How to Protect Yourself From Obamacare

[Conan71]

Those precise words can be used to describe health insurance. It is there to protect the hospital and the doctors from getting stiffed when you can't pay. And it's not as if this is a rare issue. Uncompensated care was $41 billion in 2011. It's as much a matter of responsibility as liability insurance on your auto. You don't get a choice as to whether or not you carry insurance because the hospital and doctors working there don't get a choice as to whether or not they try to keep you from dying.

That's nowhere close to an accurate comparison and you know it.



The price of health care already takes into consideration expected losses from charge-off.  No different than how retail business adds in shrinkage from theft and spoilage into the prices you pay at the register.  

All Obamacare accomplishes by heavily subsidizing insurance for those who would have been charge-offs before is simply tax the other users of the system via penalty or higher premium costs.  It really doesn't solve any problem by the time you wash it out.  Rate payers still end up picking up the tab for non-rate payers, it's just the payment point is re-jiggered assuming that the price per procedure comes down as a result of ACA, which I don't see any initial signs that will be the case.

Keep in mind, 30 million Americans still will not have coverage.  That doesn't do a whole lot to mitigate charge offs as hospitals can't turn away someone with critical injuries and no way to pay.

When we talk about the Affordable Care Act, we mostly focus on the millions of Americans who will gain health insurance coverage. We talk less about the millions who will remain uninsured.
And there are a lot of them: 30 million Americans will not have coverage under Obamacare, according to a new analysis in the journal Health Affairs.
"Even if the law were fully implemented, there would have been 26 million uninsured people," co-author Steffie Woolhandler said in an interview Thursday. "This isn't just about the Medicaid expansion. This is the system as originally designed."
Thirty million is a lot smaller than the 48.6 million Americans who lack insurance coverage right now. It's also, as Woolhandler points out, not exactly breaking news: The Congressional Budget Office estimated over a year ago that between 26 million and 27 million Americans would not have insurance under the expansion.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/06/07/obamacare-leaves-millions-uninsured-heres-who-they-are/

Granted, there is also the part of the law that is more about improving outcomes (and thus lowering lifetime cost) by getting earlier treatment, which is why qualifying plans are required to be relatively comprehensive. At present, people wait until they're on Medicare to get stuff treated that would be cheaper if treatment was begun earlier in life, driving the cost of that program up. We shouldn't be allowed to foist our costs onto hospitals and doctors and insurance companies should not be allowed to foist their costs onto Medicare.

Regardless of how accessible you make health care there are simply some people who won't go to the doctor until that lump on the side of their neck is the size of an orange or until those nagging headaches are now accompanied by vertigo and black-out sessions.  People are naturally afraid of bad news.  If someone buys a bronze plan with a high co-pay due to household budget concerns, they still won't prioritize going to the doctor because they can't afford the office visit cost.

There needs to be a whole lot more awareness of a proactive approach to health.  That's the primary reason other countries have better "outcomes".  They commute by foot and bicycle more.  Their governments ban suspect food additives, and people's attitudes about diet and health are much different than ours are.  Americans are far too accustomed to making poor choices based on convenience.  I consider myself very blessed that I no longer have to travel quite a bit in my career.  I can make better intake choices and have time for exercise as well as commuting to work by bicycle when it's convenient.

The single best things I've done to improve my outcomes since I turned 40 are quitting tobacco use, losing 60 pounds, changing my eating habits to avoid suspected and known carcinogens and agents which help cause all sorts of allergies, making daily exercise a priority.  I've always done annual check-ups and gone to the Dr. when I knew "something wasn't right".  

That in itself wouldn't result in better outcomes if I still had a cigarette hanging out of my mouth and I weighed 225 pounds.

[Conan71]

Daily Kos "diarist" has been hit in the face with the reality of ACA:

My wife and I just got our updates from Kaiser telling us what our 2014 rates will be. Her monthly has been $168 this year, mine $150. We have a high deductible. We are generally healthy people who don't go to the doctor often. I barely ever go. The insurance is in case of a major catastrophe.

Well, now, because of Obamacare, my wife's rate is gong to $302 per month and mine is jumping to $284.

I am canceling insurance for us and I am not paying any bucking penalty. What the hell kind of reform is this?

Oh, ok, if we qualify, we can get some government assistance. Great. So now I have to jump through another hoop to just chisel some of this off. And we don't qualify, anyway, so what's the point?

I never felt too good about how this was passed and what it entailed, but I figured if it saved Americans money, I could go along with it.

I don't know what to think now. This appears, in my experience, to not be a reform for the people.

What am I missing?

I realize I will probably get screamed at for posting this, but I can't imagine I am the only Californian who just received a rate increase from Kaiser based on these new laws.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/09/30/1242660/-Obamacare-will-double-my-monthly-premium

[Cats Cats Cats]

Sounds like they don't want in the HDHP game any more.

[swake]

Daily Kos "diarist" has been hit in the face with the reality of ACA:

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/09/30/1242660/-Obamacare-will-double-my-monthly-premium

These are the people that are going to pay more. The people that only have the catastrophic coverage. ACA requires certain minimum levels of coverage that are more expensive than what just catastrophic covered.

[heironymouspasparagus]

My coverage goes up about $30 a month.  Less than 10% increase...three years ago it went up by $64 a month with no particular justification at all.  So, no biggie....

[nathanm]

Unfortunately "saving Americans money" does not mean "saving every individual American money," at least in the short run. In the long run, probably, if the Heritage Foundation was right back when they were for it before they were against it and it does actually bend the cost curve downward. And even then, it's savings in the sense of lower growth in cost, not actual decline.

Young people's costs go up, old people's costs go down, and a bunch of people who couldn't previously get health insurance at any price now can. Unless your insurance-sponsoring employer hasn't been unnecessarily messing with their plans, in which case things remain about the same for you, except that the cost increases have slowed. (Whether or not due to Obamacare, it is what has happened)

[Conan71]

My coverage goes up about $30 a month.  Less than 10% increase...three years ago it went up by $64 a month with no particular justification at all.  So, no biggie....

So did many others.  Our company's outlay for health premiums has gone up by 50% over three years.  The primary reason claimed is a direct result of the passage of Obamacare.

Sorry, I'm just gloating about the people who only heard: "The average family's premium costs will go down $2500 per year." and bought it hook line and sinker.

[RecycleMichael]

Sorry, I'm just gloating about the people who only heard: "The average family's premium costs will go down $2500 per year." and bought it hook line and sinker.

Just like many were convinced there was going to be death panels.

[Cats Cats Cats]

My coverage goes up about $30 a month.  Less than 10% increase...three years ago it went up by $64 a month with no particular justification at all.  So, no biggie....

I'm also not seeing my insurance go up a whole lot. Nothing more than I would normally expect given the last 10 years of increases. I guess it is a miracle.

[Gaspar]

Investigation into Obamacare launch now being launched!. . .by Democrats.

[heironymouspasparagus]

So did many others.  Our company's outlay for health premiums has gone up by 50% over three years.  The primary reason claimed is a direct result of the passage of Obamacare.

Sorry, I'm just gloating about the people who only heard: "The average family's premium costs will go down $2500 per year." and bought it hook line and sinker.

The highest increases I have experienced were WAY before Affordable Care Act.  What I expect is with more people covered, over the next several years, my subsidizing of uninsured will let those increases be more reasonable.

Tweaking (to improve) the current law will be necessary to make it work better.  As of the last couple years, I have a dependent grandkid on insurance who would have fallen off.  Big relief.

And pre-existing conditions can kiss my fat furry small horse-like creature that can carry small bundled loads!  Well, I don't actually have any pre-existing, but if I did, they could kiss it!!

[Gaspar]

I'm also not seeing my insurance go up a whole lot. Nothing more than I would normally expect given the last 10 years of increases. I guess it is a miracle.

Wow!  Ours did.  United pooped out because of the new regs, so our company had to purchase a similar plan from BCBS this year.  That took ours up around 30% for the same coverage.  

[swake]

Health insurance premiums this year were expected to be about 5% up from last year. That growth rate was projected as a 15 year low.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/brucejapsen/2013/03/07/health-costs-slow-to-lowest-rate-in-15-years-as-employer-commitment-to-benefits-wanes/

In reality premiums came in even lower than that, at around a 4% increase.
http://kff.org/private-insurance/report/2013-employer-health-benefits/  

This despite an increase in benefits by removing preexisting conditions, lifetime maximums and raising the age that children age out to 26.

[RecycleMichael]

So far what I have learned from this thread is that premiums went way up for republicans and not so much for democrats.

That is some trick.

[Cats Cats Cats]

So far what I have learned from this thread is that premiums went way up for republicans and not so much for democrats.

That is some trick.

Or you either are or work for people who don't know what they are doing.