's a stupid question.

I also support single payer (aka Medicare for people under 65 for those who think instituting single payer insurance would be tantamount to building a statue of Lenin in Times Square) but unfortunately that wasn't an option. Maybe one day...

And why would someone not want health insurance? Unfortunately, even young healthy people sometimes don't stay that way. Sure when you go to the its usually a sprained ankle or the flu that you can pay out of pocket to treat but unfortunately cancer, MS and other devastating illnesses do happen to young people.

NativeRestless, it's not the case of "someone not want health insurance", it's about paying NOT for services but for the price of the shares of an insurance company. What can stop an insurance company making your premium $1500/month? It's a perverted system where a client is on the very bottom and a shareholder is on the top. It has nothing to do with HEALTH care and everything to do with the insurance industry's bottom line. What is "affordable" about that? By the way, about cancer, MS and such: one CANNOT buy just a hospital-stay coverage anymore. "Comprehensive" only. I wonder how the insurance lobby did this.

If you work for a company that offers health insurance you are obligated to take part, and I know of no company that offers catastrophic only. Further, more and more employees are being forced to pay for a portion (in some cases all) of their insurance premiums. They, like purchasers on the exchanges, are primarily benefitting from group purchasing power.

Our insurance premium IS over $1500 a month. And we pay it all. Health insurance hasn't always been the for-profit money-making machine that it is now, and doctors used to make a decent living with far lower premiums. But the history and recent de-evolution of the health care system is much more complicated than most realize, and if allowed to continue only the very wealthy will have any access to decent health care. This system is far from perfect, but is an effort to prevent that outcome.

How do the lawyers fit into the problems with healthcare?

Cancer and MS require comprehensive coverage for care. As does diabetes, heart disease, etc.

>aboutready
about 1 hour ago
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What about auto insurance? Is that a product you don't need if you have a car and should thus be optional? What about highway maintenance? If you don't use them should you pay less taxes (even though many of the goods you buy are delivered by trucks that do use them)? What about the police? I've never called the police, nor have I directly used their services. Should my taxes pay for them?

Wow, a whole list of stupid questions.
I you have a car, you need auto insurance. What does owning a car have to do with health insurance. You don't drive. Do you have car insurance?

The goods you buy are delivered using the highway - sure. And the costs of transportation are built into the price of the product.

Do you even exist in the real world?

Ridiculous and stupid questions Aboutready. You can do better.

Do you live, do you have a body that can become injured or ill? Then you need health insurance. The analogy is a simple one, both from that perspective and the right of the government to require you to pay for protection so that you don't cost society as a whole. I'm sorry you're to dense to understand the inference.

Those panties are still in a twist, aren't they? Poor hb isn't having a good day.

dollar and I know that competition between insurance companies will drove prices down as they compete for our business, at the same time driving operating inefficiencies out as they work to maximize profitability.

AR does hubby get mad when you play with other panties?

Exactly, ah. The free market at work, with a nudge. Tying health insurance to employment in a society that is becoming increasingly less oriented toward full-time, salaried employees is idiotic.

How do the lawyers fit into the problems with healthcare?

Slimming girdles.

"If you don't use them should you pay less taxes (even though many of the goods you buy are delivered by trucks that do use them)?"

I often hear this argument from automobile drivers looking to justify the subsidies they receive at the expense of those who are denied their privileges. Yes, *of course* you should pay less in taxes. You shouldn't have to pay highway- and automobile-infrastructure-related taxes *at all* if you don't have permission to make full use of those things.

You've never called the police, but you could if you wanted. Are there people in society who are banned from calling the police to report a crime? Yet there are plenty of people who are banned from driving cars, and they have to not only suffer from a lack of employment and social opportunities, but they have to pay for their oppressors to go around enjoying an entire infrastructure that they themselves are forbidden from using.

You don't see that kind of thing too often in post-PC America. Just shows what a stranglehold the automobile industry has over the country.

Who specifically are you talking about when you say "denied the privilege of driving"? The elderly? The disabled? Drunk drivers? Prisoners? Should the ledger of "using more than others / using less than others" be fully-applied on all government spending, or should we only apply the "using less than others" side?

What about those who pay no taxes, should we start taking away privileges?

How about rich people? Some of those poor saps pay millions in taxes but get a minor fraction of it back. Can they be added to Triple_Zero's "using less" accounting? They are denied all sorts of privileges: no food stamps, no Medicaid, no middle- and upper-middle class tax subsidies, no needs-based college education subsidies, etc.

FYI, the MTA runs its bridges and tunnels at a profit, which is used to subsidize its public transportation.

Wow, even Aboutready and c0lumbiac0unty don't exhibit as much anger on a bad day as inoitall in that last post.

I doubt that there are many rich people who pay millions in taxes and get little of it back:

How would they have made millions in the first place without the taxpayer-financed property and contract system, police and prisons enforcing property rights and restrain their fellow-wealthy's temptation to seize what they want, military to stave off hungry foreign marauders, sewers and garbage pickup and epidemic control and public health that allowed them and their ancestors to even live long enough to get rich, roads and trains and airports and communications systems and related physical infrastructure, educational systems (over)producing qualified employees and the knowledge their businesses depend on, SEC regulated and enabled finance markets, Federal Reserve economy stabilization and panic prevention services, fire department, patent and copyright laws giving them or their trading partners monopoly profits, convertible currency and national and international mobility, direct and indirect financial subsidies, pollution cleanup and restrictions on various forms of anti-social free-riding, quality control and building codes to keep their mansions upright, cheap food and clothing for their minions -- and, of course, the services for the middle class and poor that make our enormous wealth inequality bearable instead of pre-revolutionary?

John Locke said that the rich benefit the most from the state; that is why they ought to pay for it. Wasn't he obviously correct?

yes.

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-health-sticker-shock-20131027,0,4888906,full.story#axzz2ixoXpuor

"All we've been hearing the last three years is if you like your policy you can keep it," said Deborah Cavallaro, a real estate agent in Westchester. "I'm infuriated because I was lied to."

See?. Financeguy has it right. He believes in government and attempted to lay out a rational, calm, detailed case for it. He didn't have to go all apoplectic like inoitall to attempt to make his point. Kudos to you financeguy for not being a hothead.

beat it.

to death.

and then again.

Hi C0C0. Have you been watching violent movies lately? Tipper warned you.

you should be more careful.

Are you threatening me?

you tell me.

what do you need?

A massage would be nice.

how stupid is that?

Dollar, no response to the fact that you were wrong about the cheapest available policy? Do you smoke?

Massages are good for you. They help the circulatory and lymphatic systems and aid in muscle recovery. Even for old wheelchair bound angry men in C0lumbia C0unty (ahem) they can be therapeutic.

Dollar, don't make us change your name to Yen or Euro.

I think financeguy sounds plenty pissed, in a good way. The use of the word "marauders" was fantastic. Me and my Viking ancestors approve. I have visions of Cheney wielding a cudgel, although that wasn't the point here. I digress.

And I think nada's response was perfectly appropriate to triple's rather odd post, which seems to imply some personal experience (self or someone close). As I wrote, but without FG's detail, our entire system relies on various forms of payment from the general populace, and arguably the wealthy benefit the most.

Hb, that panties comeback was truly lame. Seriously, I don't expect much from you, but do better.

Every American is going to use health care at major points in his/her life. No one can credibly promise to agree in advance to just go die if they need expensive medical care. And no one with a net worth of less than several million dollars can guarantee that they will be able to afford it.

So it is perfectly appropriate to require people to buy insurance so that they can pay for this expense when they have it, just as it is perfectly appropriate to require people to buy insurance before playing with dynamite or taking jobs requiring handling cash, or to pay into social security (which is just an insurance scheme to pay for retirement).

What is problematic is not "coercing" people to pay for services they will use; that's just basic fairness.

What is problematic is, rather, that our medical care system is twice as expensive as any other country's, with worse results than most of the other wealthy countries. This is partly because it is designed to make some people rich -- executives and shareholders of drug companies that hold government-granted patent monopolies, insurance companies that are permitted to skim 25% of our health care dollars while vastly increasing administrative overhead at the care-providers, for-profit hospitals operated for executives and shareholders instead of patients, and so on. And it is partly because markets do an extraordinarily poor job of distributing high priced necessities that customers are in on position to evaluate. It is partly because forcing the uninsured to use emergency rooms for primary care is wasteful, ineffective, expensive and cruel. And it is partly because the private sector has been extraordinarily unsuccessful in adopting the standard, money-saving techniques for treating chronic disease used in all other countries (including, for example, social workers or nurses to help those who have trouble caring for themselves).

If we actually wanted a sensible system, we'd use taxes (mainly on those with the money to pay them) to pay to allow each American to choose between joining the VA system or Medicare, with the option of switching once per year (to keep some competition between the two). We'd double the number of slots for training GPs. We'd eliminate patent monopolies for pharmaceuticals and instead vastly increase research funding via NIH. And we'd eliminate the legal bars on Medicare bargaining for services and stop requiring it to overpay.

Also, we'd medicalize the "war on drugs" and move all the money we waste on processing drug users through the criminal justice and prison systems into offering counseling and addiction treatment services for those who want them.
That would quickly bring costs down to international levels. If we also elected politicians who were dedicated to making government work instead of demonstrating that it can't, it could also bring quality up.

Since this is a RE blog, it is worth pointing out that housing matters too. Medical costs would also drop if we instituted a national program to provide cheap housing for people making median income or below -- Section 8 on steroids perhaps, or Mitchel-Lama revived and vastly expanded, or maybe the private sector could build at a reasonable price if we invested in an enormous mass transit building program to triple the effective footprint of our walkable cities -- so that we had fewer people trying to run their lives without stable homes. Give people kitchens, and the diabetes rate drops.

Stress and inequality, as we know, are extremely bad for public health. Just as inequality causes slower economic growth and lower employment. Reducing the impact of our increasing inequality by taxing high incomes at Eisenhower rates, eliminating homelessness, reducing unemployment, and distributing the most important expensive aspects of life -- housing, education, museums and parks, ballgames, medical care, retirement, child care -- on a fairer and more equal basis, would make the whole medical care system far cheaper.

sorry AR that my "panties comeback" wasn't up to your "panties comeback" standards.

AR I'm interested in hearing more about your Viking ancestors. When did they first discover Tacoma?

Dollar -- No politician has every suggested requiring insurance companies or your employer to continue to offer you your current plan. Basic economics means that insurance companies never will: changing the policies is the easiest way to find the expensive customers (the ones who are using health care) and exclude them or increase their costs.

So Obama misspoke. He should have said "Nothing in the Obamacare statute is not going to force you to change your policy. Your insurance company and employer almost certainly will, since the pre-ACA status quo is broken and unsustainable. Moreover, they are likely to blame their decisions on the reform, because, after all, why take responsibility for the mess they've made if they can blame the government for not cleaning it up instead?"

And he should have pointed out that because of Republican and Blue-Dog Democratic opposition that, with insurance company and for-profit hospital money destroyed the last half-dozen attempts at reform, he was not proposing a simple sensible plan of VA or Medicare for all, but instead an extremely complicated compromise, designed by the Heritage Foundation to protect insurance company profits and as many economic incumbents as possible while insuring some of the people left uninsured by the pre-ACA disaster, and somewhat reducing the scandalous immorality of the richest country in the world not providing medical care to people in need.

"Nothing in the Obamacare statute is not going to force you to change your policy" Extra "not" in there.

>So it is perfectly appropriate to require people to buy insurance so that they can pay for this expense when they have it, just as it is perfectly appropriate to require people to buy insurance before playing with dynamite or taking jobs requiring handling cash, or to pay into social security (which is just an insurance scheme to pay for retirement).

What?

>It is partly because forcing the uninsured to use emergency rooms for primary care is wasteful, ineffective, expensive and cruel.

We do not force anyone to use emergency rooms.

>to choose between joining the VA system or Medicare, with the option of switching once per year (to keep some competition between the two).

What would be the incentive for the VA system and Medicare to compete?

>If we also elected politicians who were dedicated to making government work instead of demonstrating that it can't

Can you give us some examples on both sides?

>if we invested in an enormous mass transit building program to triple the effective footprint of our walkable cities --

NYC's transportation system is huge. Add in the MTA and the NJ and CT agencies, we have a huge transportation system. And regardless of whether or not you use it, it is subsidized by significant taxes.

>by taxing high incomes at Eisenhower rates

No wealth tax? Just punish the people trying to earn, let the people who already have a lot of money keep it? How will you achieve your goal of reducing inequality if you eliminate reasonable means for people to make money?

>eliminating homelessness

Sure, no prob.

>reducing unemployment,

Great.

>and distributing the most important expensive aspects of life -- housing, education, museums and parks, ballgames, medical care, retirement, child care -- on a fairer and more equal basis,

How will you do this distribution? Who will do it? What does it mean to distribute child care on a fairer basis. Should parents who have more children pay more?
Who will pay for the retirements? How will that be determined?

By the way, you never told us - your prior plan basically destroyed the city of Philadelphia - care to respond?

>So Obama misspoke. He should have said

So, right now, the people who are getting a do-over are
1) Congress
2) Big business

Hb, maybe if you gave up your SWE-esque form of posting I'd read it. Seriously, just write a cogent paragraph. And you should be sorry. You're a waste of bandwidth.

financeguy, that's all very nice and well: you are blaming somebody, too (Heritage foundation, repubs, vlue dog dems, what not.) You know what, at this point I don't care. People loose their health coverage because someone else has to have it? Really? So you just create a new class of the uninsured - people who cannot afford to pay what they are forced to, and the vicious circle all over again.
"Obama misspoke" - are you serious? This is one of the scariest things ever. The President has no right to that. Ever.
I, for one, will be paying the penalty. Makes more financial sense to me.

And if you need emergency room care, I hope they will have changed the laws to make it inaccessible to those who elect not to purchase medical insurance. Because that makes more financial sense to me.

Look, financeguy's plan to tax earners is unfair to people like aboutready. Little blond Viking girl, grows up poor, marries a man who doesn't come from wealth. And he works hard, gets educated, works long long hours. So shouldn't aboutready be the beneficiary of marrying a man who works hard? Otherwise, if he is taxed under financeguy's plan, what would be the point of her getting married to a hard working man?

>And if you need emergency room care, I hope they will have changed the laws to make it inaccessible to those who elect not to purchase medical insurance. Because that makes more financial sense to me.

And if you are hungry, I hope that they will have changed the laws to make it so that you can't just sit in a restaurant and eat the food there without paying. Because that makes more financial sense to me.

Dumb post, hb. Lord you're underperforming.

Of course, dollar, if you can pay out of pocket for the thousands of dollars appendicitis surgery costs (a very common emergency among young males) then I don't have a problem with your not getting insurance. I don't care if you can afford leukemia treatment costs, because they are not generally born by the public if you can't afford them. Maybe you have parents who would destitute themselves as a result of your stupidity, but that's your issue, not mine.

Medical Russian roulette. How stupid can you get?

what's the dumb post AR? You said you don't work because the taxes are prohibitive. So you rely on your husband. And if he gets taxed heavily, you might have well have married someone who makes an average wage, and you too could go to work and be productive.

I never said that "I" don't work because the taxes are prohibitive, although that is a factor, but if you think that is the only one you were not, once again, paying any attention to nuance. I've said that the tax code makes it less appealing for the spouses of high earners to work, depending on the circumstances.

Anyway, quit trying so hard. I can feel you gritting your teeth over the interwebs.

AR, what would you have done for a living if financeguy's tax plan required you to actually be productive for a living. Yale degree and all, the expectations are high for your contributions to society (vs no requirements today) and your tax payments to financeguy's big spenders.

what is an interweb? Is that a term that comedians use before finding a new career?

Idiot. Tough couple of days, no? Having to resort to old, hackneyed insults.

You're awfully sexist, hb. Bad relationship with your mother?

Yes, a woman who sits home all day with significant opportunity to develop her material, uses the term "interweb" and then feels entitled to insult someone else. Entitled. I'm sensing a pattern.

>You're awfully sexist, hb. Bad relationship with your mother?

Nope. My mother would be embarrassed that a woman lacks independence.

Of sexism. And a lack of compassion, ability to see outside your limited view of normalcy, stupid priggish righteousness. Etc. Your thoughts are rigid, unkind, and extremely narrow. I'm sorry that you are so pissed off that I support a husband and family by staying at home, and think that it is our best option.

Pig.

are you getting excited?

You need compassion? For "staying at home" and avoiding work because it will cost you taxes? (and of course your endless leisure time)

But I'm not angry. Don't care what you think, just wanted to tell you what I think.

No, it's pretty clear you aren't angry.

No, it's pretty clear you don't care what I think.

you have a mother?

Good night, hb, may you rest well in your bed of judgmental narrow-mindlessness. (Auto-correct can be a beautiful thing).

Yes, I do have a mother. C0C0, if you need a lesson on how this works, your idol w67 will be here shortly.

hoe often does she shave?

Alright AR, looks like you've given up yet another time. C0C0 is here to occupy me as he learns about the birds and the bees.

Right. Oh, hb, you're a mess. You need to win on an Internet forum? I haven't given up anything, because I don't give a rat's ass what you post. Or think about me. You can't divulge any personal info about you. I wonder why, but really don't care. Just keep attacking people, hb. You and truth should plan nuptials.

Good morning aboutready!

so...what about your mother?

How about those new insurance opportunities? And the $184 policy that is only $50 more than my monthly time Warner cable/Internet bill.

aboutready, have you considered saving money with the Triple Play?

tell us more about your mother.

You are too old for her C0C0, sorry :(

is she proud of your accomplishments here?

Hb, sad. You're so off your game. Keep trying. Hint: continually bring up old references that you think will annoy (like a 14-year-old boy troll would) and see if anything sticks.

C0C0, you are too old for her. I'm not trying to hurt your feelings.

you're repeating yourself.

tell us something new.

ok, there are other reasons she wouldn't be interested in you.

that is not particularly interesting.

tell us about her.

no really, she's not interested.

you've said that.

tell us something interesting.

C0C0, No means No.

is that funny?

nope.

its stupid.

oh well.

ok C0C0, glad you've given up.

why do you think that zillow hasn't shut you down?

Did you know that Zillow outperformed Apple since the date that w67 told everyone to buy it and since the date that inoitall bought it, not at his own free will but at my goading?

but what about your mother's mustache?

no yo mamma.