Good news for us re: Obamacare/ACA

[carlfense]

Good God that's pathetic.

 

 

Kentucky Ranks at the Bottom in Health Outcomes. Kentucky continues to rank at the bottom in most national health rankings. This includes 50th in smoking, 40th in obesity, 43rd in sedentary lifestyles, 41st in diabetes, 48th in poor mental health days, 49th in poor physical health days, 50th in cancer deaths, 49th in cardiac heart disease, 43rd in high cholesterol, 44th in annual dental visits and 48th in heart attacks. Access to health insurance will improve health outcomes.

Agreed. Hopefully this helps to change that.

[BigRedBuster]

It won't. Like I have said earlier.....one heck of a lot of people don't give a sh#t about their health. What this changes is that now they will have health insurance that we will all pay for so they can continue being fat, lazy, smokers and stuffing anything they want in their mouth.

[BigRedBuster]

BTW....I've looked through much of the site and haven't come across anything that answers my question.

[carlfense]

It won't. Like I have said earlier.....one heck of a lot of people don't give a sh#t about their health. What this changes is that now they will have health insurance that we will all pay for so they can continue being fat, lazy, smokers and stuffing anything they want in their mouth.

I guess this was more accurate than I thought.

 

What does that have to with controlling costs and deciding which doctor to go to if two offer the same service?

Ah. I see what you intended now. You meant to say something like "But, when you have very low deductibles, the patient has no skin the game and <therefore> no motivation to actually care about what anything costs."

 

Apologies.

 

I thought that the "no skin in the game" angle was going to head down the path of the claim that someone with low deductible insurance has no incentive to choose a healthy lifestyle. My father likes that argument.

[carlfense]

BTW....I've looked through much of the site and haven't come across anything that answers my question.

Not Kentucky specific, but I'm happy to help out.

To qualify for Medicaid prior to health reform, individuals had to meet financial eligibility criteria and belong to one of the following specific groups: children, parents, pregnant women, people with severe disability, and seniors. Non-disabled adults without dependent children were generally excluded from Medicaid unless the state obtained a waiver to cover them. The federal government sets minimum eligibility levels for each category, which are up to 133% FPL for pregnant women and children but are much lower for parents (under 50% FPL in most states).

http://kff.org/health-reform/fact-sheet/who-benefits-from-the-aca-medicaid-expansion/

[BigRedBuster]

I'm assuming you mean that if high deductibles don't change how people live their lives then having insurance/not having insurance won't either?

 

If that's what you mean, then I agree with you.

[carlfense]

They look awfully similar to me.

 

. . . now they will have health insurance that we will all pay for so they can continue being fat, lazy, smokers and stuffing anything they want in their mouth.

. . . someone with low deductible insurance has no incentive to choose a healthy lifestyle.

 

Pretty funny stuff. Apparently I made the mistake of getting to your point before you did.

[carlfense]

More happy people.

But let's introduce you to someone who is quite pleased with her Obamacare experience: Lela Petersen of Flagler, Colo. She's a small business owner with a very big health insurance bill.

 

But thanks to the health law, she expects that bill will be cut by more than half in January.

 

Petersen is 57, and her husband, Mike, is 60. They have some pre-existing conditions. He has diabetes. She has a back injury. The HMO policy they've carried since 1992 has risen over the years to $1,950 per month, just for the two of them.

 

"When you pay $1,950 for insurance you might as well forget retirement," says Petersen says. "There's just no way." Five years ago, she was planning on an early retirement, but she didn't anticipate health insurance costing as much as the rest of her bills combined.

 

At the beginning of October she checked out Colorado's insurance exchange and found the exact same policy from the same insurer for only $832 a month. "It's dropping us down about $1,100 a month. We can retire. We can go fishing. We can actually see a future," says Petersen.

http://www.npr.org/b...ef-in-obamacare

[Whistlebritches]

What this changes is that now they will have health insurance that we will all pay for so they can continue being fat, lazy, smokers and stuffing anything they want in their mouth.

 

Everyone carrying insurance already pays for them in the same way we pay for shoplifters stealing goods from Target. The business doesn't eat that cost, you and I do. We pay for it through higher premiums and higher deductibles.

[carlfense]

What this changes is that now they will have health insurance that we will all pay for so they can continue being fat, lazy, smokers and stuffing anything they want in their mouth.

 

Everyone carrying insurance already pays for them in the same way we pay for shoplifters stealing goods from Target. The business doesn't eat that cost, you and I do. We pay for it through higher premiums and higher deductibles.

Yep. Socialized medicine has been here for decades . . . you just need to wait until your condition has deteriorated to the point where you go to the emergency room.

[tschu]

What this changes is that now they will have health insurance that we will all pay for so they can continue being fat, lazy, smokers and stuffing anything they want in their mouth.

 

Everyone carrying insurance already pays for them in the same way we pay for shoplifters stealing goods from Target. The business doesn't eat that cost, you and I do. We pay for it through higher premiums and higher deductibles.

This. 1000 times this.

[AR Husker Fan]

BTW....I've looked through much of the site and haven't come across anything that answers my question.

The question of eligibility for Medicaid? If so, each state can set the resource and income limits (with some exceptions; for example, each state must deem as eligible someone that is determined disabled under SSI rules). In Arkansas, for example, the resource limit is around $2,500.00 per month (meaning, the person can't have assets that exceed that amount each month) and about $1,700.00 in income (income is the amount received in a month; resources are what is carried over in total in the month following the income received). At $9.00 an hour, she would not qualify in most states for Medicaid. You have to be truly destitute before Medicaid kicks in. There are some categories for disabled individuals under the age of 65, but the level of disability far exceeds her health status from what little the article provides. Additionally, Medicaid is not health insurance, unlike Medicare. Medicaid will pay for some health needs, but for those under 65, the "benefits" are extremely limited; most states, for example provide for only a very limited number of drugs for those under 65 - say, for example, only three different medications. For someone that is in their 50s and have high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and a couple of other issues would not have all of their medication needs met.

[krill]

It won't. Like I have said earlier.....one heck of a lot of people don't give a sh#t about their health. What this changes is that now they will have health insurance that we will all pay for so they can continue being fat, lazy, smokers and stuffing anything they want in their mouth.

 

I won't defend someone that jams two packs of marb reds a day and eats at golden coral three times a week, but amazingly unhealthy lifestyles are not the primary factor in sky high health care cost. Someone posted a video many pages back explaining quite concisely and accurately what is driving health care cost.

 

Personally I had a high deductible HSA for about three years and only used it as a tax shelter; it had zero influence on what decisions I made about health care consumption because all of the before deductible service cost were exactly the same.

[BigRedBuster]

What this changes is that now they will have health insurance that we will all pay for so they can continue being fat, lazy, smokers and stuffing anything they want in their mouth.

 

Everyone carrying insurance already pays for them in the same way we pay for shoplifters stealing goods from Target. The business doesn't eat that cost, you and I do. We pay for it through higher premiums and higher deductibles.

 

 

I fully understand that. I used to work in health care and witnessed it long before it became a major topic politically.

[BigRedBuster]

It won't. Like I have said earlier.....one heck of a lot of people don't give a sh#t about their health. What this changes is that now they will have health insurance that we will all pay for so they can continue being fat, lazy, smokers and stuffing anything they want in their mouth.

 

I won't defend someone that jams two packs of marb reds a day and eats at golden coral three times a week, but amazingly unhealthy lifestyles are not the primary factor in sky high health care cost. Someone posted a video many pages back explaining quite concisely and accurately what is driving health care cost.

 

Personally I had a high deductible HSA for about three years and only used it as a tax shelter; it had zero influence on what decisions I made about health care consumption because all of the before deductible service cost were exactly the same.

 

I'm not sure what video you're talking about but It's probably talking about stuff similar to this article.

 

LINK

 

But, there is a difference in the cost of receiving health care and what we spend on health care.

 

The first is what it costs to treat heart problems, high blood pressure, lung cancer, diabetes...etc. The second is the amount of those problems we have in our population.

 

Taking this to the non-reality extreme to make a point, if 100% of our population was 800 lbs and smoked 3 packs per day, our health care expenditures would be much higher than if 100% of our population had healthy BMIs, ate healthy every day while exercising and didn't use tobacco.

 

Here is an interesting study:

 

LINK

 

Alcohol abuse cost the U.S. health care system $85.8 billion in 1988. The tab for cigarette smoking totals over $65 billion annually. Costs related to obesity now surpass $27 billion per year.

 

As the government scrambles to reduce the staggering explosion in health care costs, the American Medical Association recently revealed that at least 25 cents of every health care dollar is spent on the treatment of diseases or disabilities that result from potentially changeable behaviors. Whether the cause is smoking, alcohol abuse, poor diet, lack of exercise, failure to use seat-belts, or overexposure to the sun, preventable health care costs are the first concern of many U.S. health care critics.

 

This looks like a news letter for a wellness company (Wellcoa) in 2007 but it has some really interesting information in it that pertains to what I'm saying.

 

 

LINK

 

An article from the CDC.

 

LINK