Obamacare Facebook Erupts with Citizen Sticker Shock

I am certainly no expert.

There are a few things I'd like to point out that haven't been mentioned.

First, I wince at the "care for profit" label. Yes it's true to an extent, yet, unless you live in a commune, every job, career, et al' are for profit. Hello??

Spare me the exceptions, they merely prove the rule.

Part of the label of for profit includes SURVIVAL. To Wit, the avoidance of vagrancy. LOL. This is true of the patients, of the hospitals and their staff, of doctors and YES, insurance companies as well.

Second, the is no country in the world that doesn't complain about it's medical service. NOT A ONE. Socialized, privatized or witch doctor services.

A mid-wife told my daughter that the survival rate of premature babies in Africa, where the mothers strap the babies to their stomachs-for heat- and continue working in the fields while an intensive-care nursery in L.A. can cost 200,000 PER DAY- and that was 10 years ago- was identical on a percentile basis!!!

Third, we expect/demand utterly unrestricted expenditures on our family members, even when the life expediency for that patient is only a few more years. Life support for those who have little chance of recovery no matter the cost. Yet, committees deciding on our fate is unacceptable as well.

The is no perfect system. Each has it's advantages and liabilities.

it's an imperfect world run by "imperfect" people. Deal with it...otherwise you'll just make yourself sick.....

reply to post by Stormdancer777


I didnt realize that fact till I read your post. Im a registered Choctaw Indian, last decedent in my family that qualifies for free school and healthcare If I lived in Oklahoma. I live in South Texas though so I haven't participated and definitely wont be participating in AHA. Im self employed and have been buying my own health insurance for awhile.

shockedonlooker
Well, let's see...we had the savings and loan bailout, airline bailout, auto industry bailout, the bank bailout...only thing left was the insurance industry, let's not call it ACA or ObamaCare anymore and call it by it's rightful name

edit on 10/4/2013 by shockedonlooker because: (no reason given)

Best post so far. That is what happens when we mix croney capitalism with welfare statism. The lobbies get together, write the legislation, issue a check to key members in congress, and the rest is history. Then pay trolls to go on the message boards to claim "oh how wonderful it is, you will just love it, you will see".

No wonder our debt is $17 TRILLION with nothing to show for it. Lots of promises and zero substance.

Quantative Easing done by the ultra secretive federal reserve, which btw is a private corporation with unknown stockholders.

Hybrid systems dont work well and america was never socialist, so why try now? Free the markets and let supply and demand take care of everything. If the prices are too high and companies refuse to lower them, then naturally they should default without government trying to help them. This is what bailouts are, but they never deserved them because they were unregulated monopolies price gouging the public.

Only in socialism should there be bailouts, because its *public enterprise* and that means people owned and government runs everyhing. The public bailing out itself, not the public bailing out private business. This is ethical, bailing out private companies(read monopolies) is not.

gnosticagnostic
reply to post by proximo

 

Exactly they don.t give a fig it.s an elaborate poverty tax

And everyone is always talking about how stupid Washington is. They actually figured out a way to tax people based on what they don't have! Pure genius I tell you!

TKDRL
reply to post by Serdgiam

 

I think it depends where you live really. Here it takes forever, took months to get a brainscan for me. Had a cousin that died at 3 years old while waiting to see an oncologist too ~10 years ago. Last year an aunt waited 2 months for a surgery to remove a tumor from her brain.

For regular doctor appointments, got to either make an appointment with the family doctor 2 weeks in advance, or drive an hour and a half to the nearest walk-in clinic.

edit on Sat, 05 Oct 2013 09:57:06 -0500 by TKDRL because: (no reason given)

What?? Where do you live? It says Maritimes under your avatar so I'm guessing Canada?

Here's the thing I don't get. Some people in Canada and the UK say that their healthcare is the best thing since sliced bread. Then I read of experiences like yours and I don't know what to think. I do think that pre Obamacare healthcare costs here in the US were too high.

I never understood why, aside from politics - states protecting their own, we couldn't buy Health Insurance from anywhere in the US like auto insurance.

AntiNWO

gnosticagnostic
reply to post by proximo

 

Exactly they don.t give a fig it.s an elaborate poverty tax

And everyone is always talking about how stupid Washington is. They actually figured out a way to tax people based on what they don't have! Pure genius I tell you!

They also tried the carbon tax due to "global warming" or was it "climate change"?

A tax on life itself!

reply to post by BobM88


Canadian here - IT SUCKS. Yes, you won't go broke if you need surgery or something else done but good luck in getting a specialist if you need one. A recent trend I am noticing is a lot of doctors are simply refusing to operate on people - the general response is, Don't do what is hurting you.....or you should get another job.

Father went blind waiting for laser surgery....took him 9 months on a wait list.


But it would be viable if only those who put into it were able to use it, but nooooooo, the liberal moral squad here in Canada allows basically anyone who steps a foot into this country (with some bull# sad story) access to our healthcare system.

SWCCFAN
reply to post by Hollie

 

Just wait until the IRS and insurance companies have access to your bank accounts. We will all bleed like stuck pigs.

Just the news of that will start a run on banks, and if that happens you can bet Washington will enforce a "bank holiday" of some kind, closing banks completely.

After a while they'll open again, and you'll be severely limited as to what you can withdraw or buy on your debit card. But by that time the people will just be happy that they are allowed some access to their money and fall in line like sheep to the slaughter, as always.

reply to post by BobM88


Yeah, I am in New Brunswic Canada now. People in the cities might have it better, they have lots more hospitals and clinics I am sure, but then again they have a lot more people as well, so I am not too sure about it. Surely it's not a perfect system here, and it's not really free. The only tax that is not crazy is property tax. Pay less per year here than I would per month in NY. A 12 pack of beer up here for example was almost $23 last time I bought some. Alcohol is totally monopolized by government, they set the prices, and most of the cost is tax. I don't know how anyone can afford to drink every weekend, but the clubs are always filled lol. When you buy stuff, you pay two different sales taxes, if I understand right one is the provinces' cut, and one is the federal cut.

reply to post by AntiNWO


You know what? I totally forgot about the insurance companies doing those commercials. And they have been very quiet this time around.

Things that make you go hhmm for sure.

Patriotsrevenge

SouthernRain55
reply to post by xuenchen

 

The "idea" of it all was great....the actual "plan" isn't that's for sure!
What people thought they were getting isn't even close to what they will be getting.

Only the unintelligent people who do not pay attention to Washington D.C. and their antics did not know this bill was wrote buy the insurance companies to begin with. Let them all eat their cake and enjoy the taste of Socialism and Fascism. Watch this blow up in Obama s face and then he will show his true colors to the whole of America. Kind of like he is doing now by trying to close every Federal thing in site to piss off every American he can, little does he know is that people will blame the boss for letting it happen.

He doesn't care, look at his face, his swagger, he is enjoying every second of this, he is pleased as punch, accomplishing what he set out to do
Destroy us.

links234
I'm still not seeing the downside.

A bunch of republicans make up stories and post on facebook. I'm glad this is newsworthy.

One downside I see, just one for now, is the fact that these "poor" people or simply anyone getting "affordable" coverage cant get 100% coverage.

Considering the coverage 80% and the cost for same, its simply and clearly looks like the government going into the insurance business and there's and end to it.

And just one more downside is that our family insurance is going up 200$ a month and for the same coverage. That's simply to cover the dif for all those that bailed out of private insurance to do business with the government.

So once again we see the old adage about the governments use of terms......"affordable", in this case, which means nothing of the sort. And the other about what happens to private business costs when the free loading government wants to be a player.

Every shepple will be begging for socialized, government run, medical insurance. It's all part of the plan.

TKDRL
I have a friend, single mother, bigtime obama supporter. She is now coming to grips with how great obamacare is. She works a crap factory job, and just found out that changes that came about through obamacare, has now put her 10 grand over the limit to be covered from medicaid. She is freaking out, suddenly not defending obama anymore. She has bipolar medication for herself, and ADHD medication for her daughter that is suddenly going to start costing her a few hundred more per month, and she barely makes the rent and food per month as it is.

i'd like to know if she's in a state where the governor refused to expand medicare. that's where the glitch is. she should still fall under the umbrella but states where the expansion is refused there's going to be a big gap that screws over lower income people.

reply to post by pasiphae


Not sure, is MN one of those states?

beezzer
We've had 5 years of debates on the subject. 5 years!!!

And no-one is taking to task, the high costs of healthcare.

No one is addressing the elephant in the room!

Legal influences, malpractice, litiginous peoples, legal protection. . . . . . anyone seeing a common theme here?

If we really want to address healthcare, and healthcare reform. . . we have to talk about lawyers.

But since almost all law makers are lawyers, it'll never happen. . . unless. . . . . .

It's goes beyond lawyers:

Q. Why is medical school so expensive?

A. Because doctors can earn a lot more than other careers during their lifetime.

Q. Why do doctors earn so much money?

A. Because medical school is so expensive.

Add on top of that privately run hospitals that are publicly traded, and HMO's that are also publicly traded and
the goal is maximum profit for minimum overhead.

reply to post by stormcell



So you are saying that the cost of medical school is based on post education earning potential? See I knew we could find a way to see "educations" part in this pig troff.

reply to post by xuenchen


People got so caught up in the hype (on both sides) that a lot of people did not know what to expect. The combination of supporters saying that the program gives access to health insurance (without clarifying what "access" means) and detractors calling it Socialism, a lot of people were probably coming into this thing with excessive expectations.

What I've seen to this point is that people being screwed on COBRA and other high cost policies are seeing improvements in costs and plans. People on employer coverage aren't involved really. People who have never bought, paid for or shopped for insurance are going through sticker shock at what are, really, pretty standard market prices.

The glitches and delays really are nothing (I'm not an Obama shill, by the way, I think this policy is a B.S. give away to the corporate elites). Any time you have an online tool that is subject to a ready, set, go! date like this you are going to have server problems, it's just the nature of bandwidth.

The exchange prices are not the magical utopian ideal that blind Obama supporters had convinced themselves to expect, but they are in many cases better than what has been available to this point.

The deductibles and co-pays suck on the lower cost plans, which is exactly how it is in existing 100% private market.

All in all, I would say this thing is coming off exactly as I expected. It's not a complete debacle, but it's certainly a circle jerk.

Thanks for the responses TKDRL and MidnightTide. Always good to hear from people that are actually experiencing it.

I wonder if there will be a health disparity between income classes like there's now an obvious wealth disparity between them eventually, where only the wealthy can afford proper health care... We think that we've advanced so far since the dark ages, but in terms of co-existence we're not that far along in some ways at all. IMHO.

reply to post by Logarock


Until this past spring I worked for the world's largest textbook publisher. I won't name names, but you can figure it out from what I just said...

anyways, what we charged for textbooks...(some were over $200) compared to their actual cost is staggering...then throw in the online components for another $30-$100 a pop...obviously this is totally seperate from tuition, but the point is the expenses can be mind blowingly high for things that have very little actual cost built in to them.