Summary Of ObamaCare:Reduced Access For The Poorest Patients

I am not arguing with you about public education. Some public schools are great, others suck. It all depends on how involved the parents of the students are.

My point was that the key to a good haeltcare system, just like having a good public school system, starts with individuals assuming more responsibility over their own healthcare choices and personal efforts to make good choices and be involved.

The one thing about our healthcare system you need to understand is that we spend about 3 times per capita as what other western countries do. That is unsustainable. I would estimate about 1/3( a low estimate) of our healthcare costs go towards the insurance industry profits and their cost of acting like a middleman for payments. Reducing that cost will be a start on reigning in expenses.

50% of healthacare expenses occur in a patients last 6 months of life. This is a very difficult issue to deal with but I do think we could make smarter decisions about appropriations of our resources.

 

which test scores are those?

how about these?

http://news.yahoo.com/us-adults-score-below-average-worldwide-test-090114407.html

 

Again, what do the top 5 countries in those rankings have in common?

 

socialized medicine?

 

Yeah, socialized medicine is why they score higher in academic achievement tests.

 

yermom's most treasured possession is a signed copy of the Communist Manifesto. He told me that in a PM. I know you other guys will be shocked.

 

Read Brill's piece in last February's Time, 'Bitter Pill'. The amount spent on political lobbying by the health industy outweighs the amount spent by the petrochemical industry (oil, coal, all of it), all military contracters and Wall Street. Combined. Mind blowing amounts of money. And then you have folks like Mitch McConnell whose family fortune is 100% derived from HMO's if I'm not mistaken.

 

Why not? If someone else is doing something that works well and I ignore that, then I'm an idiot. That's what Detroit did for more than a generation before they finally woke up and discovered that they were making Edsels and the Japanese were making inexpensive cars that lasted forever, took no maintenance and only rarely required gasoline. It's called idiocy.

As to our 'state of the art' healthcare, let me quote an Aussie buddy of mine. "If I were to find myself beset by a never before seen brain condition caused by energy waves from outer space, by God! I'd want to be in America. If, on the other hand, my kid broke her arm playing soccer and needed it set, there's a list of about 25 other countries I'd rather be in." This from a guy who's personally lived in five different countries with family and who works for a US corp who offered him 'American Health Insurance' (he opted for Aussie National Health). A major problem with our 'system' is the focus on the highest end and most expensive procedures; when often mundane, cheap solutions will get the job done.

 

I would venture to guess that younger workers have generally worked paycheck to paycheck. Heaven knows I did.

HSA's are only available when people have a qualifying high deductible health care plan. Those plans, while they do have high deductibles, still have out of pocket maximums. While these younger workers may have paid out of pocket, they did not face near the risk of not having insurance.

 

i'm not the one making that correlation. not sure where Cruiser is coming from now or ever

 

I believe ours is $3000/$6000 on our high deductible. HSA were supposed to be like 401k where the company paid in to it. Most don't and what you end with is workers taking a de facto pay cut. At the same time the company reaps the benefit of moving cost of their bottom line.

For the lower income folks the deductibles are high enough that they may not seek health care when they need it.

 

HSA's are supposed to be savings accounts that you can contribute to with pre-tax dollars. Any employer contribution is solely up to each employer. I can meet your anecdote with my own. My company has increased the amount it pays to employee insurance cost every year for 13 consecutive years. In addition, they do contribute to HSA's.

The savings account is intended to pay for those deductibles with pre-tax dollars. The fact that you can accumulate it year over year is one of the bigger benefits. Of course, as Fan pointed out, it is also dependent on looking ahead and saving money over time for those, hopefully rare, instances that you have high cost medical care.

 

Good for you because you work for a decent employer. is the contributions you get based on part of the premium savings to the employer?

Where I sit (refering companies to our HSA specialist is part of my goals) I do not see many folks who like them other than the business owners. It beats not having insurance but it is not the cure all for our runaway medical cost. HSA do nothing to address the very high cost of medicine in the US.

 

No. The increase in insurance cost increased 7% for 2014. My employer is only passing on 3% of that. As an aside, I don't think it is a coincidence that our ACA employer tax rate came in at 3.8%.

I respectfully disagree with you regarding HSA's and medical cost control. If you have to pay out of pocket for things you will be a more diligent consumer. I am hopeful we don't have to debate that. High deductible plans, and their associated HSA's, allow medical care to be treated more like consumer product. I am not referring to catastrophic costs, that is what the actual insurance is for, but rather for the more mundane. In other words, if the doctor two doors down in your local medical complex charged $25 less for a sick visit, wouldn't you go there if you were paying out of pocket?

 

Scout;

In my area there are only so many family practices and most of them are not taking patients. So the option of changing is not realistic. Now it might be different for specialized medicine.

The other problem is that our health insurance and I would say most health insurance companies have both in network doctors and out of network doctors. So that limits the pool.

Finally, I work from 7:30 am until 6:00 pm during the week and a lot of Saturdays. I doubt my employer would be pleased if I spent half a day rate shopping for medical care. Lets be honest and admit there is not a market solution to medical cost and that someday we will have a single payer plan like every other nation. So in my mind we trash ACA and build something better like what the Swiss or the Aussies use,

 

First, the availability of doctors in your area is independent of HSA's.

Second, network doctors are only there to ensure a negotiated rate. This is a positive feature available today that will soon be eliminated due to the ACA.

While your work schedule sounds hectic, I am not sure healthcare reform should be predicated on your unique situation.

I don't agree with your summation and would submit that you are wrong on most fronts. I appreciate your courtesy, but I honestly believe that you are wrong.

 

A great argument for "Death Panels", it would seem.

 

Decisive healthcare isn't really new. Government lackeys making those vital decisions is a bit of a new development.

 

I pissed off A lot of ppl today. I wore my "Mitt Romney" T at the grocery store. The looks I got were priceless. Highly suggestive!!!

 

Even in Chicago there are journalists willing to sound the alarm on Obamacare. And this IS alarming. Get ready to pay out the nose:

http://articles.chicagotribune.com/...are-overhaul-health-insurance-health-coverage