GOP's Obamacare replacement bill would protect just 5 percent of people with pre-existing conditions
- Thread starter moe
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"Cost of insurance" is how you divy up the cost of health care. It was fine before ACA started screwing around with it: Majority could take care of their healthcare and feds bear the burden of the outliers.
The cost of healthcare continues to skyrocket and noone has touched it.
No it wasn't. A cancer diagnosis was a death sentence unless you were very wealthy or had very good coverage through some big company. I know some self-employed contractors that were diagnosed with cancer and they couldn't afford the insurance premiums. ACA saved their lives.
That would be true if Health Insurance was a true free market.
You can't apply the same Supply/Demand logic to the pricing of Health Insurance that you apply to other products.
The vast amount of money spent in health care is a result of a small percentage of people.
Really?.....you must live in a very small world. Many people with zero coverage were able to beat it. You actually think most hospitals throw people out on the street?
You think hospitals treat cancer patients that cannot pay, when each treatment costs tens of thousands of dollars?
Yes.....I know they do. That is why the prices of many treatments have gone thru the roof. The only solution for all people to have coverage is to have a single payer system. And that option opens up an entirely new set of problems......Thousands of people have died in countries that have it while waiting for treatment. However...I think it's the best answer at this time.
Were thousands dying every year prior to the ACA that we don't know about?
Most people, if they couldn't afford insurance had other routes, such as Medicaid.
Unfortunately, the Medicaid program is an example of the abuse of a "single payer" system. People on this board would never dare to go into the homes that some of these Medicaid patients lived in, and deal with them like my wife did when she was a travel nurse. The shear number of people abusing that system, taking advantage of it, and then bitching to her about it, when her hard work was going to fund them receiving the benefit... Spend a couple years doing that and you'll understand why the ACA was such a ******* joke.
My point is everyone wants the latest and greatest when it comes to healthcare...even when it may not be the most appropriate route to go...that drives cost.
Exactly!
It's not "insurance" if you're asking your policy to pay for already damaged assets or if you are already sick.
Your homeowner's insurance policy is not the same or even written if adjusters come out see your home in need of extensive repairs. Your automobile insurance policy is not the same or even written if your car is riddled with dents and in need of a paint job.
You can still purchase insurance for those assets, but you will pay more for your premiums due to expected losses from your insurer. Ditto if your driving record shows you are a poor risk. Same if your home is vulnerable to weather, fire, or other damages.
If you are purchasing health insurance and you are already sick, it is going to cost you more by default than for someone who is healthy. Insurance companies are not going to take a loss on you, they are taking a risk, and betting they don't have to pay you more than they collect from you in premiums.
If you are sick, that risk they are taking on you is increased, so it's going to cost you more to insure with them, and they will spread your risk across many other policy holders by charging them more too to offset your anticipated loss.
You too also take a risk, deciding to pay the premiums of company X as opposed to higher premiums from company Y because company X has a greater or larger risk pool to spread their risk out over you, thus offering you a lower price for your premium.
Insurance choice works for homeowner's policies, automobile policies, Life policies, and private property policies so why can't it also work for health care policies?
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Agree, It's move in the right direction. Due to politics, I have trouble seeing this mess getting corrected within the walls of congress. The left will continually wheel out patients dissatisfied with their poor treatment for a stubbed toe under any plan the GOP proposes.
Yep, eventually people will start dying from stubbed toes (overstatement) because that's how well government works at just about anything.
Excepting the Vets (ugh) we've always taken care of those in need. We are not known as the Country that says "FU, you're going to die." Prices ARE a problem and Congress is complicit. Congress brought Drug Companies before them and ask them how they could charge $1,000/pill (Savaldi(sp) for Hep C) and the answer "Because you said we could." In this give and take world, Congress negotiated higher prices for a shorter patent time. Big Pharm has convinced people it takes a billion dollars to create a drug. Now we have Harvoni and its 97 % Hep C cure rate for $1,400/pill. There is no way Harvoni took its own path from a separate beginning point, but rather piggy backed on previous research. Hence, a mere tweaking. Medical costs are what needs to be assaulted, not Tax Payers.
Glad they're alive, but it wasn't the ACA that saved them. Things aren't what they seem or what you hope they will be, Herr Marx.
People have to stop using insurance to pay for routine care, and care providers have to be realistic in what they charge customers who are paying for services without using insurance. we need true market competition to drive those costs down.
You don't use your homeowner's insurance to paint, remodel, or keep up with your property. You use it to pay for catasrophic or total loss. Same with your auto insurance. Healh care providers charge way beyond market costs to administer care because they know insurance companies will pay those bills. Insurance companies then turn around and charge policy holders for those costs, and no one knows what actual costs are because the Government comes in mandating care or offering subsidies to folks who either have no insurance or can't pay with their own insurance for care they need.
So the whole business model is blown way out of proportion, and no one charges what good quality care actually costs to provide. Progressive, State Farm, Geico and others can't charge whatever they want in order to sell policies because they are restrained by competition. They must compete for premium dollars by offering choices and low cost policies to consumers who then do not use their automobile insurance to get oil changes.
Health insurance needs to be subjected to the same market forces, and used in the same way as homeowner's insurance and automobile insurance policies are used and sold.
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How is this a "Tax cut for the rich".
Are people considering the repeal of the ACA tax increases as tax cuts?
Cutting the ACA Tax out on the wealthy isn't a tax cut?