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Obamacare? We were just leaving …

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posted on Jun, 13 2013 @ 11:53 AM
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These are the issues with healthcare:

-Employer tied health insurance mandated by government which removes consumer control over insurance product consumption
-Managed care insurance mandated by government that's the equivalent of the government forcing auto-insurance providers to pay for oil changes.
-Improper incentives for innovation because free-market principles have been eliminated from the healthcare industry

Solutions to the healthcare crisis:
-Get rid of government mandated managed care
-Get rid of laws forcing employer tied health insurance
-Get rid of tax incentives for employer tied health insurance (which would in turn almost eliminate employer tied health insurance altogether)
-Give individuals a tax credit(not deduction) if they buy health insurance in the year. Most people will go for traditional insurance which has a high deductible and only covers extreme events (car accident, surgery, etc.). If they choose not take advantage of buying insurance they will miss out on the credit. In most cases people can make money off of shopping intelligently.
-Consumers will then pay for the majority of simple healthcare procedures. Because insurance no longer pays for these simple procedures the doctors, hospitals, and pharmaceutical companies will have to react accordingly in response. Charging 500 for a bottle of pills will no longer be lucrative. Prices will eventually go down in response.
-Consumers will be do what they do best, drive down prices by shopping around. In the current system people are completely disconnected from the process which allows prices to be driven up. Healthcare providers have no incentive to provide quality care either because health "insurance" pays for everything. Innovation is almost non-existent.

The article I posted went into far greater detail and is the best article I have found on subject. It's definitely worth a read.



posted on Jun, 13 2013 @ 11:48 PM
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Originally posted by dizzie56

Obamacare? We were just leaving …


www.politico.com

Dozens of lawmakers and aides are so afraid that their health insurance premiums will skyrocket next year thanks to Obamacare that they are thinking about retiring early or just quitting.
The fear: Government-subsidized premiums will disappear at the end of the year under a provision in the health care law that nudges aides and lawmakers onto the government health care exchanges, which could make their benefits exorbitantly expensive.


Read more: www.politico.com...
(visit the link for the full news article)




“We have to pass the bill so you can find out what is in it”

ROFL, they're finding out now



posted on Jun, 14 2013 @ 02:00 PM
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Lets take a step back and look at this. Currently, if you do not have insurance and a catastrophic event happens, you still go to the hospital. The hospital cannot refuse emergency treatment, and you end up with a bill for $200,000. Since you do not have insurance, you either pay it, or go bankrupt, or skip out on the bill.

What happens then to the $200k? The hospital claims it as a loss and gets a tax credit. Where does this credit come from? From the tax payers.

Anyone that says "I'm healthy, and I do not need insurance", or says they cannot afford insurance is playing Russian roulette, both with themselves, and with the public's tax money.

Does it not make sense then to mandate insurance? If people are not covered, there is a strong chance they will not be able to pay their medical bills, and the tax payers will have to pay for it anyway.



posted on Jun, 14 2013 @ 02:28 PM
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reply to post by Speedtek
 


What you are referring to is known as traditional indemnity insurance which is insurance that has a fairly high deductible that pays for only serious events that rarely happen. That model of insurance is what insurance is best suited for. It is a high severity/low frequency product that places routine healthcare costs on other finance vehicles. Auto-insurance and traditional home owner's insurance are two products that still use this model.

The new health insurance mandate does not follow a traditional insurance model. It is a government mess that requires employer tied insurance that completely removes the consumer from all decisions. It is also not a traditional insurance product as it requires the insurance to pay for everything. It is a high frequency/low severity insurance product that is also low frequency/high severity. From an actuarial perspective it is a mess. Insurance is a horrible finance vehicle for low severity/high frequency events.

Think of your auto-insurance paying for oil changes and broken light bulbs. Insurers are great at what they do best but menial events is not one of them. Imagine the mess it would be if every time you needed to replace wiper blades if it was paid for through an insurance company.

The health insurance debate is not whether people should be required to have insurance but whether the government has the right to mandate employer tied health insurance that doesn't even resemble an insurance product. Instead what we have is a messy product that makes no sense from a finance or actuarial standpoint that removes the consumer from the process.



posted on Jun, 14 2013 @ 02:41 PM
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reply to post by Speedtek
 


The problem with your scenario is even if you have insurance you likely still will be liable for a large portion of that bill. ObamaCare won't fix that.

The Health insurance industry has failed the American people because profits are put ahead of human life and wellness.



posted on Jun, 15 2013 @ 11:18 AM
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reply to post by dizzie56
 


Yes, let's listen to what the private health insurance companies' spin doctors say because they have the interest of the American people at heart.

Let's rally behind this selfless mega-businesses.

Gandalf forbid obamacare might be the start of the slippery slope toward universal healthcare like the rest of the industrialized western countries have.




edit on 15-6-2013 by reject because: (no reason given)



posted on Jun, 15 2013 @ 03:55 PM
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reply to post by jrod
 


Insurance products by design are supposed to pay for procedures that are above a threshold (deductible) amount. High severity and low frequency. Companies offset the increased risk of having a large pool of people by the premiums they charge. Hopefully below will make insurance easier to understand as it seems some of the comments don't understand it as a product. It is not a finance vehicle for routine events. It is INSURANCE for extreme and crippling events.

Example 1: You get in fender bender and the cost of repairs is 450 dollars. Your deductible is 500 so you choose to just pay repairs yourself.

Example 2: You need 300,000 dollars worth of surgery after a meteor hits your house and breaks all of your bones. Your deductible is 5000, which you have been using your government tax credit to pay toward the last 5 years. You don't have to pay anything for the procedure out of pocket.

Example 3: You have traditional health insurance and you need to get a routine health exam that costs 70 bucks. You pay out of pocket because your deductible is 5000.



posted on Jun, 15 2013 @ 03:58 PM
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Originally posted by Speedtek
Lets take a step back and look at this. Currently, if you do not have insurance and a catastrophic event happens, you still go to the hospital. The hospital cannot refuse emergency treatment, and you end up with a bill for $200,000. Since you do not have insurance, you either pay it, or go bankrupt, or skip out on the bill.

What happens then to the $200k? The hospital claims it as a loss and gets a tax credit. Where does this credit come from? From the tax payers.

Anyone that says "I'm healthy, and I do not need insurance", or says they cannot afford insurance is playing Russian roulette, both with themselves, and with the public's tax money.

Does it not make sense then to mandate insurance? If people are not covered, there is a strong chance they will not be able to pay their medical bills, and the tax payers will have to pay for it anyway.


Then why not just extend medicare to everyone and be done with it??

Instead of this blatant kickback to the insurance industry?

The lengths that people go to defend this madness is appalling.




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