Obamacare by SIGNYM

REAL WORLD EVENT DISCUSSIONS

Obamacare

POSTED BY: SIGNYM
UPDATED: Wednesday, December 7, 2016 00:00
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Tuesday, November 1, 2016 3:52 PM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Having dismissed single payer and public option pretty much out-of-hand, Max Baucus (highest recipient of health insurance donations in the entire Senate) crafted, and Obama accepted, a 2,700-page plan, with approximately 20,000 subsequent regulations.

At the time, I was extremely doubtful that getting shoved into the maw of the insurance companies, even with a sweetener of Federal money, would be the best solution - either for people, or for the Federal government.

But there WERE restrictions on the insurance companies, such as the requirement that they spend 85% of their insurance revenues on patient care, and that preventive care would be free. (But leave it to the insurance companies to re-define what constitutes "patient care"!) And it was a complex bill, impossible for the layperson to predict how it would work IRL. So I was ready to see how it played out. After all, there were similar State plans successfully operating in other states such as Massachusetts and NYS (which Obamacare disbanded), Obamacare might be a success.

After several years, it appears that Obamacare is going over a cliff, with massive rate increases, significant cuts in benefits, and equally-massive insurance company defections. The sector that I thought would be sitting fat and happy with their infusion of Federal money and mandated customers - the health insurances - seem to financially stressed and strategically distressed. The sector that I never even thought about - pharma- is doing really, really well.

I wonder if anyone has any specific insight into exactly what is going wrong. Aside from the inability of Obamacare to negotiate drug prices on a national scale, what SPECIFICALLY is the problem?

Is the influx of really sick and expensive people, who haven't been covered by insurance until now, breaking the system?

Is it that each step in the health-care process operates in a chain of profits? (The insurance needs its profits, and the hospitals needs their profits, and the doctors working within the hospitals need theirs)?

Is it just that, overall, healthcare just costs too much?

Is it the general societal disregard for the health and wellbeing of its citizens ... people operating in a stressful environment over which they have no control... creating a population which is sedating itself with food, alcohol, electronic diversions, and drugs ... creating an epidemic of diabetes and addiction?

What, do you think, is the problem?

More importantly, what do you think is the solution?

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Tuesday, November 1, 2016 4:57 PM

1KIKI

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.

"(insurances) seem to financially stressed and strategically distressed"

It looks like part of the reason was that operating in many small exchanges over many states wasn't cost effective.

http://money.cnn.com/2016/04/19/investing/unitedhealthcare-obamacare-e
xchanges-aca/
"UnitedHealth had previously said that it lost $475 million on the ACA exchanges last year and could lose another $500 million this year.
UnitedHealth's president and chief financial officer David Wichmann added that the company served 795,000 people on public exchanges as of the end of the first quarter. It expects to have only 650,000 public exchange members by December.
Hemsley explained that UnitedHealth will leave most states by 2017 because the markets for these exchanges are relatively small and also have higher risks for the company over the short-term."

http://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2016/08/16/490207169/aetna-jo
ins-other-major-insurers-in-pulling-back-from-obamacare
"Insurance giant Aetna will stop selling health insurance through most of the exchanges created by the Affordable Care Act in 2017 because the company said it is losing money in many of those markets.
But Aetna, which lost $430 million on the Obamacare plans in the first half of the year, said it may re-enter the markets in the future."

Humana, pulled out of many markets earlier.
"Humana would not provide a breakdown of how many ACA exchanges it was leaving, or identify which ones. But a spokesman said the carrier was pulling out of states where it had a very limited presence."
http://www.politico.com/story/2016/07/humana-obamacare-markets-225963

caveat: While these companies mostly appear to be losing money on the exchanges themselves, I don't know how the companies are faring overall as businesses. Is this a matter of company survival, or are they merely catering to investors who want bigger overall profits, and those darn exchanges are cutting into dividends and share prices?

But I dug around into this a while back. For example, I looked into healthcare costs during the Canadian transition from private for-profit medical care to single-payer. And I came to the conclusion that mostly Obamacare's failure reflects the past and current failure of the business model in the health care setting.

What these insurers are finding out is that there's a deep, DEEP, DEEP well of unmet need, built up over decades of inadequate care.

They've rediscovered that there's a reason why many people were un- or under-insured in the past. It's that adequate healthcare is expensive, pushing those people with a combination of larger needs and fewer resources out of the insurance system. (It also points to the partial failure of government programs as suppliers of last resort, which do help provide essential care, but obviously are too underfunded for the task.)

So we obviously know where the healthcare monetary costs lie - with insurance, the individual, and the government.

But what about the benefits? A healthy population carries a lot of benefits - fewer sick days, fewer disabled people, fewer people whose conditions have advanced, and so on. But the benefits are distributed widely, and certainly don't accrue to the insurance companies.

And that's why the business model fails when it comes to insurance.

Drug prices are another factor, as exemplified by the scandalously high prices of many vital medications. But generally insurance companies simply drop costly medications off their formularies. For example, I used to be able to get an insurance-covered Epi-pen. No longer.

But generic supplies are just as bad - buy a box of tissues and you'll pay a reasonable price. Buy them as 'medical supplies' and they will cost you many times more - yugely unbeLIEVably more. The inability to negotiate prices is factor.

Finally, yes, I believe it's also that everyone takes an extra portion as profit. The way to maximize profit is to break the system into as many steps as possible and tack on a profit at every step. So, since the system is built to maximize profit, it's not very cost-effective.

In sum, our current health care system - insurers, drug companies, suppliers, hospitals, providers - is built to maximize profit, not provide care. Simply tacking on government-funded insurance-consumers into a systemically dysfunctional Rube Goldberg isn't providing the answers, in terms of health and cost, that we know are achievable under single-payer systems.

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Tuesday, November 1, 2016 6:00 PM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

If the deep, DEEP, DEEP well of unmet needs is the problem, then this is just a temporary hitch in the system. Because once these needs are met on a urgent basis, then these people go on in a "business as usual" mode. The untreated diabetic needs a few toes amputated (which is expensive) and then goes on medication.

I've heard of some hospitals attempting to reduce their ER costs by treating their frequent fliers differently ... partnering people with COPD, asthma, and diabetes with home health nurses who can help them manage their condition better, and divert them away from the ER. But part of THAT problem is that some of their frequent fliers are homeless and addicted or mentally ill, so there's another unmet need right there: Harm reduction and housing first. And many of their other frequent flier are so poorly educated or so isolated that the health system is trying to make up for years of lack of education. I mean, how do you communicate with someone who doesn't know about the role of insulin and sugar in diabetes? It's kind of tough to explain to a 60-year old who has no background whatsoever in science. And then there's the reversal in life expectancy in coal country, due to meth or oxy addiction brought on by depression due to untenable economic prospects.

Anyway, diversion from the ER is not the big cost savings that they had hoped.

I would love to see a detailed cost breakdown from the insurances, but I guess that kind of data is not forthcoming.

Hillary is a WAR CANDIDATE, and that's just what we need, right? More war?

G, THUGR, MAL4: Oh BTW, please define intelligence.
http://www.fireflyfans.net/mthread.aspx?bid=18&tid=60903&p=4#1
018100

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Tuesday, November 1, 2016 6:09 PM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Anyway, I think I can tell what WON'T work.

It won't do any good to repeal Obamacare but retain the provision that the insurance companies MUST take on pre-existing health conditions, because even if the coverage is theoretically available it would be so expensive as to price most people out of the market again.

Public option won't work, because the insurance companies will "cherry pick" the healthiest people and leave the government to pick up the rest. If the government is offering a specific service, it would have to be the sole provider.

I think offering health insurance thru the workplace is stupid, as it doesn't cover people who aren't working.

And having looked thru all of the restrictions and limitations on Medicaid-type insurance, it traps people into poverty (making too much money kicks you off the rolls) and offers inferior care.

Hillary is a WAR CANDIDATE, and that's just what we need, right? More war?

G, THUGR, MAL4: Oh BTW, please define intelligence.
http://www.fireflyfans.net/mthread.aspx?bid=18&tid=60903&p=4#1
018100

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Tuesday, November 1, 2016 6:12 PM

WISHIMAY

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
And then there's the reversal in life expectancy in coal country, due to meth or oxy addiction brought on by depression due to untenable economic prospects.

Actually, the coal mines were one of the few places around here that actively recruited felons, wanna guess why drug and alcohol abuse has gone through the roof?

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Tuesday, November 1, 2016 6:33 PM

1KIKI

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.

If the deep, DEEP, DEEP well of unmet needs is the problem, then this is just a temporary hitch in the system.

I don't think so.

The same systemic problems that made these people un- or under-insured still exist. Medical care is still expensive due to non-competitive drug, supplies and equipment prices. And the entire system is still structured (fragmented) to maximize profits. These same systemic problems are driving insurers out of Obamacare, and insurance rates are going through the roof putting it out of reach for more people.

While Canada experienced a bump in 'utilization' on the front end as it transitioned to single-payer, it had also restructured its entire system so as to be able to minimize the cost of all that extra care on the back end.

I TOLD YOU SO will be very sweet indeed, and repeated often.

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Wednesday, November 2, 2016 9:42 PM

6IXSTRINGJACK

I have to admit that I'm one of the 20 Million covered that weren't covered before. I know Indiana doesn't do Obamacare directly, so I don't know if I'm actually included in that number, but even when I was working a minimum wage job I did have health insurance for the first time in only 5 years.

I can't say how "good" it actually is though. I've only ever used it twice for antibiotics. Strangely enough, a more expensive one was completely free, while amoxicillin was $4.00 for a 7 day script.

Unfortunately, the only dental care they offer is 2 regular checkups a year and up to 4 tooth pulling and/or cavity fillings. The only medical I need is extensive oral surgery that will cost upwards of 15k that I can't afford, so I've put off any more work since August of last year. Because of that, I think my teeth are probably a lost cause by now. The gums are receding everywhere now. I don't know if there has been more bone deterioration, but my teeth are actually shifting. Two of them are so wobbly they should probably just be pulled by now, and one of them was so painful mid-summer that I actually tried pulling it out with a pair of pliers when my plan screwed up and didn't provide dental for me this year. (I had to fight with them for about 3 weeks until they admitted it was their mistake, and wait another 5 weeks until they fixed it).

A daily peroxide wash is now part of my 2-3 times flossing and 10-15 times brushing a day regimen. This actually seems to keep the pain at bay after I got that amoxicillin script to take care of whatever nasty infection was under the tooth. Unless I'm eating something like oatmeal though, I haven't been able to chew any food on the right side of my mouth since May.

Why isn't dental care considered a part of regular health insurance?

I had to pay $1,500 bucks for root scaling and plaining last summer and all that did was buy me a little bit of time because I didn't do the rest of the steps. Right now I'm considering it wasted money since I'd likely have to do it again if I had the money to get this done.

I had CAT scans done on my skull with some new age tech that can show you a 3D model of your skull and was shown all of the infections that were chewing away at my jaw bone for god knows how many years now. At the time I was told that the ones on my upper jaw were dangerously close to making their way into my sinuses.

Not to mention the fact that the health of your teeth is directly related to your heart.

I'm likely going to end up having some serious health issues otherwise soon because of my somewhat unique state of oral health. Wouldn't it make sense for them to shell out the smaller cost of my dental work needed now than to end up footing the bill for a heart attack or extensive surgery on my sinuses if the infections get up that high?

It's really a shame too. To this day, I've never had a single cavity. I brushed, I flossed, I used mouthwash. The only thing I didn't do was go to a dentist for over 15 years. That and my heredity worked against me. Turns out the enzymes in my mouth help combat cavities, but at the same time don't destroy some of the microscopic critters that get up under the gums and normally aren't a threat to most people.

Nothing I can do about it now.

It sucks getting old...

Do Right, Be Right. :)

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Wednesday, November 2, 2016 10:49 PM

WISHIMAY

Quote:
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:

It's really a shame too. To this day, I've never had a single cavity. I brushed, I flossed, I used mouthwash. The only thing I didn't do was go to a dentist for over 15 years. That and my heredity worked against me.
Nothing I can do about it now.

It sucks getting old...

I'm going to say this again. Alcohol is a poison. When you drink it, it kills brain cells and damages your liver. Your immune system is kept so busy trying to keep up with that damage it neglects routine maintenance and eventually stops alltogether. When you add smoking to that, your body CANNOT HEAL, no matter how much you brush. Your heredity had nothing to do with that, other than your propensity for self-harm.

Getting old does suck, I will agree with that at least.

https://frontier.yahoo.com/finance/news/mark-cuban-obamacare-worlds-bi
ggest-171528977.html

Somehow this doesn't surprise me, whatsoever...

He added that Trump has not grasped the basics of the Affordable Care Act, making it impossible to have an "open and candid discussion with him about health care."

"He's demonstrated again and again he doesn't even understand what Obamacare really is or how it works," he said.

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Thursday, November 3, 2016 8:00 AM

SECOND

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

As painful as this is, all that's happening is that after being underpriced for years, Obamacare premiums are finally catching up to the original estimates from the Congressional Budget Office.
www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2016/10/obamacare-premiums-will-increas
e-about-25-year

Correction: Obamacare Premiums Are Going Up About 0% For Most People
www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2016/10/correction-obamacare-premiums-a
re-going-about-0-most-people-0

Bottom line: if your income is low enough to qualify for a subsidy, there's no need to panic over the Obamacare premium news. The higher premiums will help stabilize the market, and the cost will be covered almost entirely by Uncle Sam. Your pocketbook is safe.

Here's My 11-Word Plan for Fixing Obamacare
www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2016/10/heres-my-11-word-1-chart-plan-f
ixing-obamacare

There's been a lot of talk about "fixing" Obamacare lately. Here's my two-step plan:

Increase the subsidy levels.
Increase the penalty for not buying insurance.

That would pretty much do it. I could add lots of other small-bore things that need some tweaking, but why bother? Republicans will never agree to them. They won't agree to any of the small-bore stuff either. So take your pick. You can support a detailed 11-point plan for Obamacare that will never get passed, or you can support my 11-word plan that will also never get passed.

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

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Thursday, November 3, 2016 10:17 AM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Quote:
In reality, you could probably get by with smaller numbers, since nearly everyone will sign up if the penalty is within shouting distance of the net premium cost.

Probably true.

The question is: what is the premium cost going to stabilize at? Is this 25% (average) increase going to be a one-time bump? Or are the premiums going to continue to go up at nX the rate of inflation for the foreseeable future? And if the Federal government is going to represent a larger and larger portion of the insurance market, why don't we just cut out the middleman and all of it inefficiencies and gouging, and just go single payer?

I agree with the author that his fix isn't going to happen, so if we're talking in the realm of theoretical, why not just go for the gusto?

Hillary is a WAR CANDIDATE, and that's just what we need, right? More war?

G, THUGR, MAL4: Oh BTW, please define intelligence.
http://www.fireflyfans.net/mthread.aspx?bid=18&tid=60903&p=4#1
018100

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Thursday, November 3, 2016 10:21 AM

WISHIMAY

Quote:
Originally posted by second:

Increase the penalty for not buying insurance.

I'll take "Useless Gubbermint" for 1000, Alex...

So, under your plan ...those that are just over the cutoff we kick harder, and those that are just under it we give free vibrators to? What incentive do I then have to make OVER that cutoff line?

My mother and her spouse are both self-employed, and they make just enough that they can't afford health insurance because they HAVE to rent, being self-employed the amount of money they would need to put down for a house is CRAZY.. If she wasn't on Medicaid because of the cancer treatments, she wouldn't have health coverage, meaning you would take the tax return of someone who ALREADY can't afford shit. How's that gonna help?? This isn't just affecting young people.
You can't just universally kick people harder because at 62 and 68 doing so will insure that they get dead faster. Hell, even at 36 if it weren't for hubbs I know couldn't hold down a full-time job. It would force me to go on disability. Or, live in a van down by the river. Screwed either way.

The main problem is that insurance isn't affordable, not what people can or can't pay. People already don't have money for retirement, let alone actually USING an overpriced healthcare plan...

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Thursday, November 3, 2016 11:19 AM

SECOND

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:

I agree with the author that his fix isn't going to happen, so if we're talking in the realm of theoretical, why not just go for the gusto?

Don't be too pessimistic. Minor changes to Obamacare can actually pass. Major changes can't be done because of James Madison's US Constitution, thanks to the excessive number of checks-and-balances Madison thought were necessary. Adams and Jefferson were in Europe, giving Madison too much freedom to devise an overly complicated system that can easily break and leave important decisions undecided. And it has broken many times over the centuries. There are just too many places in the Constitution where action can be vetoed. Latin American countries with constitutions modeled after the US Constitution have had the very same troubles that the USA is now having between Democrats and Republicans. The USA is officially governed no different than a banana republic.
www.vox.com/2015/3/2/8120063/american-democracy-doomed

Obamacare’s problems were crafted by Senator Joe Lieberman. Traitor Joe is gone from the Senate, mostly because he screwed both the Democrats and the Republicans over Obamacare, but what Joe wanted while in power, Joe got, thanks to Senate rules. Amusingly, Joe was a half-ass Democrat, total-ass Republican. During his re-election bid in 2006, he lost the Democratic Party primary election but won re-election in the general election as a third party candidate under the "Connecticut for Lieberman" party label with 70% of Republicans voting for Joe. Lieberman himself was never a member of the party named after Joe, but instead Joe remained a registered Democrat while he ran. Joe is the reason why Obamacare is a weird piece of legislation and the US Constitution is weirdly constructed to allow pipsqueaks like Joe from minor states like Connecticut to have a major influence on the USA.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Lieberman

What was Senator Joe Lieberman's motive for screwing up Obamacare? He was trying to protect health insurance companies based in his state, Connecticut.

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

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Friday, November 4, 2016 3:33 AM

1KIKI

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.

It's not just the premiums going up. It's the co-pays going up, the number of services that aren't covered going up, the medications dropped from the formularies along with the copay increases; the cost for doctor's visits and health care ... and it's things that have never been covered, like catastrophic health care, or PT, OT, rehab and adaptive services; long-term care isn't covered, or elder care, or hospice care ... or dental care ... So while Obamacare has some promising features, they don't go far enough towards improving health OR reducing cost - For example, screening services are free, but care is not. So, you can get screened for diabetes, or high blood pressure, but if you're found to have high blood pressure - then what?

One way to tell if Obamacare, through private insurance, is working is to look at medical bankruptcies:

http://amjmed.org/under-aca-medical-bankruptcy-continues/
Under #ACA, Medical Bankruptcy Continues
January 12, 2016 Comments Off

By 2010, when the Affordable Care Act was passed ... A 2009 study ... revealed that 62.1% of all bankruptcies had a medical cause.

Two years later, Himmelstein et al looked at medical bankruptcy in Massachusetts, which had “Romneycare”, the health insurance reform plan after which the ACA was modeled. Although Romneycare greatly expanded health insurance coverage to Massachusetts residents, it didn’t decrease medical bankruptcies significantly because underinsurance was widespread.

What accounts for the seemingly paradoxical trends of increasing coverage yet stable, or even increasing (on a per capita basis), medical bankruptcy rates? Health costs in the state have increased sharply since reform was enacted.

Fast forward to today. Has Obamacare done better than Romneycare in terms of ending medical bankruptcy? Both plans dramatically expanded coverage to millions of people, but as with Romneycare, patients and their families are still struggling to pay their medical bills with Obamacare.

Another is to look at 'outcomes'. And while it's probably far too early to look at lifespan and/or healthy lifespan to see if Obamacare is 'working', a look at preterm birth rate, low infant weight, and infant mortality might give an indication:
http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr64/nvsr64_06.pdf
the preterm birth rate (based on a change in measure ie, they changed how they measured it from 2013 to 2014, so the numbers aren't comparable) was down in 2014 to 9.57%. The low birthweight rate was essentially unchanged in 2014 at 8.00%.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/195950/infant-mortality-rate-in-th
e-united-states-since-1990/
Infant mortality shows a continuing drop from ~2004, probably related to the lower numbers of teen births, but doesn't show a dramatic shift with Obamacare.

There's also overall cost. With all its gaps and holes and shortfalls, and with all it's failed to accomplish, the US overall medical bill still costs 70% more per person than Canada's, which covers all but elective care.

Perhaps people can find other numbers to look at. This is as far as I can take this tonight - I'm not seeing improvements in numbers due to Obamacare.

I TOLD YOU SO will be very sweet indeed, and repeated often.

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Friday, November 4, 2016 9:10 AM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Yeah, somehow just shoving more people into the maw of the insurance companies with even more government lubricant doesn't sound good for

1) The people, or
2) The Federal deficit.

Yanno, I;m not all tweaked about the Federal deficit like some people are. If you want to know where the REAL debt problem is, just look at the derivatives market, which dwarfs the Federal deficit by ...oh, I dunno ... 3000X?

(Federal deficit to USA GDP 1:50; USA GDP to world GDP 1:6; derivatives debt to world GDP 1:10 to 1:6)

OTOH, I want MY TAX DOLLARS to go towards something useful! And subsidizing the health insurance bottom line is not a useful expenditure - they and the hospital corporations etc have screwed up our medical care for over 50 years; I think they've had their shot at making it work and should be cycled out of consideration.

But throwing more government (tax) money AT CORPORATIONS has turned into a real liberal mantra; I don't think the liberals around here realize what corner they've walked themselves into.

Hillary is a WAR CANDIDATE, and that's just what we need, right? More war?

G, THUGR, MAL4: Oh BTW, please define intelligence.
http://www.fireflyfans.net/mthread.aspx?bid=18&tid=60903&p=4#1
018100

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Friday, November 4, 2016 11:23 PM

6IXSTRINGJACK

Hey Second,

Obamacare will never be self-sustainable for at least 2 reasons I can personally give, unless we can get to the root of the cause and lower the cost of medical care itself. (And yes, I'm one of the 2 reasons).

1. Currently, while unemployed, I pay $1 per month for health insurance. It is actually free for me, but if I pay that $1 per month, I am on the "Plus" plan that also gives me limited dental and vision insurance, as well as steep discounts on prescription drugs.

When I was working a minimum wage job, the most I ever paid per month was $13.75 a month for the same insurance. It could have been free for me then as well, but the $13.75 maintained the "Plus" coverage. On top of that, I wasn't really paying anyone. Any money I paid was my personal contribution to an HSA type of account that would go toward any costs for things that weren't covered.

2. My Grandma's niece was diagnosed with a terrible neurological disorder a few years back. I can't remember the name, but it's somewhere in between MS and ALS. Luckily, her mother's house was paid for when she passed, but the disease rendered her unable to work. She was on SSDI, food stamps and the energy assistance program.... but she was so bad that some days she couldn't even get out of bed.

My dad and step mom recently visited her and he said he was amazed. She was up and about. She put on a lot of weight with all that down time, but he said it was night and day the difference since the last time he saw her.

She said she was on some experimental drug. It costs over $200k per year.

My dad asked how she could afford that and she said that Obamacare takes care of it. Under Obamacare, it is illegal for a company to preclude you from the insurance because you have a pre-existing condition.

Meanwhile, my Dad doesn't need insurance because he's got VA benefits. But his 46 year old wife does, and will for many more years. Her insurance was only $150 a month with a $6k deductible 3 years ago. He just got the 39% increase in the mail this year and the exact same insurance is costing him $322 per month and the deductible has risen to $7,100 per year.

That was two nearly 40% increases per year, back to back.

Honestly, I don't think that's the Insurance Companies being greedy, Second....

This is the Insurance Companies fighting for their lives. They're being forced into something they weren't designed to be a part of. They were in the business of making money, as any business was designed to.

My Grandma's Niece has a pre-existing condition. She didn't have insurance. She applies for Obamacare in Illinois, and nearly immediately she's up and walking around with some miracle drug that she didn't pay a dime for.

The Insurance Company paid for it though. $200k in one year.

Of course the people who have money are going to have to pay more for it.

Personally, I haven't actually cost the system any money because I've only gotten two cheap perscriptions filled in the last 2 or so years, but if I were making 50k per year, I'd be expected to pay at least $3,500/yr for the same insurance that I'm paying $12/yr for now.

You can't "force" anyone to pay for it, no matter how high you raise the taxes.

I avoid a $900.00 income tax penalty right now by not working and getting free health care. Go ahead and raise that penalty to $3,500 a year, and I'll still avoid the penalty by not working or by working a minimum wage job that precludes me from having to pay.

Do you suggest that the yearly Tax Penalty should increase 40% every year to match the increases in Obamacare costs for the middle class?

You're out here cutting the tail off the snake and it keeps growing back again as long as you're looking at the insurance part of it.

If you want to make some true progress, you need to delve deeper and cut the head off the snake by putting the hospitals, the medical professionals and especially DRUG Inc. on notice.

The Insurance Companies are just as Fucked as we are now. I actually kind of feel sorry for them.

Meanwhile, if you peel away that layer, it's what lies beneath that is truly making all of the money off of our fear of dying.

Do Right, Be Right. :)

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Tuesday, December 6, 2016 11:51 PM

1KIKI

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.

http://www.dddmag.com/news/2016/12/us-healthcare-costs-see-fastest-gro
wth-8-years

US Healthcare Costs See Fastest Growth in 8 Years

The nation's health care tab grew at the fastest rate in eight years in 2015, driven by the coverage expansion in President Barack Obama's law and by costly prescription drugs, the government said Friday.

The growth of 5.8 percent in 2015 boosted total health care spending to $3.2 trillion. That's an average of $9,990 per person, although the vast share of that money is spent caring for the sickest patients.

Health spending grew about 2 percentage points faster than the overall economy in 2015, said the report from nonpartisan economic experts at the Department of Health and Human Services.

How did your beloved 'democratic' party fuck up so badly?

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Wednesday, December 7, 2016 12:00 AM

1KIKI

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.

http://www.dddmag.com/news/2016/09/mylan-ceo-defends-epipen-pricing-co
ngressional-hearing
http://www.dddmag.com/news/2016/09/mylan-ceo-set-defend-epipen-prices-
amid-public-outcry

http://www.dddmag.com/news/2016/10/house-panel-mylan-ceo-minimized-epi
pen-profits-testimony

The list price of EpiPens has grown to $608 for a two-pack, an increase of more than 500 percent since 2007.

Leaders of the House Oversight Committee want EpiPen maker Mylan to explain why the company's CEO apparently misled Congress about profits the company claimed for the life-saving EpiPen injection device.

Mylan CEO Heather Bresch repeatedly told the panel last month that Mylan made just $50 in profit for EpiPens sold for more than $300 apiece. But lawmakers said i... Before taxes, the EpiPen profit is actually $160 for a two-pack, said committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz of Utah and Rep. Elijah Cummings of Maryland, the panel's senior Democrat.

In almost four hours of questioning, Bresch at times seemed unsure, or declined to answer directly, when asked about the company's finances and profits. At one point during the hearing, Chaffetz told Bresch that Mylan's "dumbed down financials" did not make sense without explanation.

How did your beloved 'democratic' party fuck up so badly?

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