Repealing the ACA under Trump

[zoogs]

I agree the penalty should be stiffer and that the fact they're not is partly responsible for premiums. You want people on insurance, not opting for the penalty instead. What we haven't established is that there's an issue with uninsured, self-employed people making $93k with $8k in premiums for the lowest available plan. This gets at the "never ending" part of the claim.

 

Moreover, "fixing the real problem" involves paying for it one way or another, no? Even in single payer? The issue is whether we empower the government to do it.

[Moiraine]

 

I have company insurance but it's awful.

Explain "awful".

 

There is a pretty wide range of what people have become accustomed to for health insurance. What's awful? Your cost share, deductible, copays....?

 

I wish I had an employer paying a good portion of my premium.

I just know my deductible at UNL (last year) was $500 and this one is $2,000. And it's more expensive (I s'pose 'cause I'm getting paid more). But I've also heard people say it's bad.

[Redux]

I agree the penalty should be stiffer and that the fact they're not is partly responsible for premiums. You want people on insurance, not opting for the penalty instead. What we haven't established is that there's an issue with uninsured, self-employed people making $93k with $8k in premiums for the lowest available plan. This gets at the "never ending" part of the claim.Moreover, "fixing the real problem" involves paying for it one way or another, no? Even in single payer? The issue is whether we empower the government to do it.

The penalty for not having health insurance should be stiffer???? Even though they are opting for the penalty because insurance is unaffordable???? Your answer is make the penalty harsher?????? Are you pooping me?

 

The answer is make insurance affordable!!!

[zoogs]

This is how insurance works. You can't make insurance affordable if people aren't buying it. The healthy have to subsidize the sick by buying in. This is risk pooling.

 

You don't get to wave a wand and force prices to come down.

 

When the ACA passed, I believe there was a push for a harsher penalty. This pushes more people onto the markets, which not only gets more people paying in but more people covered as well, precisely so that they cannot wait until they get sick and then attempt to buy coverage. Which would be an attractive prospect is 'pre-existing' conditions must be covered. If they are not, then insurance is prohibitively expensive for people who need it. This is why the ACA's pre-existing conditions coverage rests upon the individual mandate. I haven't been pulling all of this out of thin air.

[Redux]

bullsh#t.

 

The rates are unaffordable because the companies are allowed to make them that way!!!

[zoogs]

You could also offer universal healthcare.

[Redux]

And that would mean we all would pay in a crapload come tax time. I would prefer the insurance companies just cut the prices by 30-40%.

[Moiraine]

And that would mean we all would pay in a crapload come tax time. I would prefer the insurance companies just cut the prices by 30-40%.

As much as I dislike/distrist insurance companies, they couldn't afford that even if they wanted to do it as long as drug companies are charging Americans extra $. Which is why I'll say it again - drug companies should have to pay more into the healthcare system too.

 

Universal healthcare is a good thing and has worked in lots of places.

[Redux]

Maybe if we would regulate the inflating prices of the medical costs like 600% markup on needles etc.

[Moiraine]

Maybe if we would regulate the inflating prices of the medical costs like 600% markup on needles etc.

Yep. I think that's the #1 issue out of many issues.

[ZRod]

Maybe if we would regulate the inflating prices of the medical costs like 600% markup on needles etc.

Exactly! So let's talk about the cartel that is the AMA and RUC...

 

How a secretive panel uses data that distorts doctors pay

It turns out that the nations system for estimating the value of a doctors services, a critical piece of U.S. health-care economics, is fraught with inaccuracies that appear to be inflating the value of many procedures:

 

●To determine how long a procedure takes, the AMA relies on surveys of doctors conducted by the associations representing specialists and primary care physicians. The doctors who fill out the surveys are informed that the reason for the survey is to set pay. Increasingly, the survey estimates have been found so improbable that the AMA has had to significantly lower them, according to federal documents.

 

●The AMA committee, in conjunction with Medicare, has been seven times as likely to raise estimates of work value than to lower them, according to a Post analysis of federal records for 5,700 procedures. This happened despite productivity and technology advances that should have cut the time required.

 

●If AMA estimates of time are correct, hundreds of doctors are working improbable hours, according to an analysis of records from surgery centers in Florida and Pennsylvania. In some specialties, more than one in five doctors would have to have been working more than 12 hours on average on a single day much longer than the 10 hours or so a typical surgery center is open.

 

Florida records show 78 doctors gastroenterologists, ophthalmologists, orthopedic surgeons and others who performed at least 24 hours worth of procedures on an average workday.

You guys knew about this right?...

[zoogs]

What you are describing appears to be the socializing of healthcare by giving the federal government the powers necessary to negotiate and control prices.

 

I'm down for single payer.

 

It is going to mean universal health care.

 

Again -- no magic wands.

[BigRedBuster]

Talking about cost of premiums is the problem with why the ACA and so far the AHCA just doesn't cut it.

 

Why should we be paying $3000 for a drug that's sold in Canada or Europe for $200?

 

Until that problem gets fixed, nothing will actually get accomplished on the issue.

[JJ Husker]

 

I agree the penalty should be stiffer and that the fact they're not is partly responsible for premiums. You want people on insurance, not opting for the penalty instead. What we haven't established is that there's an issue with uninsured, self-employed people making $93k with $8k in premiums for the lowest available plan. This gets at the "never ending" part of the claim.Moreover, "fixing the real problem" involves paying for it one way or another, no? Even in single payer? The issue is whether we empower the government to do it.

The penalty for not having health insurance should be stiffer???? Even though they are opting for the penalty because insurance is unaffordable???? Your answer is make the penalty harsher?????? Are you pooping me?

The answer is make insurance affordable!!!

Yes, the penalty should be stiffer. One of the numerous reasons healthcare costs so much is because providers pass on the costs of unpaid for services by inflating the prices those with insurance have to pay. Now, having said that, we shouldn't further penalize people for not having coverage they can't afford. It has to be made affordable and people need to realize that everyone needs coverage. Until we accept as a society that services can be refused those who don't have coverage (which will never happen) then everyone has to have coverage. I'd start with the protectionist policies of the FDA and the AMA's stranglehold on setting outlandish rates for procedures. But people, everyone, need to be in the pool of covered people. It doesn't work if healthy people don't participate. It doesn't work if we let people game the system and acquire coverage only when it's needed. It doesn't work if we provide care to people who don't have the resources (insurance, Medicare- something more than their limited self worth) to pay their bills. So yes, the penalty needs to be stiff enough, with no exceptions allowed, so that everyone has coverage. It's not just insurance companies charging what they want. There are plenty of reasons they have to charge what they do.

[JJ Husker]

What you are describing appears to be the socializing of healthcare by giving the federal government the powers necessary to negotiate and control prices.I'm down for single payer.It is going to mean universal health care.Again -- no magic wands.

A lot of head way could be made short of single payer universal care. But yeah might as well. I figure the healthcare industry (doctors, providers, insurers, drug companies, AMA, etc) let it get this far out of control, so f 'em. Shove some full blown socialist cost controls down their throat and let 'em choke on it.