If you were a company forced to pay for the ongoing healthcare for a person with cancer, diabetes, HIV etc, wouldn't you raise your rates as well? The insurance companies used underwriting to weed out a bad risk before ACA. Now they have to take any swinging **** that applies. If health insurance were so profitable, you wouldn't have seen as many companies stop offering individual health policies in the past 5 years. I do agree that there is plenty of blame to go around. Politicians, hospitals, and insurance companies. Obamacare is a mess, and a costly one at that.
I never said I didn't understand what they're doing and why they're doing it. I'm just stating my belief that government isn't the primarily "bad guy" in this system. There's plenty of them to go around, yet the only one most people focus on in this scenario is Obama and the ACA. They certainly aren't innocent of any wrongdoing but they're far from the mastermind behind our astronomical healthcare costs. We need to start looking for reform in other areas or none of us will ever see any tangible change in our lifetimes. Why do you think those companies stopped offering individual health care policies? Because they're too expensive of course. But why are they too expensive? Because we're getting charged $10 for a gauze pad or $50 for a bandage when we visit the ER. Because pharmaceutical companies are charging astronomical rates for medications while posting billion dollar profits. These costs along with medical lawsuits (another multi billion dollar industry led by the blood sucking lawyers) is what drives up costs.
That's rich, those evil insurance companies are trying to turn a profit.... Oh the horror! Shop around if you don't like the one your policy is with, oh wait you can't because the government won't open state lines up for more competition. Sure insurance companies are the ones who directly raised the prices. They are covering their *** now that they can't weed out high risk individuals from their plan. This is 100% a move towards a single payer system.... Which does have some perks. Quality of healthcare certainly isn't one of them. I'm not sure why it rubs me the wrong way, but it pisses me off to no end the attitude we as Americans have towards our healthcare. People with a $500 purse complaining their copay on medicine went from $5 to $10. People driving $40k+ diesel trucks saying no way I can afford healthcare. Sure many blame Obama without even having the slightest clue what is going on, but that doesn't really make them wrong. He was looking at a system that is semi broken and tried to change it before he even knew how to do so yet... And he just made it worse.
The reason a gauze pad in the ER costs $10 is because only 1 out of 10 are ever actually paid for... The reason drug companies get to charge an arm and a leg is because they only get a 15 year window to sell their product before others can steal it and sell it for pennies on the dollar, and it costs on average just over $1 BILLION to ever get that drug to market in the first place. Risk reward. That's what drives innovation in pharmaceuticals and healthcare in general. Is there waste and underhanded tactics at times? Sure. Healthcare is a business and that takes place within any industry.
I don't disagree with what Justin said but the Obama administration lit the fire that started the dramatic increase in premiums and low quality policies.
This is where the debate really becomes interesting. Should insurance companies be allowed to be for-profit businesses at the expense of the American citizen's health? We're not talking about something that's a luxury or an option here. This isn't Cadillac wanting to charge 80K for a car when you can buy a Kia for 15. These are people's lives we're dealing with. IMO it's a whole different ball game that requires a different set of rules. What exactly those are I don't know, and it's certainly a slippery slope, but you can't deny the fact that there's something inherently wrong with putting profit before health services. I'll give you 1/2 of this. Most copays aren't going from $5 to $10, they're going from whatever they were (say $20-$30) to nothing. Most insurance plans are dropping prescription coverage outright because drugs simply cost too much (thanks pharmaceuticals!). Office visits are going from $30 copays to no copays which is usually the $80-$100 range. We're not talking a few dollars here. We're talking about several hundred percent increases. As for the second part, I agree wholeheartedly. I've said it before - people in the US simply aren't willing to assume enough responsibility for their own medical costs. We want it all for nothing. I don't have a problem with people paying more, but the fact that we're getting bent over at every turn is what upsets me. I don't mind paying. I hate paying too much.
Yep. I'm with you on all of these fronts, and I'm fortunate enough to have a great insurance plan (for now). I will pay more if need be, but I'm not willing to pay massive increases that come with LOWER coverage at the expensive of profit. There definitely is a fine line here, and I don't have the answers, but our system is broken. The ACA isn't the answer.
Ive never had to think about healthcare because im 19, bu treading this has got me thinking about it. I am going to be an electrical engineer and plan to work for a bigger company (250+ employees). Im assuming they offer benefits to their workers. Does this mean that they pay for my healthcare? Or do they just have a healthcare option through their company that I would have to pay for?
MOst likely they will cover a portion or all of it (doubt all of it) and you will have options to offset remainder of plan.
Eh, I doubt that. Here's a good article I just read last night on why single payer wouldn't work for the US. As you can guess it pretty well boils down to politics and the fact that it won't help reduce the sheer cost of the care we have now. A Single-Payer System Won't Make Health Care Cheap - Bloomberg View The solution certainly isn't single payer, but it may lay somewhere in between that and what we have now. Everyone keeps saying nothing will change and we can't do anything against big business and corporations who run everything. Maybe they're right, maybe they're not. The truth of the matter is if everyone keeps arguing and blaming the government for either not doing enough or doing too much we're going to keep drowning in medical expenses.
Sometimes I think the reason it's so expensive is because we are fighting nature... Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
The mistake that I see that article making is most people don't actually care what healthcare costs. They only care about what their insurance costs. They're seeing their insurance premiums rise and are throwing a fit. If/when someone tells them that the government will take over for them and they'll never have to pay another dime for insurance, the blind will lap it up and vote for those people. It doesn't matter how much it costs to implement, or how much taxes have to be raised to accomplish it, as long as they don't have to write a check out to the insurance company every month or pay deductibles, they'll jump all over it. When I lived in Canada, you wouldn't believe how many Canadians would say to me "we have free healthcare and you guys have to pay for it." Funny, they actually thought it was really free, and many Americans will have the same view.
Yeah it's a fine line for sure. I'm of the opinion more companies, more competition, and less regulation will help drive costs down... Or, prevent them from spiraling upwards. Others think it must be mandated to get to that point. Either way, it's time to pay the piper. Healthcare is expensive whether through our own wallet or through extreme taxation so we can get it for "free". Our priorities are so misaligned in this country it's absurd. Eating healthy, exercising, and healthcare are the things we as a whole complain the most about spending money on. Not our vehicles, flat screens, houses out of our price range we buy anyway, etc. It's just a tough debate to answer... without allowing pharmaceutical companies to reap profits for a 15 year window on a drug, how can we realistically expect innovation? Medicine is one of the few reasons people are living so much longer now. We are no longer dying young of chronic conditions that used to put us 6 feet under and companies like Eli Lilly and Pfizer are a few directly responsible for that.
I couldn't agree more with your middle paragraph. I also agree with what you said of innovation in the field of pharmaceuticals. I have a condition, that while not life threatening, is pretty rare. Most of the reason behind such slow advances in treatment options is due to a lack of a significant population to justify the research, money, and time toward new treatment options. Well, the research is growing, and the trials are becoming larger, but if funding isn't there, people like me certainly don't stand a chance living to see the chance of a QOL increase through new treatment options. Again, it's a broken system, but it's clear to most of us (but not the general population as Dan alluded to) that what is being implemented certainly isn't the fix.
Okay insurance guy quoted my monthly instead of quarterly current compared to Obamacare quarterly figures. If I choose the plan for Obamacare that is less but somewhat like current and utilize the supplemental insurance I have currently ($116 roughly a month) my quarterly comparison is: Current: $888 a quarter or $3,552 a year. Obamacare: $ 1878 a quarter or $7,512 if I went with a plan that is actually same give or take a touch it would be roughly $2400 a quarter and $9600 a year. Sucks, but still weighing options of doing Christian Healthcare Ministries style insurance and opting out of ACA for 2015....time will tell what I decide....so wasn't the 500% quoted due to wrong figure compared (monthly to quarterly) but still a far far cry from affordable or similar even for that matter!
What is funny is if you paid cash for all your medical bills the costs go way down . I just had to pay for orthodics out of pocket. The cost to me was $350. The cost if my insurance covered it, $425. I got a bill for my kids, the doctors office forgot to send my insurance info to billing and the cost was $50 cheaper per kid because no insurance was involved. You can actually negotiate with a hospital an amount to deliver a child before the actual birth and shop around for the best deal.
Yup, which is what the CHM style of insurance allows you to do since it isn't techinally an insurance based system it is a faith based "sharing" of money to cover costs of members. A buddy of mine just had his last child's birth 100% covered after they paid their $500 allotment...negotiated with the hospital knowing they would be paying "cash" and not through insurance also.
