Thoughts on obamacare??

I don't like being "required" to have insurance.

I also don't think it's really that cheap - unless you use tax credit. However I don't know if the high price is due to the ACA. The price of insurance has always been going up, and for all I know - some people could just be using that as an excuse.

Before the bill though, the government didn't appear to be doing ? to help the problems of healthcare (and for someone who wasn't getting it through an employer, I found that insurance hard to get), so I'm glad he tried to do something.

farris2k1 wrote: »

silverfoxx wrote: »

It's completely ?

Why?

Cause it cost too damn much.

My premium is $347 and will be way over $400 by this time next year. As it stands, theres nothing to stop them from jacking it up to $500 in 2019.

If you're job doesn't offer it, you're gonna be screwed at this rate.

Insurance companies raised premiums because they now had to cover more people. Pretty soon it will be gone, er's about to be packed again for minor issues.

I had it..

It was a great deal that met pitfalls and obstruction from its obsession the term "Obamacare" was a dogwhistle from the jump.

Insurance companies and doctors alike also dd their worst in regards to ACA.. Healthcare over all is garbage.

It starts at the consumer who are not prioritizing health, dont take proactive steps/ ask questions or be a partner in their own care.

Then you have the insurance companies who overcharge and abuse the consumers...(there are way to many insurers) Someone could have a situation where they need physical therapy/medical equipment and instead of assuring that this person is provided with everything necessary to get well. They are often hit with snags in coverage which can be stressful and detrimental to ones health and regrettably expensive.
From the copays to the jumping through obstacles going back and forth between your ? to specialist when the process can and should be streamlined all the way around


Then you have situations where patients and doctors play the prescription game where they are being over prescribed but at the same time happy to oblige

everything is about money and care is an afterthough

I have to say that some people sound like they don't really understand how Obamacare is suppose to work.

This article, which appeared shortly after the election, does a good job of explaining it.


By Steven Pearlstein

After reiterating his promise to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act, President-elect Donald Trump has indicated that he may keep two of the law’s most popular provisions. One is straightforward enough — children up to age 26 being allowed to stay on their parents’ plan. The other — preventing insurance companies from denying coverage because of preexisting conditions — offers a perfect illustration of why Trump and most of the other Republicans critics of Obamacare don’t understand the health insurance market.

Let’s say that in the beautiful new world of “repeal and replace,” insurers are required to sell you insurance despite the fact that your kid has a brain tumor. Insurance companies know what to do with that. Their actuaries can calculate that kids with brain tumors typically require (I’m making this number up) about $200,000 a year in medical care. So they’ll offer to sell you a policy at an annual premium of $240,000.

At this point your response will probably be that such an outcome is not fair. When the law says insurance companies can’t discriminate on the basis for preexisting conditions, surely what it means is that they have to charge roughly the same price for health insurance, irrespective of your preexisting condition. In the language of insurance, that’s called “guaranteed issue at community rates.”

Unfortunately, in the states that have tried guaranteed issues at community rates, the insurance markets have collapsed. That’s because if you guarantee everyone the right to buy health insurance at community rates, then some consumers will game the system. The young and healthy ones won’t buy any health insurance at all — they’ll go without until they are diagnosed with diabetes or a brain tumor or get hit by a truck crossing the street. And when that happens, they will immediately call up Aetna or Anthem and exercise their right to buy health insurance at the low community rate, irrespective of their medical condition. It won’t be long before insurance companies begin losing a ton of money and are forced either to raise premiums through the roof or stop writing policies altogether.

So how do you prevent that kind of gaming of the system by consumers? Well, that’s easy. You require that everyone buy some minimal level of insurance at the beginning of every year, so they can’t buy insurance only after they get sick. Let’s call that an” individual mandate.” But because you can’t expect poor people to pay $1,000 a month, they will require subsidies to keep their out-of-pocket costs to something like 10 percent of income. To pay for the subsidies, a new tax will be required.

So let’s review what just happened. To guarantee that people with preexisting conditions can get affordable health insurance, you need to have rules requiring guaranteed issue and community rating. To keep insurance companies in business because of guaranteed issue and community rating, you need to have an individual mandate. And because poor people can’t afford health insurance, you need subsidies. Combine all three, and what you have, in a nutshell, is ... Obamacare.

Yes, it’s more complicated than that, but not much. It’s possible to allow insurance companies to charge twice or three times as much to people who are older or sicker. You can let healthy people buy somewhat more bare-bones “catastrophic” policies to satisfy their obligation under the individual mandate. You could even avoid community rating by sending sick people into “high risk pools,” where their premiums would be subsidized by a tax on everyone else’s health-care premiums.

But at the end of the day, once you decide that everyone, regardless of age or medical condition, should be able to buy health insurance at an affordable price, you have essentially bought into the idea that young and healthy people have an obligation to subsidize the older and sicker people in some fashion. And once you do that, it’s sort of inevitable you end up where every health-reform plan has ended up since the days of Richard Nixon. You end up with some variation on Obamacare.

Of course, if you want to scrap guaranteed issue, scrap community rating, scrap the individual mandate and scrap the subsidies, as Republicans propose, then you end up where the country was in 2008: with a market system that inevitably gives way to an insurance spiral in which steadily rising premiums cause a steadily rising percentage of Americans without health insurance.

There are no easy solutions here, no free lunches. You can’t have all the good parts of an unregulated insurance market (freedom to buy what you want, when you want, with market pricing) without the bad parts (steadily rising premiums and insurance that is unaffordable for people who are old and sick).

At the same time, you can’t have all the good parts of a socialized system (universal coverage at affordable prices) without freedom-reducing mandates and regulations and large doses of subsidies from some people to other people. Anyone who says otherwise — anyone promising better-quality health care at a lower cost with fewer regulations and lower taxes — is peddling hokum.

Steven Pearlstein is a Post business and economics writer. He is also Robinson Professor of Public Affairs at George Mason University.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/11/12/donald-trump-is-beginning-to-face-a-rude-awakening-over-obamacare/?utm_term=.007ca3746285

It is a mean to the alternatives. It did what it was suppoesed to do. Get more individuals covered for health care that couldnt afford it in the private sector or whom jobs did not offer health care. It was modeled after mitt Romney health care plan that worked great for Massachusetts. The problem, which republicans dont mention is that structure of the original plan was gutted so that it would padd on the senate floor. And when the Democrats took it back to the senate to fix the components that needed to be reformed, they shut down all avenues. It would give democrats too much power and credit. So now with a republican president. They will pick up the old playbook to save face. That's why trump isnt going to repeal it. It works.

People have to realize that it doesnt work out financially for everyone. And its not free.

The purpose and logic is this. With an alternative for the public and more people covered, the market becomes more competitive meaning prices for the private sector go down. (Over time). Its like auto insurance. When people get in accidents and someone doesnt have coverage the insurance company can jack up rates. So, one day u go get your mail or go in to renew your coverage, at no fault of your own, you may have never been a wreck but since someone else without insurance was, they insurance company says hey we have to raise our rates now. We get get the bill. Same way as the nedical field.

And like Presodent Obama said, the Ferrari wasnt made over night. The model t had to evolve with tweaks here and there. It wasnt perfect and it would need help.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qgce06Yw2ro


http://obamacarefacts.com/obamacare-immigrants/

Who is Required to Get Covered or Pay the Fee?

If you are an undocumented immigrant; you are not legally a U.S. citizen, a U.S. national, or an alien lawfully present in the U.S. you are exempt from the fee and are not required to be covered. If you aren’t “legally present” you are exempt from the fee.


http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2016/06/06/california-lawmakers-try-to-extend-obamacare-to-illegal-immigrants.html

California lawmakers try to extend ObamaCare to illegal immigrants

But the California bill, which last week passed the state legislature and was sent to Gov. Jerry Brown’s desk, would allow the state to apply for a federal waiver to open its exchange -- Covered California -- to undocumented residents.




Well, well, well......

Interestingly, a small number of Republican senators have come out against Repeal and Delay. It is increasingly looking like Republicans don't have the votes to pass a repeal and delay bill.

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2017/01/obamacare-repeal-might-have-just-died-tonight.html

TITANGRAPH WARNING

Its a good foundation.

Insurance companies chose to revolt by going up on premiums and setting higher deductibles for healthy people to offset the cost of taking on people with preexisting conditions.

It was all fun and games though the years when these insurance companies were collecting those high premiums monthly for nothing and refusing to cover the unhealthy, sick, elderly, and other people who are at high risk though.

People hate paying those high premiums and deductibles however if you get sick it is more than worth it, something that the Republicans have proposed like heath savings accounts (HSA) which is a tax free way to save up for your medical bills is laughable.

There is little to no way a normal American citizen can save up to have an open heart surgery, chemotherapy and radiation for cancer patients, hospitalization for traumatic injuries etc which those things can cost in the hundreds of thousands of dollars when nearly half of the U.S population makes 50K a year or less a year.

I don't have a problem with the government trying to push everyone towards having coverage either because eventually you're going to have to go to the hospital or doctor and someone is going to have to foot that bill even if its a charity type hospital where you dont pay (those doctors aren't working for free).

The larger companies revolt against it by cutting hours so they don't have to pay for full time benefits such as insurance.

The small business owner cut hours and sometimes cut employees as well.

I believe once the market stabilizes you'll see how consideribly better it is to the alternatives. There is a reason other first world countries have adopted similar healthcare reform.

Undefeatable wrote: »

It's not perfect, but it is better than what existed before.

And it would be better still if it wasn't sabotaged by Republicans.

Also, the jump in premiums last year appear to be a one-time market adjustment. Things appear to have stabilized.

Finally, the mandate is essential, otherwise you can't require that insurance companies to cover people with pre-existing conditions. It would simply be too expensive for them. We need healthy people to subsidize sicker people, that's the bottom line.

Sounds good in theory, but the last sentence is part of the problem.



Healthy people living from paycheck-to-paycheck aren't going to "subsidize" anything.



They simply don't have the money.



So, they're more likely to pay the penalty because it's still cheaper than paying a monthly premium.



Furthermore, the penalty isn't really "paid".......it's just taken out of any tax refund they'd get.



So, if someone's not getting a refund.........the penalty won't get paid.



On top of that, if there is a substantial number of healthy young people getting a subsidy.......or on their parents Healthcare until they turn 26.......then where is the money coming from to subsidize sick people?



Basically, it's a good idea......but it's not sustainable because they're aren't enough healthy people willing to pay for something that they don't think they need.



Unless you have a pre-existing condition or qualify for a subsidy, it really doesn't benefit you at all.