Millions Paying 10k Plus inHealth Care Premiums and Remain Afraid

a reply to: conscientiousobserver


If Republicans do the Medicare/Medicaid/Private Ins. hybrid, healthcare (from the consumer's standpoint) will be exactly what President Trump promised.

However, know that Republicans will NOT pass anything that keeps what's known as "ObamaCare" alive. They hate the man...hate the name.

a reply to: Logarock

My son lost his healthcare coverage in Dec 2016, before Trump. Thanks obama.

originally posted by: staticfl
a reply to: Logarock

My son lost his healthcare coverage in Dec 2016, before Trump. Thanks obama.

You're not alone. Employers cut coverage. Even most of the ObamaCare "public option" Co-Ops failed at the end of 2016. Obamacare is a DISASTER. It needs to be declared as one by the President, like what happens after a hurricane.

originally posted by: DBCowboy
Does anyone else see a correlation with the opioid epidemic and Obamacare?

Or the higher death rates and Obamacare?

As someone who lives at literal ground zero of the opioid epidemic? Not at all. If anything, a lack of insurance to buy doctor visits has probably curbed it, I think it would be much worse if there were suddenly more possible customers to buy pain pills out there.

originally posted by: Zerodoublehero
Tell me how that's affordable?

It's not. Here's the thing though... no one seems to want to commit to how health insurance works. Everyone says we need catastrophic plans for the young and healthy, yet those same people also want their insurance cheap. That can only happen when the young and healthy buy into higher coverage plans in order to dilute the risk pool.

The general public (and congressmen on TV) are talking up both sides of this, not realizing that it makes zero sense.

This is yet another reason why health insurance is simply an unsustainable concept.

originally posted by: carewemust
If ObamaCare repeal-replace ends up allowing EACH STATE to choose what benefits to mandate, you'll see price variances from state-to-state that are incredible. Buying across state lines will become very interesting, if enacted.

You're assuming people are qualified to pick and choose what procedures they want to be insured for. I think going down that road is going to leave a lot of people who aren't doctors finding themselves with ailments that they have no insurance for when they get sick. Outside of the big things like cancer, there's a pretty low chance of developing any specific illness. In search of cost savings, you'll find a lot of people drop all the stuff they only have a 1/50,000 chance of developing. Then 20 years from now we'll have 35 million people with serious conditions and no access to health care to treat it.

originally posted by: JinMI
False. They could if they were forced to by will of a proper free market. Mandating Americans to buy insurance allows them to increase prices, in this case triple, because of government subsidies combined with a mandate.

Not denying people for pre existing conditions is only possible with a mandate. Such a system only works when it's more expensive to go without insurance than to have it.

originally posted by: MotherMayEye
We required far less than $19,000, as a family, for health care, last year. Every year is really the same though. We pay so much more in premiums than we spend.

That's how insurance (all insurance) is designed to work. The idea behind insurance is that you pay a consistent amount, and that on average you pay more than you would spend without any coverage. You pay more in the long run in order to protect yourself against catastrophic costs.

This also happens to be why health insurance simply doesn't work. Everyone gets sick, and it's a near certainty that at some point everyone will get a serious and expensive condition. Some people get multiples. What this means is that when looking at entire life spans, catastrophic events are routine. Insurance can only work when catastrophic events are rare.

Any new system which is built to give access to health care is going to run into the same issue unless it's not based on insurance. This happens to be why single payer is a good system.

originally posted by: toysforadults
the free market means companies compete for profit and that means delivering a quality product at prices people can afford or risk getting a bad reputation and emboldening the competition

Not true. In a free market the most competitive product is what's successful. Competitive and quality do not mean the same thing. There's a good video on YouTube that illustrates the difference called "The Lightbulb Conspiracy". It goes pretty deeply into one of the flaws of a free market which is that of planned obsolesence. To give a quick example, lets say you make tools. You can make a quality tool for $200 that will last a lifetime or more. Alternatively, your competitor can make a $30 tool that needs to be replaced every 2 years. Due to the up front price difference you will sell fewer tools, you'll also have higher overhead in attracting a new customer for every single sale. On the other hand, after 14 years your competition has made as much in sales as you, and every repeat purchase after that is more profit than what you made. They can also build a stable of repeat customers with a single advertisement, generating many sales over a persons lifetime. This is a real life scenario which has actually played out in recent decades... the inferior product was more competitive and therefore took over the market.

Verizon recently was the first cellphone service provider to offer unlimited data again. At&T at first did nothing but once enough people switched to Verizon not only did they offer unlimited data they also threw in HBO on top of it for $10 less than the last bill.

This is actually another good example of an inferior product seeing success. Go check out the average cost for a phone in other countries. The US is among the slowest speeds at the highest cost. We're also pretty much the only nation to have something as ridiculous as a 2 year contract. A couple years ago my stepsister was living in London. She had a month to month contract, unlimited talk/text/data, and it came with a free phone. $14/month I think it was.

originally posted by: Aazadan

originally posted by: carewemust
If ObamaCare repeal-replace ends up allowing EACH STATE to choose what benefits to mandate, you'll see price variances from state-to-state that are incredible. Buying across state lines will become very interesting, if enacted.

You're assuming people are qualified to pick and choose what procedures they want to be insured for. I think going down that road is going to leave a lot of people who aren't doctors finding themselves with ailments that they have no insurance for when they get sick. Outside of the big things like cancer, there's a pretty low chance of developing any specific illness. In search of cost savings, you'll find a lot of people drop all the stuff they only have a 1/50,000 chance of developing. Then 20 years from now we'll have 35 million people with serious conditions and no access to health care to treat it.

So you think women are incapable of knowing whether or not they'll need maternity care? That's the biggie that sends the costs so high I'm told by insurance agents and insurance regulators. There are literally millions of us out here who are paying for a service that it is medically impossible for us to ever need. Same with birth control. When you've had those bits removed from your body you remove the possibility of ever needing maternity coverage.

When states regulated the industry at least we had choices in policies as well as the choice to not buy insurance and not have to send in fines to the IRS. State level government seems at lest to acknowledge that males and neutered females have no need of a policy including maternity care. Feds don't seem to know this.

I'm also capable of making a decision about whether I want to pay for coverage of mental health and addiction issues. I don't need insurance for that because those services are already provided to our family as part of a retirement plan. We've utilized their services on numerous occasions so why would I suddenly want to be shunted into a "provider system" that focuses first on prescription drugs to cure everything?

How about we charge obese people more for their insurance since they are the current nightmare. Ask any podiatrist, orthopedic surgeon or neurologist. If a surcharge (or whatever they call it) can be applied to smokers why can't there be a similar charge for all those people out there stuffing their faces and causing ailments too numerous to detail? Fair is fair. The number of smokers is diminishing but the number of fat people is skyrocketing. And it is costing all of us. I'm waiting to see the first politician who is willing to tackle that issue in any realistic sense.

originally posted by: Greven

originally posted by: ketsuko
a reply to: carewemust

We fall squarely in that category, and we live in fear that husband's company might drop the insurance every year.

We've looked at things from every angle, and Obamacare will bankrupt us. And I need to have coverage or I will likely lose my capacity to hold down a job at all without care even as well-maintained as my migraines are. We even looked at the numbers on legally divorcing and staying together that way. I would have to get Medicaid which is a deal breaker.

So, yes, Obamacare would destroy us as it is, and if it would bring us down, then we can't be the only ones.

If the AHA didn't exist, why would it be better for you?

Since Obamacare inception my medical deductible is so high, I might as well not have insurance. My wife went to the doctor twice for routine things and kept getting ridiculous subsequent bills in the mail. It's so expensive that we just don't even go to the doctor now.

originally posted by: diggindirt
So you think women are incapable of knowing whether or not they'll need maternity care? That's the biggie that sends the costs so high I'm told by insurance agents and insurance regulators. There are literally millions of us out here who are paying for a service that it is medically impossible for us to ever need. Same with birth control. When you've had those bits removed from your body you remove the possibility of ever needing maternity coverage.

That's not how insurance works though, by design or in practice. You don't make an insurance pool to cover maternity care out of a bunch of people who are going to need it. You build a pool out of a bunch of people where only a fraction needs it. That allows those people to have the costs covered, through the premiums of everyone else. Plus a profit to the middleman. Insurance isn't magic, insurance is a concept where you pay more on average and cover other peoples rare expenses so that if something catastrophic happens to you, you'll also be covered.

Maternity care is an example of why health insurance cannot work. It's a very common health issue and most women experience it. If 95% of women reproduce, and women make up 50% of the population, you're looking at something that happens to 48% of people. That's very common, there's no way to actually insure against that unless the average person pays around 55% of the typical maternity cost (48% on average, 7% to the insurance company).

How about we charge obese people more for their insurance since they are the current nightmare. Ask any podiatrist, orthopedic surgeon or neurologist. If a surcharge (or whatever they call it) can be applied to smokers why can't there be a similar charge for all those people out there stuffing their faces and causing ailments too numerous to detail? Fair is fair. The number of smokers is diminishing but the number of fat people is skyrocketing. And it is costing all of us. I'm waiting to see the first politician who is willing to tackle that issue in any realistic sense.

It's likely coming in the next couple decades.

a reply to: Aazadan
But prior to Obamacare insurance did work exactly that way. Women who were medically incapable of becoming pregnant could buy their insurance cheaper for the very reason that the company would incur fewer costs on their behalf. Just as non-smokers can buy insurance cheaper than smokers because smokers have more health issues.

I thought it was only the government who couldn't make the connection.

Since there are several swimming pools in my neighborhood, should I have to add swimming pool insurance to my homeowner's policy? By your logic I should have to share the increased costs associated with such an attractive nuisance.

a reply to: diggindirt

Prior to the ACA insurance wasn't working. That's the whole reason there was a big push for health care reform in the first place. People were getting sick and losing their life savings left and right, despite having insurance to pay for it. Others were getting coverage and hitting lifetime caps. Others couldn't buy insurance at all. And still others were locked into their current plans with no hope of ever being able to switch due to pre existing conditions. And still others (most) were grossly underinsured.

a reply to: Aazadan

With the ObamaCare house of cards crumbling before our eyes, things will be worse on 1.1.2018, than they were before ObamaCare.

originally posted by: Montsta

originally posted by: Greven

originally posted by: ketsuko
a reply to: carewemust

We fall squarely in that category, and we live in fear that husband's company might drop the insurance every year.

We've looked at things from every angle, and Obamacare will bankrupt us. And I need to have coverage or I will likely lose my capacity to hold down a job at all without care even as well-maintained as my migraines are. We even looked at the numbers on legally divorcing and staying together that way. I would have to get Medicaid which is a deal breaker.

So, yes, Obamacare would destroy us as it is, and if it would bring us down, then we can't be the only ones.

If the AHA didn't exist, why would it be better for you?

Since Obamacare inception my medical deductible is so high, I might as well not have insurance. My wife went to the doctor twice for routine things and kept getting ridiculous subsequent bills in the mail. It's so expensive that we just don't even go to the doctor now.

My insurance is surprisingly cheaper than it was pre-AHA and I didn't even have preexisting conditions. The company I work for now is much better and I get paid far more than the previous one. When people act like it's just so obvious that it's bad... I just do not see it, but I recognize that I am pretty blessed with what I have.

This is why I asked for data from the OP. What I recall then was ever-growing premiums - and I'm not alone in that (this from 2012):

Analysis of state trends in private employer-based health insurance from 2003 to 2011 reveals that premiums for family coverage increased 62 percent across states—rising far faster than income for middle- and low-income families. At the same time, deductibles more than doubled in large and small firms. Workers are thus paying more but getting less-protective benefits. If trends continue at their historical rate, the average premium for family coverage will reach nearly $25,000 by 2020.

Am I saying the ACA is perfect? No. What I'm saying is that blaming premiums rising on the ACA seems odd when it was already rising and at a higher rate.

Maybe this will help (pdf):

During 1960 - 2013, the health spending share of GDP increased from 5.0 to 17.4 percent (Exhibit 1). Over the same period, average annual growth in nominal national health expenditures was 9.2 percent compared to nominal GDP growth of 6.7 percent.

Look at that crap. That's health care spending AS A PERCENTAGE OF GDP. You know the interesting part? It stalled at 17.4 percent of GDP around the time the ACA passed and stayed basically the same through 2013.

Another interesting bit is that it didn't rise during the entire Clinton presidency, hovering around 13 percent of GDP. It climbed 4 percent of GDP through George W. Bush's term (there were a few years where it didn't climb much). It's madness that it got to that point.

a reply to: carewemust

I'm aware. I also don't think we can fix it though until we move away from the idea of insurance. Health insurance simply doesn't work. When most people say they want health insurance, what they're really saying is they want affordable access to health care. Government is a monkeys paw and gives you exactly what you ask for though. That's why we got the ACA.

Unfortunately this means asking the impossible... making a more nuanced request to Congress over what the people want, while trying to broadcast that message through mass media. It doesn't work.

a reply to: Aazadan
WOW!

I bow sir to your superior knowledge but for the record---there are still people out there who are broke and uninsured. There are far more people who are insured and broke because of it. Every cent they had in their budgets for savings is now going for insurance premiums. Their contributions to their retirement have been re-directed to the insurance companies. Can you not see how very wrong that is?

a reply to: seasonal

Don't you just love the word games that they play with us...like "Affordable" Care Act and "Patriot Act", both of which royally screwed American's?

When I hear that taxes are so low in America compared to other countries, then I hear people are paying 10K in premiums and STILL getting nailed by large deductibles, maybe higher taxes and free medical would be better after all.
Sacrilege I know, but that is pure insanity.

But I believe Christians should believe in free health care as a type of "good Samaritan philosophy" to help those in need, and if you ever need it will be there for you too, and nobody has to declare bankruptcy after they have something as simple as a baby.

It was the one thing Bernie got right.