POLITICS The Collapse of the RNC BEGINS TODAY
-
@xaade said in POLITICS The Collapse of the RNC BEGINS TODAY:
knows first responders,
That's an impressive resume
-
@mott555 Since it was enacted, I've had to fight anesthesiologists to use my insurance rather than charging me directly for the full amount. I don't have a choice, because they want $6000. My insurance had to finally threaten to kick them out of the network.
You have to stay on top of it now, because they'll do anything to avoid insurance now.
Oh, and the law now requires out of network charges.
So, if the insurance recommends $50 for an out-of-network doctor to give you a cup of water and a Tylenol, they HAVE TO CHARGE YOU. Before, the doctor chose how to charge you if you were out of network.
-
@mott555 said in POLITICS The Collapse of the RNC BEGINS TODAY:
The surgery was somewhere between $4 - 5k. I don't even know what my deductible is anymore because it keeps changing, nor do I know how to look it up without spending an hour on hold, but I know that pre-ACA my deductible was $1500/yr and right after that it went to $3000/yr and now it's apparently more than $5000/yr.
That's truly fucked up. I knew the ACA was bad*, but I didn't know it was that bad.
*Not because of the idea (healthcare for everyone), but because of the execution (hey, let's just force everyone to buy private insurance!). The original draft (which included the option of public insurance) made a lot more sense than the compromise that was actually passed as a law.
-
@xaade said in POLITICS The Collapse of the RNC BEGINS TODAY:
I don't have a choice, because they want $6000.
Where I live the government is 9-15 months behind on payments for insurance purposes, so a lot of places around here just don't take public servant/university insurance anymore.
My favorite part of this? The government pays 9% interest on all debts until they're paid. I know someone who made 2 grand getting a root canal, paying for it out of pocket, and earning interest on it until it was paid.
-
@asdf said in POLITICS The Collapse of the RNC BEGINS TODAY:
The original draft
also had the mandate.
-
@Captain said in POLITICS The Collapse of the RNC BEGINS TODAY:
@antiquarian How many emergencies do you have in a year? I know I can pay for 5 $4000 emergencies this year without any drop in my standard of living.
Aren't you the lucky 1%! According to dailyworth.com, 50% of Americans would have trouble handling even one $2000 emergency. What about those of us who have experienced recent unemployment and burned through our emergency fund, and more (if we even had one to begin with). FOAD.
-
@HardwareGeek said in POLITICS The Collapse of the RNC BEGINS TODAY:
Aren't you the lucky 1%!
Or he simply didn't spend all of his money.
When the housing market bubbled, they tried to convince us we could afford a house that was going to cost us 60% of our income. We chose to buy one that cost us 25%.
One of my friends always complains that he is check to check, but I've watched them spend more money as soon as they make more money.
-
@xaade said in POLITICS The Collapse of the RNC BEGINS TODAY:
also had the mandate.
..as do the laws in almost all countries which have public healthcare. If you don't get private insurance, you usually have to get public insurance.
That part is not the biggest problem of the ACA.
-
Apparently so. Who knew not spending every cent you own on luxuries and spending them on investment (including human capital and business-risk taking) would make me kind of sort of rich by 33?
-
@asdf Oh, the public insurance in those countries isn't that much better, it just lets you ignore the problems until you have a health problem.
-
Hell, a single repair on a car would do it then. It's not like the insurance is a unique problem for them at that point.
Should we mandate them to buy warantees?
Or hell, we could tax everyone 90%, 1st dollar to last dollar. And simply give them a bread line.... for all their needs.
-
@xaade said in POLITICS The Collapse of the RNC BEGINS TODAY:
Oh, the public insurance in those countries isn't that much better, it just lets you ignore the problems until you have a health problem.
Care to elaborate? I live in such a country, in case you didn't know. And we have decent health care system which is not nearly as expensive and complicated as yours.
-
Everytime I look at these countries with single payer, it always becomes a supply problem instead of a cost one.
Of course, that makes sense, because you're shifting demand from the patient to the government.
It explains why you get varied reports of people praising it for paying for everything, and people saying they're dying on waiting lists.
-
@xaade said in POLITICS The Collapse of the RNC BEGINS TODAY:
Hell, a single repair on a car would do it then. It's not like the insurance is a unique problem for them at that point.
Should we mandate them to buy warantees?I'm glad I stopped getting those annoying calls from those extended warranty providers. It was becoming very tempting to say, "My car makes 100 wheel horsepower over stock. You probably don't want to sell me a warranty."
-
The German system is pretty good. So is the English one. Japan's is incredible -- they pay far less of their GDP on health and still have the longest lifespans in the world. Of course, that causes its own problems, as I have discussed in the social security thread.
-
@Captain said in POLITICS The Collapse of the RNC BEGINS TODAY:
they pay far less of their GDP on health and still have the longest lifespans in the world
Of course.
You can live just fine without eyes or legs.
-
@xaade That's too obscure for me to know what you're talking about.
-
-
@xaade said in POLITICS The Collapse of the RNC BEGINS TODAY:
Or he simply didn't spend all of his money.
Ah, economics by tautology. My favorite.
I'm not going to pretend I'm not in great shape, I have a set of useful qualifications and mad employability. I'm being paid well below market rates and still adding to savings, but it's stupid to think that everyone can have money all the time. Real wages are flat or dropping, cost of debt is going up, and if I got hit by a bus tomorrow I'd go bankrupt and probably have to move in with my parents.
And I have great insurance.
-
@xaade said in POLITICS The Collapse of the RNC BEGINS TODAY:
Everytime I look at these countries with single payer, it always becomes a supply problem instead of a cost one.
I still don't know what you're talking about. There are both plenty of doctors and plenty of health insurance companies. The only thing that's kinda hard to get is an appointment with a (good) therapist, due to rising demand.
@xaade said in POLITICS The Collapse of the RNC BEGINS TODAY:
It explains why you get varied reports of people praising it for paying for everything, and people saying they're dying on waiting lists.
The only waiting lists I know are for either (qualified) shrinks or organs. There are no other waiting lists here.
-
@xaade said in POLITICS The Collapse of the RNC BEGINS TODAY:
people saying they're dying on waiting lists.
People say a lot of things.
-
@AyGeePlus said in POLITICS The Collapse of the RNC BEGINS TODAY:
people saying they're dying on waiting lists.
People say a lot of things.
I can only assume he's either talking about waiting lists for organs or he's changed the subject again and is talking about Venezuela once more.
-
@asdf I'm sure that when organs grow on trees, the NHS won't be so stingy with them.
-
@Captain Even those waiting lists are not necessarily that bad. A good friend of mine only* had to wait 4 months for a heart transplant.
* "Only" because it was not urgent. She had a heart condition since birth.
-
@asdf Who was it that was joking around about motorcycles and rain?
Maybe that's too obscure -- I remember a show where a doctor "said" (second hand) that it's raining, so they'll probably have corneas for transplant soon.
Maybe it was Hammond or Clarkson on Top Gear?
-
@xaade said in POLITICS The Collapse of the RNC BEGINS TODAY:
That seems like a short-sighted policy that lacks vision.
-
@Groaner it was also overturned when a less risky and more effective treatment became available.
-
@Captain said in POLITICS The Collapse of the RNC BEGINS TODAY:
Who was it that was joking around about motorcycles and rain?
Yes, the donor died in a motorcycle accident.
-
@Captain said in POLITICS The Collapse of the RNC BEGINS TODAY:
Yeah, I know the difference between health care and health insurance. And one of the provisions of the ACA is to fund affordable insurance. And other provisions are for lowering cost of health care by increasing competition and efficiency.
(It worked)
If the ACA worked, then why did my health insurance premiums go up 25% last year alone with no change to my plan and no health emergencies (nothing but normal check-ups)? In fact, last year, the average premium increased by 8%[1], and most insurers lost money. As a result, to keep the insurers solvent, regulators are going to have to approve larger rate increases. Insurers are requesting rate increases over 20%, and some as high as 50%[2]. That's the rate increases, not the premium increases, meaning that some premiums could potentially double. If the ACA worked, then where is the average annual premium reduction of $2500 we were promised?
If the ACA worked, then why are there increasing stories this year of companies leaving the echanges (UnitedHealthcare has dropped from many markets in the last few months)?
If the ACA worked, then why is ER use increasing? Shouldn't PCP use be going up and ER use be going down?
How did the ACA work?
-
@abarker said in POLITICS The Collapse of the RNC BEGINS TODAY:
If the ACA worked, then why did my health insurance premiums go up 25% last year alone with no change to my plan and no health emergencies (nothing but normal check-ups)?
Short term jump in demand in the reinsurance market.
That's the rate increases, not the premium increases, meaning that some premiums could potentially double. If the ACA worked, then where is the average annual premium reduction of $2500 we were promised?
I got mine. I'm not over-insured, though.
If the ACA worked, then why are there increasing stories this year of companies leaving the echanges (UnitedHealthcare has dropped from many markets in the last few months)?
Because the exchanges are markets, and markets squeeze out inefficiency. The gravy train is over and companies are running scared. As well they should be if they can't compete.
If the ACA worked, then why is ER use increasing? Shouldn't PCP use be going up and ER use be going down?
Let's see what CDC statistics say:
Between 2013 and 2014, 7.9 million adults aged 18–64 gained health care coverage (17). It has been difficult to predict the impact of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) and the expansion of both private and Medicaid coverage on ER use, as current research in the area shows mixed results. While research from Massachusetts and Oregon suggests that increased provision of health coverage may increase ER use (18,19), a recent study from California suggests that these effects may be short-lived (20). At a national level, expansion of private health insurance for young adults under ACA was associated with a small but statistically significant reduction in overall ER usage by those aged 19–25 (21). Even prior to ACA implementation, newly insured adults were shown to have higher rates of ER use (22). The changing composition of the Medicaid population may also influence ER use. The uninsured population eligible for Medicaid enrollment is less likely than current enrollees to have several chronic medical conditions (4), but it has higher rates of some health-risk behaviors (5).
In short, it looks like it's because people who were foregoing ER visits because they were uninsured are now going. At least it's for actual emergency care, instead of the preventative/maintenance stuff that was going on before.
-
@Captain Where were you the last few times I had to defend the PPACA? Some of those figures would have come in handy.
-
@Captain said in POLITICS The Collapse of the RNC BEGINS TODAY:
My copay for a doctor's visit is $20. I pay about $140 a month.
Again, that's 50% higher than what I paid before ACA.
@Captain said in POLITICS The Collapse of the RNC BEGINS TODAY:
You're over insured.
No, now he just pays for birth control coverage that he'll never use.
@Captain said in POLITICS The Collapse of the RNC BEGINS TODAY:
Because insurance is supposed to pay for emergencies. If you have regularly scheduled "maintenance" checkups and the like, pay for them out of a regular account.
The exact opposite.
Insurance before the ACA, and the ACA, have both encouraged regular checkups by making them completely free.
They want you doing regular checkups to avoid paying for the surprises.
@Captain said in POLITICS The Collapse of the RNC BEGINS TODAY:
Health service accounts are great! But insurance companies don't make the best HSA providers.
I've always put an amount equivalent to my deductible into my HSA.
@Captain said in POLITICS The Collapse of the RNC BEGINS TODAY:
It's insurance. You can call it a "tax" if you want, but who are you paying it to? You're paying your insurance company for a service they render.
No, the tax is for services I don't pay for. It's for the services that the government subsidized that other people use.
I don't think you realize that we now pay a new tax for the ACA on top of paying more for less insurance than we had before.
-
@xaade said in POLITICS The Collapse of the RNC BEGINS TODAY:
I've always put an amount equivalent to my deductible into my HSA.
Probably a good idea. I just keep a largeish emergency fund for all the kinds of mid-sized emergencies that could happen.
No, the tax is for services I don't pay for. It's for the services that the government subsidized that other people use.
Do you understand how insurance works? I get the feeling you don't...
-
@Captain said in POLITICS The Collapse of the RNC BEGINS TODAY:
I got mine.
Good for you. Still, the average insurance premium went up 8% when it was promised that the average premium would drop by $2500. Your anecdata means jack shit when explicitly talking about averages. So I ask again:
Where is the average annual premium reduction of $2500 we were promised?
@Captain said in POLITICS The Collapse of the RNC BEGINS TODAY:
I'm not over-insured, though.
You keep using that phrase, but you have no evidence that any of us are over insured. @mott555 has presented counter evidence that he is not over insured. Here's mine:
I my family (wife and three children) are all insured on a plan with $6000 individual deductible and $12,000 family deductible. Out of network deductibles are double that. Just a bare bones, basic HSA plan, with an HSA at a bank that I picked myself (yeah the yield isn't that great, but the savings over a similar copay plan are immense). You know what my monthly payment is? $1000. And that's not even counting my employer's contributions. My employer pays another $300 on top of that. So $1300/month for a high deductible, basic plan that only really covers well visits and pays out when I've exhausted my emergency savings. Is that over insured? Before the ACA I had a nearly identical plan – the deductibles were $5k/10k – but I was paying only $600/month.
So, how is that overinsured?
@Captain said in POLITICS The Collapse of the RNC BEGINS TODAY:
Because the exchanges are markets, and markets squeeze out inefficiency.
Funny, the news reports all say it's because the insurance companies are losing too much money in the exchanges. They can't afford to participate. But yeah, let's go with your theory that the biggest insurers who should be best able to handle the market are getting squeezed out of the exchanges because of "inefficiencies".
@Captain said in POLITICS The Collapse of the RNC BEGINS TODAY:
Do you understand how insurance works? I get the feeling you don't...
And I get the feeling you didn't read what @xaade said.
@xaade said in POLITICS The Collapse of the RNC BEGINS TODAY:
I don't think you realize that we now pay a new tax for the ACA on top of paying more for less insurance than we had before.
There is a new tax that provides the money for the government subsidies to the people who can't afford their mandated insurance.
-
@abarker $6000 deductible is small considering there is a non-trivial chance of a $300,000 illness. How much would you need in your HSA to finance cancer?
Funny, the news reports all say it's because the insurance companies are losing too much money in the exchanges. They can't afford to participate. But yeah, let's go with your theory that the biggest insurers who should be best able to handle the market are getting squeezed out of the exchanges because of "inefficiencies".
Yeah, let's. There's a reason why the biggest plans got that way -- the health insurance markets were not competitive before ACA. So companies could extract rent. That's not possible now.
-
@Captain said in POLITICS The Collapse of the RNC BEGINS TODAY:
$6000 deductible is small
My deductible is 250€. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
-
@asdf Where are you from? I keep thinking Britain from the context, but I don't really know.
-
@Captain said in POLITICS The Collapse of the RNC BEGINS TODAY:
Where are you from?
Germany
I keep thinking Britain from the context
I take that as a compliment. Seems like my English skills have improved considerably.
-
@AyGeePlus said in POLITICS The Collapse of the RNC BEGINS TODAY:
Alcohol is taxed because
drunk people break stuff and wake up hungoveryou gotta tax something.
-
@asdf said in POLITICS The Collapse of the RNC BEGINS TODAY:
Not because of the idea (healthcare for everyone), but because of the execution (hey, let's just force everyone to buy private insurance!).
That's an idea that has possibilities, as the previous Republican "version" of this required you to have coverage for catastrophic stuff. That at least provides a backstop. Stuff like health savings accounts came out of similar lines of reasoning, so you can put away pre-tax money to pay for health care stuff.
One problem with the ACA was that you end up with ridiculous minimum coverage and other micromanagement, as government is wont to do. So shit is all fucked up.
-
Ok, here's a fake poll:
-
- I'm voting Democrat, party of Kennedy
- I'm voting Republican, party of Reagan
- I'm voting Trump, party of Chapter 11
-
-
@abarker said in POLITICS The Collapse of the RNC BEGINS TODAY:
How did the ACA work?
Because I'm alive now.
Seriously though, my Type I diabetes would be impossible to pay for if it wasn't for the ACA. That's my reason for being in favor of it.
It's probably selfish, but I have a very personal and very major reason to be in favor of some kind of public healthcare or system like the ACA. I personally don't think it's the best system, but it's much better than it was before. At least for me.
-
@ben_lubar said in POLITICS The Collapse of the RNC BEGINS TODAY:
Ok, here's a fake poll:
Here's a fake vote:
E_VOTING_AGAINST_SOMETHING_NOT_FOUND
-
@boomzilla said in POLITICS The Collapse of the RNC BEGINS TODAY:
@ben_lubar said in POLITICS The Collapse of the RNC BEGINS TODAY:
Ok, here's a fake poll:
Here's a fake vote:
E_VOTING_AGAINST_SOMETHING_NOT_FOUND
The radio buttons don't work anyway.
-
@cartman82 said in POLITICS The Collapse of the RNC BEGINS TODAY:
I'm amazed you Americans have fallen this far, and you still aren't even contemplating voting for some third option.
-
@Captain said in POLITICS The Collapse of the RNC BEGINS TODAY:
Do you understand how insurance works? I get the feeling you don't...
I get how insurance works. I pay a fee that subsidizes the other people that needs services that also pay that fee, until I need services and then I'm subsidized by others. It's called my premium and that's how insurance works. But, since ACA, I now also pay a tax that subsidize people in addition to my premium that I never get subsidized in return. Where do you think that money comes from that pays everyone's premium for them?
@abarker said in POLITICS The Collapse of the RNC BEGINS TODAY:
I my family (wife and three children) are all insured on a plan with $6000 individual deductible and $12,000 family deductible.
Are you a teacher? I've heard that government employees have it that bad right now.
@Captain said in POLITICS The Collapse of the RNC BEGINS TODAY:
$6000 deductible is small considering there is a non-trivial chance of a $300,000 illness. How much would you need in your HSA to finance cancer?
WHAT THE ABSOLUTE FUCK? Is this your idea of making health care affordable? How is this helping poor people? They could have done nothing to change the law, and just improved Medicare and got better results. But, they were shitting on Medicare for a few years before they passed ACA, just so they could make ACA look good. I know, my grandmother was dying on Medicare.
I remember when they said that Medicare denied less claims. Wrote up this pretty chart. Funny thing was that there was enough information on the chart to calculate per capita, and once you did, Medicare was denying the same claims as private insurance.
@Captain said in POLITICS The Collapse of the RNC BEGINS TODAY:
So companies could extract rent. That's not possible now.
Oh, here we go with rent again. If companies aren't living paycheck to paycheck they're inefficient and evil. Dude, you realize that they're getting squeezed out, because on the exchange, they have no way of insuring themselves. They have no way of reaching the government mandated minimum backing amount. Or do you not understand that insurance CANNOT live paycheck to paycheck. That's not rent, that's their guarantee. They have to have that extra reserve to actually pay out the benefits.
@asdf said in POLITICS The Collapse of the RNC BEGINS TODAY:
My deductible is 250€.
This. This is why I say you cannot compare European politics to American politics. Just because they say, "this is us being Europe", doesn't mean it's actually true.
@sloosecannon said in POLITICS The Collapse of the RNC BEGINS TODAY:
Seriously though, my Type I diabetes would be impossible to pay for if it wasn't for the ACA. That's my reason for being in favor of it.
Actually, they had charities that paid for those supplies for you. They were just hard to reach, and didn't have enough funds. All the government had to do was channel money into that group. Look, there's two groups that actually get a fucking benefit from ACA, and I would vote for those two things. Diabetes coverage and pre-existing condition coverage. That's a small minority that could have been fixed without this travesty of a law.
-
@ben_lubar said in POLITICS The Collapse of the RNC BEGINS TODAY:
The radio buttons don't work anyway.
I am just a TDWTF admin. Your world frightens and confuses me. My primitive mind can't grasp these UI concepts. But there is one thing I do know. There may not be something to vote for, but there's always something to vote against.
-
@Captain said in POLITICS The Collapse of the RNC BEGINS TODAY:
I keep thinking Britain from the context
That would be very large for a deductible in the UK for treatment via the NHS. No idea for treatment in the private sector (yes, the UK actually has a mixed model). The big advantage of the UK model is that it forces attention to be on keeping many costs down and encourages investment in public health measures; it's much cheaper to try to stop people getting sick in the first place. But anyone claiming it is a magnificent panacea is just not on Planet Reality at all.
-
@masonwheeler said in POLITICS The Collapse of the RNC BEGINS TODAY:
@asdf said in POLITICS The Collapse of the RNC BEGINS TODAY:
But I still refuse to believe that pot should be illegal in a society in which alcohol, which has similar properties and which negatively affects addicts a lot more than most other drugs, is legal.
There are two obvious solutions to that dilemma. You seem to only see one of them.
The other solution has been tried in the US and has failed miserably. It's called the Prohibition.
-