The PPACA - Implementation Phase I

[joecct]

Re: The PPACA - Implementation Phase I

Then why do millions of Americans not have health insurance? Why is one of the leading causes of personal bankruptcy medical debt?

Does Bill Gates need health insurance? Does Warren Buffett? They can buy the practice, the hospital, and the local clinic and still refinance the Greek debt. You should not need health insurance to see the doctor for a common cold or for prescriptions (though some are pretty pricey)

I have homeowners and car insurance that protect me from catastrophic events - not routine maintenance. I have a $1,000 deductible for both.

Why can't I buy a medical policy that covers the big stuff and leaves me to pay for the routine stuff with an identical deductible? If I am chronically ill, then I voluntarily purchase another policy that covers the routine stuff.

[Rover]

Re: The PPACA - Implementation Phase I

You'd think so, but not so much the case anymore.

First of all, the stigma of filing for bankruptcy, like the stigma of divorce, is gone.

Second, someone who has received a bankruptcy discharge is actually a pretty good credit risk. First, they don't have a pile of debt. Second, they are limited, iirc, with respect to how soon they can receive a second discharge, should they default on your loan.

I'm just basing this on my own experience in the finance industry (and not as someone who's been bankrupt ) but from a lending perspective post-economic crash these people get avoided like the plague. Now that's just my own observations, but I know of people with plenty of assets getting bounced for a loan that was less than what they had in cash in the bank because of bad credit. Mind you, I'm not sure about the internet based lenders...

[Rover]

Re: The PPACA - Implementation Phase I

Why can't I buy a medical policy that covers the big stuff and leaves me to pay for the routine stuff with an identical deductible? If I am chronically ill, then I voluntarily purchase another policy that covers the routine stuff.

You can. What's stopping you?

[unofan]

Does Bill Gates need health insurance? Does Warren Buffett?

What's funny is that Buffett supports Obamacare and criticizes it for not going far enough. Given the gates foundation's history of supporting medicine, I'm guessing he has similar views.

You really want to use them as your examples?

[DrDemento]

Re: The PPACA - Implementation Phase I

Does Bill Gates need health insurance? Does Warren Buffett? They can buy the practice, the hospital, and the local clinic and still refinance the Greek debt. You should not need health insurance to see the doctor for a common cold or for prescriptions (though some are pretty pricey)

I have homeowners and car insurance that protect me from catastrophic events - not routine maintenance. I have a $1,000 deductible for both.

Why can't I buy a medical policy that covers the big stuff and leaves me to pay for the routine stuff with an identical deductible? If I am chronically ill, then I voluntarily purchase another policy that covers the routine stuff.

Probably one of the proposals that was looked at and discarded was just catastophic coverage. In my thinking-makes the most sense. No one needs first dollar coverage on anything-just as long as any deductible is manageable. In fact having some sort of mandatory deductible might well be one of the best ways to decrease the cost of care. If everyone that presented to an ER had to pay some small token(perhaps as low as $2) for the visit-I would venture to guess a fair percentage of unnecessary visits would not occur. I try to manage our insurance costs(homeowners, long term care, disability, flood, automobile, etc) by maintaining the highest deductilbe i am comfortable with. Same with our health insurance-Jen's policy which will no longer be renewed by Horizon had a $5000 deductible and and a 20/80 copay. I just try to keep us covered against catastrophic events.

[joecct]

Re: The PPACA - Implementation Phase I

What's funny is that Buffett supports Obamacare and criticizes it for not going far enough. Given the gates foundation's history of supporting medicine, I'm guessing he has similar views.

You really want to use them as your examples?

You missed the point. They are wealthy enough that most, if not all, dire medical conditions would equal about one day's earnings on the money they hold. They, personally, don't need insurance.

For the rest of us, do we need all the doo dads that the current policies have? Would we be better served by paying for the day to day stuff and have a policy that covers the bad stuff that may happen every once in a while. If we have monthly trips to the ER (like I did with the kids when they were little for stitches and assorted other stuff), then my rate would go up as I was more of a risk than somebody who did not need the ER, OR, or whatever.

[joecct]

Re: The PPACA - Implementation Phase I

You can. What's stopping you?

Really? Honestly, where can I find a policy that covers just the bad stuff with a reasonable ($1K or so) deductible??

[FreshFish]

Re: The PPACA - Implementation Phase I

I had heard that The LA Times leaned more to the left than to the right....

Thousands of Californians are discovering what Obamacare will cost them — and many don't like what they see.

These middle-class consumers are staring at hefty increases on their insurance bills as the overhaul remakes the healthcare market. Their rates are rising in large part to help offset the higher costs of covering sicker, poorer people who have been shut out of the system for years.

Fullerton resident Jennifer Harris thought she had a great deal, paying $98 a month for an individual plan. She got a rude surprise this month when the company said it would cancel her policy at the end of this year.

Now Harris, a self-employed lawyer, must shop for replacement insurance. The cheapest plan she has found will cost her $238 a month.

"It doesn't seem right to make the middle class pay so much more in order to give health insurance to everybody else," said Harris, who is three months pregnant. "This increase is simply not affordable."

middle-income consumers face an estimated 30% rate increase, on average, in California due to several factors tied to the healthcare law.

Pam Kehaly, president of Anthem Blue Cross in California, said she received a recent letter from a young woman complaining about a 50% rate hike related to the healthcare law.

"She said, 'I was all for Obamacare until I found out I was paying for it,'" Kehaly said.

Nearly 2 million Californians have individual insurance, and several hundred thousand of them are losing their health plans in a matter of weeks. [emphases added]

All of these people were contented enough with their insurance plans. After all, the California Department of Insurance has quite a reputation nationally as being one of the most stringent and demanding among all the states. Yet these insurance plans were all acceptable to the California Insurance Commissioner (California is just about the only state in the country where the insurance commissioner is an elected office; in nearly every other state it's an appointed one).

[Priceless]

Re: The PPACA - Implementation Phase I

You'd think so, but not so much the case anymore.

First of all, the stigma of filing for bankruptcy, like the stigma of divorce, is gone.

Second, someone who has received a bankruptcy discharge is actually a pretty good credit risk. First, they don't have a pile of debt. Second, they are limited, iirc, with respect to how soon they can receive a second discharge, should they default on your loan.

You're still missing the point. It's very difficult to file bankruptcy now. You have to go through credit counseling and jump through 5 other hoops before you can get it approved now. It isn't simple anymore. My bill from Mass General for my brain tumor was over $170K. Depending on how much my insurance covered, I was looking at filing bankruptcy. I was really looking forward to the counseling. "How could you have avoided gong into debt?" 'Let the tumor kill me.'

[Priceless]

Re: The PPACA - Implementation Phase I

Hmmm

We’ve known for several years that once the Affordable Care Act is implemented, substandard insurance plans would be replaced with better, stronger coverage. Nevertheless, as lots of folks learn that their old plans are being replaced, this has led to a variety of overheated reports featuring shocked consumers. (That insurers routinely dropped Americans’ coverage under the old system is often overlooked.)

Leading much of the coverage is a woman named Dianne Barrette, a 56-year-old resident of Winter Haven, Fla., who’s made a flurry of television appearances after Blue Cross/Blue Shield informed her that her old plan is being replaced with a new one, and her new coverage will be more expensive. “What I have right now is what I’m happy with, and I just want to know why I can’t keep what I have,” she said on CBS. “Why do I have to be forced into something else?”

To his credit, the Washington Post’s Erik Wemple took a closer look at the anecdotal evidence.

More coverage may provide a deeper understanding of the ins and outs of Barrette’s situation: Her current health insurance plan, she says, doesn’t cover “extended hospital stays; it’s not designed for that,” says Barrette. Well, does it cover any hospitalization? “Outpatient only,” responds Barrette. Nor does it cover ambulance service and some prenatal care. On the other hand, says Barrette, it does cover “most of my generic drugs that I need” and there’s a $50 co-pay for doctors’ appointments. “It’s all I could afford right now,” says Barrette.

In sum, it’s a pray-that-you-don’t-really-get-sick “plan.”

If this woman had a serious ailment and was forced to stay in the hospital for a while, her old plan would have likely destroyed her financial life permanently, leaving her bankrupt. Now, thanks to “Obamacare,” in the event of a disaster, she’ll be protected with coverage her insurer can’t take away – with no annual or lifetime caps.

In other words, the new horror story for critics of the health care law features a middle-aged woman trading a bad plan for a good plan, and health care insecurity for health care security.

What’s more, while much of the coverage of Barrette’s situation has focused on the higher monthly cost of her new, better insurance plan, there’s another detail that’s been overlooked by some: she’ll be eligible for subsidies under the Affordable Care Act. The cost of the coverage isn’t what she’ll actually have to pay out of her own pocket.

If it seems like this keeps coming up, with Republicans and news outlets latching onto anecdotes that seem to cast the health care law in a negative light, only to look much better upon closer scrutiny, that’s because this keeps happening. If the law were as awful as detractors claim, shouldn’t it be easier to find legitimate victims?

[Old Pio]

Re: The PPACA - Implementation Phase I

Hmmm

"If you like the plan you have, you'll be able to keep it," except for the millions who won't.

Mule Boy and Neville's conceit here is that the lady in question is too dumb to know what's good for her. And can't make rational choices about how to allocate her income. She "needs" a "better" plan, and by Chr*st, we're gonna see that she gets it, whether she wants it or not or can afford it or not.* And her vastly increased monthly premiums will be paid for with OPM. Oh, in that case, never mind.

Have the band strike up some popular tunes while we load the lifeboats.

*no pre-natal care? Zounds. She's 56, for the love of God!!!!!!

[ScoobyDoo]

Re: The PPACA - Implementation Phase I

We're still waiting to hear what the Republican plan for Health Care is, if you know please enlighten us?

[walrus]

We're still waiting to hear what the Republican plan for Health Care is, if you know please enlighten us?

So a president who flat out lies is great, fine and dandy, A-OK, as the repubs have no plan. No sticky

[Old Pio]

Re: The PPACA - Implementation Phase I

So a president who flat out lies is great, fine and dandy, A-OK, as the repubs have no plan. No sticky

If I still had his number, I'd call Ben Nelson and ask him what he thinks of the fustercluck (and all of the creative lying) that cost him his senate seat.

[LynahFan]

Then why do millions of Americans not have health insurance? Why is one of the leading causes of personal bankruptcy medical debt?

Because they took delivery of a product (service) that they didn't pay for. Boo freaking hoo that getting your million dollar heart transplant should come at some personal cost. Why should that be when we could easily (apparently) have the government just hand them out for free*?

*free = other people's money.