My health insurance premium just spiked up 8 bucks

a reply to: Hefficide

Sounds about right.

a reply to: rockintitz

If you pay nothing for your cost of insurance, someone else is.

a reply to: avgguy


I pay $1002 a month for my Healthcare insurance, just for me. Having chronic, life altering medical issues causes me to have to pay this. It is cheaper than what I would have to pay if no insurance there.

The problem with American healthcare is these insurance companies are for-profit businesses with shareholders they must answer to. This means they are more interested in increasing profits, therefore increasing the value of their stock, than in providing a service. They are more beholden to their stockholders than the patient.

In this model, the patient will always come out the loser. It's a good example of how capitalism isn't always the best way.

edit to add: I pay in about $245 a month for family coverage (medical, dental, vision) with $25 co-pay for visits, and $10 scripts. I don't know what my deductible is, because it only applies to certain things, not doctor visits, or prescriptions.

originally posted by: Ultralight
a reply to: rockintitz

If you pay nothing for your cost of insurance, someone else is.

I'm fine with that. Sounds like a worthy way for my property taxes to be spent.

a reply to: hutch622

Yes you are correct, I just couldn't be bothered going into that much detail.

Thanks for explaining it.

originally posted by: Hefficide
In other words, the very people who FOUGHT to gut the ACA are now raising Hell that it isn't doing what it was supposed to... even though everyone knows it was sabotaged from the beginning.

Regardless of the "why," it's a failure. A very costly, very unacceptable failure which must go now.

originally posted by: usernameconspiracy
I'm fine with that. Sounds like a worthy way for my property taxes to be spent.

Alrighty then, let's make it voluntary and those of us not willing to pay for everyone else can simply take care of ourselves and our own. Problem solved.

a reply to: usernameconspiracy


Fine. I'LL send you my property taxes so you can be fine with paying for mine too!

a reply to: burdman30ott6

And you've just given us a perfect example of why this is an issue... There are people in Congress who saw it the same way. "A bill that helps the poor and not the obscenely wealthy? Let's sabotage it, pass the aborted remains, make the people suffer and then be the heroes of the day when we finally free them from the crappy law we gave to them in the first place! They'll never figure out that we shafted them up front!"

As for paying for you and your own... A convenient perspective but one that ignores the fact that you benefit from things paid for by public money every single day of your life. Infrastructure. So, what you're actually saying is "I get free stuff cuz reasons, but the rest of you need to stop robbing me..."

originally posted by: Hefficide
As for paying for you and your own... A convenient perspective but one that ignores the fact that you benefit from things paid for by public money every single day of your life. Infrastructure. So, what you're actually saying is "I get free stuff cuz reasons, but the rest of you need to stop robbing me..."

Don't disingenuously crossbreed issues, Heff. You know as well as I do that we're talking about premiums, deductibles, and tax penalties (that only became taxes when convenient to those who wanted the ACA.) I'm not using this thread to start into my usual Libertarian free for all utopia wet dreams. I'm saying that I am today paying almost three times as much for half the coverage I had 6 years ago and that, in my situation, another 80% increase means my solidly middle class white collar job ceases to pay the bills IF I continue to participate in the farce. Now, if my benefit has been halved while the demands placed on me have been nearly tripled, who in the blue hell am I paying for? It sure as snip ain't me and my own, because our benefits are halved and I'm not bringing it into this discussion the fiscal rape a visit to urgent care to have a fishook removed from a 9 year old's index finger turned out to be. (5 minute waiting room occupation, less than 10 minutes in an actual exam room, out the door after paperwork in less than 20 minutes with liquid stitched (superglue) and a Monster Truck band-aid... $1200 out of pocket. $1200 goddamned dollars for something I'm already supposedly paying for... just so Joe Blow doesn't have to stop his smoking habit to afford care for his kid because *really, really annoying, condescending voice* "he's disadvantaaaaaged and he's not as forrrrrtunate as I am." BULLROAR!

This, THIS, THIS is the horsecrap that I can't stand going down in the economic black hole that passes for America in 2015. I gotta pay the taxman, sure. OK, I drive on "his" roads, I use "his" city parks, and I enjoy "his" protection from foreign invasion... what in the hell does any of that have to do with federally jacked up insurance rates and a system that has effectively screwed everyone not on the dole?

a reply to: burdman30ott6

Honestly Burd... ACA or not, those increases in price are nearly across the board these days - and it's the false idea of "free market" that has been perpetuated upon us. The market isn't free at all... it's simply that those who control the market can now buy laws that suit them and pay to have those they don't like repealed.

That's the rub... until we, all of us as a society, get some common goals? The people who can take advantage of division - will.

a reply to: Hefficide

Well, not a damn bit of that helps me or the rest of the middle class out in any way whatsoever now, does it?

It is the ACA. I enjoyed a very nice insurance plan for nearly a decade. I had that plan because I work in a professional industry which I had to go to college to get a degree for, then earned my professional registration. Insurance plans were one of the few remaining bargaining chips for middle to upper middle class when selecting an employer. Thanks ACA, that's now long gone. Way to go stooges in DC, way to go!

a reply to: burdman30ott6

Burd... just look at basic architecture. The middle benefits from a strong foundation and if one wants to build soaring spires - both a solid foundation and a solid frame are required.

The same applies landscaping, cooking, art and every other thing I can bring to mind - a sound foundation or base is imperative to the quality of the finished work.

Yet we've been sold a bill of goods. We've been told that if we just focus on the spire - it will somehow buttress all that which is beneath it. I am pretty sure you've got the basic knowledge to know that buttressing only works at the base and not at the pinnacle.

What I am saying is that the best bet for a solid middle is to make sure the bottom is sound. This was the key aspect of the golden age of the mid to late 1940's and 1950's. Almost everyone had enough, most had more than they needed and a few had way too much. That is now totally askew.

originally posted by: Hefficide
a reply to: burdman30ott6

Burd... just look at basic architecture. The middle benefits from a strong foundation and if one wants to build soaring spires - both a solid foundation and a solid frame are required.

The same applies landscaping, cooking, art and every other thing I can bring to mind - a sound foundation or base is imperative to the quality of the finished work.

Yet we've been sold a bill of goods. We've been told that if we just focus on the spire - it will somehow buttress all that which is beneath it. I am pretty sure you've got the basic knowledge to know that buttressing only works at the base and not at the pinnacle.

What I am saying is that the best bet for a solid middle is to make sure the bottom is sound. This was the key aspect of the golden age of the mid to late 1940's and 1950's. Almost everyone had enough, most had more than they needed and a few had way too much. That is now totally askew.

Here's a huge problem I have with that analogy, it's not the 40s or 50s anymore. "The War on Poverty" didn't happen in the US until 1964. Prior to that, people worked. Welfare's growth rate has far outstripped the growth rate of any other type of federal spending (possibly except for the growth of debt service and interest payments largely caused by all the welfare spending.)
www.heritage.org...< br />
You analogy works only when the bottom is carrying their load, which is no longer the case. There's another thread floating around here today in which I cite the difference in those making less than $38,000 a year today and the equivalent in 1955 and their actual tax burden. In 1955, they paid 0% in actual tax... today, they receive a $3,200+ payment for an effective negative tax. Yet that base continues to crumble, fail, and by God they're going to drag us all down unless we separate from them.

There's a practice in vertical construction called sub-jacking and foundation replacement. That process needs to happen because as it stands now, this so-called foundation has failed. We need to politically and economically jack up the American middle class, lifting them above the failing foundation, and remove the burdens of that failure from the entire structure. Usually, the failed material is crushed up, tested for structural stability, and recycled back into the foundation after the addition of new rebar and fresh binder courses. In other words, we allow the materials (people) making up this foundation to either stand by themselves and demonstrate they deserve to be a component of the system, or we allow them the opportunity to fail the test and recognize that a structure truly is only as strong as the weakest link and removal and replacement of that link is for the best of the whole structure.

Of course, another argument against your "foundation" argument would be that you're upside down. The foundation supports the weight of the entire structure. The top 20% of earners presently pay 84% of federal taxes... who again is supporting the system? The tippy top of the spire also has to support, at the very least, it's own weight... otherwise it crumples and blows away. Presently, in this upside down analogy, Everything from about the 220th floor up to the 330th floor spire is demanding their support comes from floors 1 through 219.

a reply to: burdman30ott6

So we agree that revitalizing the foundation is necessary? That the foundation requires an injection of support to help bolster its load bearing qualities? Good!

The apples to apples comparison of specific singular economic facts is something that I am happy to go into, but I'm too tired to dig tonight. In the abstract I will say that the facts you state are probably accurate but are correlative to a number of other factors. The cost of living was much more in line with income in those years, income disparity between worker and executive was much smaller ( the average CEO made 23X times his workers wages - that much I do remember specifically ), banks were regulated and could not engage in either predatory practices or gambling in derivatives, the stock market had recently been cleaned up and regulated by Joe Kennedy ( who, as a stock market cheat was uniquely qualified to fix it ) and, maybe most importantly, people were still very much effected by the lean years that preceded the boom and were exceptionally compassionate regarding social issues. They had not yet been programmed by the Ayn Rand, dog eat dog, greed is good, greed is the ultimate expression of morality school of thought.

Supply side economics had driven the US, and the world, into depression and people had no taste for it. The folks in love with industry had to bide their time and wait for a generation or two to pass before they could unleash that monstrosity upon us again - and it's having the exact same result today as it did in the early thirties.

I offer that people are currently being forced to turn to social services out of sheer desperation. In 1950 the guy pumping your gas didn't have a luxurious life. But he did make enough to provide food and shelter to himself and his family. Today the guy doing the same sort of job doesn't even make enough to split rent with a coworker - no family involved.

If wages and the cost of living were in harmony, reliance upon social services would diminish. And maybe doctors would charge an affordable fee for their services rather than gouging and then making tons of excuses for doing so ( school was expensive, my student loans have too much interest, malpractice insurance is outrageous, Medicare doesn't pay me what I deserve, poor people flood the ER and never pay - which BTW is what GWB wanted the poor to do in lieu of universal healthcare. In fact he called it exactly that. ).

Reinforcing the foundation is the key to fixing all of these issues. And we need to do it quickly because that spire is far, far too bloated and this whole thing is close to collapse. It's top heavy and that is untenable.

a reply to: Hefficide

I've said this many times before, the US needs to reinstate trade regulations, tariffs, and barriers to global free trade. (See, I'm a nationalist Libertarian, not a global one!) Until that happens, the present system can't be fixed by any action that could be considered fair. Fix the gaping holes, which will bring manufacturing jobs back to America, which will provide a very solid place to point towards while telling those on the dole "get to work," which removes a huge burden from every net tax payer in America.

The USA shot itself in the foot. You cannot have global free trade (or even any measure of system which makes offshoring more profitable than domestic production) and strong worker laws such as minimum wage. You also cannot have welfare which pays more than working does and expect people to actually work.

All of this, unfortunately, is getting off into the weeds. The topic here is insurance and the ACA. I don't have a compromise solution... I just have the solution of abolishing it and going back to where we were. In my head I sort of feel like the only real solution at this point is nationalizing the whole mess and instituting price controls... as it stands today, the US spent $3.8 Trillion last year on health care alone. That's nearly $12,000 for each man, woman, and child. That was $2.3 Trillion in 2008 (the last year prior to the ACA being a known GO)... That means, since the Affordable Care Act was passed, the previously "unaffordable" cost of healthcare in America has increased by 65% under a bill that was to make it "affordable."

In honor of this, I offer the following from the brilliant mind of Shel Silverstein...

Backward Bill, Backward Bill,
He lives way up on Backward Hill,
Which is really a hole in the sandy ground
(But that's a hill turned upside down).
Backward Bill's got a backward shack
With a big front porch that's built out back.
You walk through the window and look out the door
And the cellar is up on the very top floor.

Backward Bill he rides like the wind
Don't know where he's going but sees where he's been.
His spurs they go "neigh" and his horse it goes "clang,"
And his six-gun goes "gnab," it never goes "bang."

Backward Bill's got a backward pup,
They eat their supper when the sun comes up,
And he's got a wife named Backward Lil,
"She's my own true hate," says Backward Bill.

Backward Bill wears his hat on his toes
And puts on his underwear over his clothes.
And come every payday he pays his boss,
And rides off a-smilin' a-carryin' his hoss.

www.qu-i-x.com...

oh, i have got to come back to read this....

in the meantime, my families insurance plan saw a 9% hike in cost this year. 3 times what is typically considered "the rate of inflation" (although the COLA has diminished quite a bit from the 3% days, being more like 1.5-2%).

My insurers are gaining value at 300-500% the rate of me or the national economy.

a reply to: muse7

WTF? You're complaining about paying $20/week for health insurance? You're joking, right?

I'm paying about $180/month, not including my flex spending, which I pay another $150/month for to cover the portion of my deductible that my health insurance doesn't cover.

Unreal that you would complain. I'm taking it in the damn shorts.