djAdvocate
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Post by djAdvocate on Oct 3, 2015 10:42:22 GMT -5
You've had several people here state that insurance rates actually went down or were stabilized for the most part, and that theplans that went up were bare bones policies that did not offer basic coverage. For instance I once had a plan that was useless if you got cancer. Sure, the insurance was cheaper, but would you want it? Yes they went down in HCOL areas but shot WAY up in LCOL areas - you know, areas where people couldn't quite afford to pay what constitutes a second rent/mortgage payment.
And the poor were once again subsidized while the middle class once again got f'ed over.
that makes sense, actually. this is probably WHY the ACA is so wildly unpopular in the red counties- most of them are in LCOL areas.
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djAdvocate
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Post by djAdvocate on Oct 3, 2015 10:43:57 GMT -5
Deductible level is a choice that the people/ company that administers your plan makes. It can be low or high. Ours is 5K.
Healthcare is very expensive, no doubt. Some of it is duplicative, some of it is because of waste, and some is because of questionable care. Even without these aggravating factors though, it is a major expense. This is all the more apparent in LCOL areas I guess. i guess. but here, HI is about 2/3 what an apartment costs. THERE (wherever jk is) it is ALSO about 2/3 what an apartment costs.
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Politically_Incorrect12
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Post by Politically_Incorrect12 on Oct 3, 2015 10:47:10 GMT -5
Like any issue of national importance, this was approached like war: sacrifice few for the well being of the many! Who doesn't like it could choose a different path/nation where he/she has advantage because of their beliefs in personal superiority. Love it or leave it (the liberal version). And if you don't like it, it's because you think "X."
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Post by The Walk of the Penguin Mich on Oct 3, 2015 12:57:40 GMT -5
You mean Obamacare is expensive for those who aren't subsidized? My health insurance is not subsidized.
The health insurance my company carries went DOWN after the ACA was passed, for the first and only time ever. This year we had a mild rate increase, but it was only about 3%. I've been told that this was because of increased competition. Thank you Obamacare! *
Regardless, I still pay almost $1,000.00 / mo. for my wife and I. A single employee pays about $400.00/ mo. We have a relatively old age average in our "group". It is expensive. Healthcare is expensive.
* I do think that "Obamacare" was the result of what was possible to do politically to start us on the road to care for all in the USA. It is far from perfect, a first step only. Eventually we will hopefully combine all of our independent systems into one more cost effective system for all- no VA, no Medicare, no PP, no Medicaid. Healthcare. Our premiums here went way up...try 100% up. And what is your deductible on the insurance? The deductibles increased almost 200%.
The cheapest insurance (bronze-type) in our area is $250/month and is going to go up to about $295/month next year. Thats an 18% increase. You can rent a decent (no-frills) apartment in the area for $375-400/month. It won't be long before thecost of insurance greatly overtakes the cost of rent in this area.
My group plan insurance for a single person was $550/mo. My total OOP for the fiscal year was $6500 (my illness fell over 2 insurance fiscal years, thus $13k + of OOP from Dec to Dec.). What you pay for rent is no basis for comparison. If you lived in NYC, you'd likely pay about the same for a Bronze policy, but a cheap apartment would cost you $2000/mo.
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zibazinski
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Post by zibazinski on Oct 3, 2015 15:47:39 GMT -5
It was never meant to be affordable. It was meant to stick it to taxpayers to pay more for the uninsured. I'm surprised they haven't started taxing the insurance you get from your place of work but that'll be any minute now.
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jkapp
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Post by jkapp on Oct 3, 2015 16:27:43 GMT -5
"Cheap insurance" or lower premiums with high deductible is just a minimal requirement by the new law. In its own is a contradiction. I wouldn't even call that insurance. Before ACA there was something similar that we generally called disaster insurance. For how much money we as a nation, private and government bundled, spend on staying healthy, we could have universal health care for everybody. Problem is that in such a case we would get rid of Health Insurance carriers, a useless middle man. If one needs to go see a doctor, then one goes to see a doctor after ofcourse setting up an appointment. I lived in places where health care was universal and had no problems nor seen any. By removing the middle man, the risk is that we will remove many jobs, many of them being of high pay. We, as a nation, like dealing with the midle man for some unknown reason. Yet, when we have to pay the dues we start complaining about the price. Remove the midle man and you have lower prices, allow regulation on pharmaceutical companies and their product, etc Health coverage is a much much more complicated issue that high/low premiums and such. It is more related to everyone's mentality of "right to choice" and as much as we hate to admit it, related to "I'm better than this guy next to me because I drive a better car and I make more money. So why do we get to see the sme doctor and he is in front of me? I should be first!"
When we will make our peace with and understand that "all men are created equal!" we will have single payer. In the mean time, as it was already said, ACA lowered our premiums and as far as I'm concerned it is t least a decent if not good approach to health care. Like any issue of national importance, this was approached like war: sacrifice few for the well being of the many! Who doesn't like it could choose a different path/nation where he/she has advantage because of their beliefs in personal superiority. Riiiiight...so then it becomes "everyone gets the same level of care but at progressive prices." So someone making $40k a year gets to pay double the price for healthcare as someone who makes $20k, but both get the same level of care.
How about we apply that to everything? You make $60k a year, so you pay double the rent of someone who makes $30k a year, for the same type of apartment. Doesn't that sound like a great system? It sure makes people want to succeed doesn't it? Can the left side of the aisle ever promote anything that doesn't screw over one group of people in order to support another group?
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jkapp
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Post by jkapp on Oct 3, 2015 16:34:36 GMT -5
Our premiums here went way up...try 100% up. And what is your deductible on the insurance? The deductibles increased almost 200%.
The cheapest insurance (bronze-type) in our area is $250/month and is going to go up to about $295/month next year. Thats an 18% increase. You can rent a decent (no-frills) apartment in the area for $375-400/month. It won't be long before thecost of insurance greatly overtakes the cost of rent in this area.
$250!!!! OMFG!!!!! that is less than 1/4 what i pay!!!!! $400 for an APT ?? that is 1/3 of what they go for here!!!! wow. you are so incredibly lucky bro. i envy you muchly. Yes, $250 - and another $6000 if you want to use it (remember, its the lowest level plan).
Not to mention that the salaries are much lower in this area too, bro. Average salary in my area is ~$49k.
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djAdvocate
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Post by djAdvocate on Oct 3, 2015 17:06:44 GMT -5
It was never meant to be affordable. It was meant to stick it to taxpayers to pay more for the uninsured. I'm surprised they haven't started taxing the insurance you get from your place of work but that'll be any minute now. no. it was not meant to "stick it" to anyone. it was meant to get people covered. it ACCOMPLISHED that by "sticking it" to people. it was meant to stop uninsured people from showing up at the Emergency room and getting "free" care (which has been the law since Reagan signed it). i have no idea whether it has accomplished that. but i do know this: the percentage of the US public that is uninsured will likely drop to the lowest level in 50+ years of record keeping in 2015.
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djAdvocate
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Post by djAdvocate on Oct 3, 2015 17:07:51 GMT -5
$250!!!! OMFG!!!!! that is less than 1/4 what i pay!!!!! $400 for an APT ?? that is 1/3 of what they go for here!!!! wow. you are so incredibly lucky bro. i envy you muchly. Yes, $250 - and another $6000 if you want to use it (remember, its the lowest level plan).
really? you have to pay $6k to visit a doctor? wow. that really sucks.
Not to mention that the salaries are much lower in this area too, bro. Average salary in my area is ~$49k.
also well above the $42k i mentioned earlier. you are a lucky devil, bro.
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zibazinski
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Post by zibazinski on Oct 3, 2015 17:11:24 GMT -5
Well, illegals still show up and get care and then we don't even deport their asses. That is totally F'd up. DD says most people her age just pay the fine. DS says the same thing. So, once again, like prohibition, you can't force an unpopular law. People go around it. Btw, when my tax guy asked if I had health insurance, I just said yes. Never even had to prove it.
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mroped
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Post by mroped on Oct 3, 2015 17:19:17 GMT -5
Regardless of what one side or the other or both of them combined come up with as far as HI plans and how is funded, there will always be a segment of the population that will feel taken advantage off. ACA in some way sticks it to the low income by requiring them to purchase HI or so some of us/you claim. But those with low income qualify for subsidies. Now you get the midle class offended because they have to pay the bill for those that make too little. And the argument goes on and on!
Personally, I believe that a fixed percentage tax should be levied on income with the purpose of covering HI. Midle man should be eliminated. You go to the doctor, doctor sets you up, fixes you(or not) a bill gets forwarded to the government, the government pays. That ofcourse would require hiring personnel that would handle the volume of paperwork and payment. (And now let the bitching begin about the expansion of government)
nonetheless, the left side of the isle come up with this banged up idea of Afordable Care Act, wrote it up in such a convoluted way that even their own didn't entirely read, made concession after concession to pretty much everybody that asked for and manage somehow to pass and thus putting a minor damper on the rapidly rising costs of health insurance. But it did manage to cover an extra 10 million or so of uninsured and to utterly anger the far right...or the right as a whole.
Let's assume that I concur with some here and say: oh man, this thing is horrible and the democrats screwed us big time! The question is: what did the right side( republican) do beside opposing it and fighting to repeal it? Do they have a better idea? If so where is it?
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Post by Deleted on Oct 3, 2015 18:39:11 GMT -5
I may have mentioned this before...
I'm on a 100% subsidized "Bronze" plan at a cost of $178/month to the taxpayers. I have a $5,800 deductible before they pay ANYTHING. then they cover everything above $6,500.
The bad part about that? Maybe if they covered doctor visits and tests and x-rays and stuff... I'd never NEED (basically) catastrophic coverage... because a small issue could be caught before it turned into a big issue.
Good news though... I do get 2 free PAP smears a year, including all the costs of the OB/GYN visit + free Pre-natal visits if I ever get pregnant!
Isn't that great!?
Edited: made a typo. the "premium" is $178/month not $278/month. Apologies for that. (still a complete waste of money though)
ETA: in the name of full disclosure, the "insurance" does cover ONE "scheduled well-visit"... but no tests or any further visits to discuss the results of those tests nor any treatments because of anything found in those tests. So, basically, they cover: If I'm healthy I can go see a doctor so she can tell me I'm healthy.
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chiver78
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Post by chiver78 on Oct 3, 2015 20:23:51 GMT -5
Well, illegals still show up and get care and then we don't even deport their asses. That is totally F'd up. DD says most people her age just pay the fine. DS says the same thing. So, once again, like prohibition, you can't force an unpopular law. People go around it. Btw, when my tax guy asked if I had health insurance, I just said yes. Never even had to prove it. that's pretty surprising, actually. I live in MA, where "Romneycare" went into effect a number of years before the ACA. each year when I go to my tax lady, one of the things I have to bring her is my 1099-HC - proof of health insurance coverage for the full calendar year.
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chiver78
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Post by chiver78 on Oct 3, 2015 20:37:01 GMT -5
as I just posted, I live in MA. we have had "Romneycare" - health insurance mandate w/a tax penalty - for a number of years prior to the ACA. the state has not imploded, the hospitals have not been overrun. a fair number of young adults do choose to pay the tax penalty for not carrying coverage, but the majority of people I know do carry coverage....especially now, since the ACA and the exchanges.
as far as my own experience, I don't think I can really give an opinion. Romneycare went into effect in 2006, so the new laws took effect for 2007. I didn't notice any change in my premiums that year, and the company I worked for had a pretty platinum package. we were taken over by a French company in the spring of 2011, the parent company's policies took effect starting 2012. their benefits pretty much sucked in comparison to what I was used to before, and then the ACA's rules took effect a little later. I don't really remember which sucky benefits were due to the ACA or the parent company changing the rules, but I don't think the ACA made things worse for me - for ME. I am paying a single premium, and I'm generally a healthy person.
now this year, I've changed jobs and I have new coverage. I think the coverage sucks, but my new company is headquartered out of state, so the BCBS isn't a MA base. that's nothing I can change, nor was I inclined to do so while in the process of changing jobs. but I also figured that I would see what happened for the 2nd half of the year and check out the exchange when it comes time for open enrollment for 2016. I may decide to branch out on my own and not take employer-subsidized coverage. that, to me, is the benefit of the ACA over the Romneycare mandate - we didn't get the exchange until the ACA. you were still pretty much on your own without employer coverage, but you also had the tax penalty if you didn't carry coverage. from a MA perspective, I think the ACA is an improvement for sure.
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happyhoix
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Post by happyhoix on Oct 5, 2015 7:40:27 GMT -5
You've had several people here state that insurance rates actually went down or were stabilized for the most part, and that theplans that went up were bare bones policies that did not offer basic coverage. For instance I once had a plan that was useless if you got cancer. Sure, the insurance was cheaper, but would you want it? Yes they went down in HCOL areas but shot WAY up in LCOL areas - you know, areas where people couldn't quite afford to pay what constitutes a second rent/mortgage payment.
And the poor were once again subsidized while the middle class once again got f'ed over.
I'm not sure what you want. You want ACA to go away completely so that the working poor go back to being uninsured? Or are you just focused on you and your individual insurance rates? You're mad because the ACA didn't provide you with cheap insurance and you think the ACA should subsidize everyone? Surely you understand that the government can't afford to subsidize insurance for everyone? Healthcare is expensive. The most expensive in the world, but not the best in the world. There are many reasons for this, but the ACA isn't one of them. We absolutely need to continue to work on making our healthcare system cheaper for everyone, across the board, while at the same time, making it provide better healthcare for everyone. ACA didn't promise to fix everything. It just tried to provide a way for the uninsured working poor to have insurance. I would be interested to know what you propose to fix it. I haven't heard you or any of the Republican candidates say anything about ACA except that it's a horror story and they would get rid of it - what would you replace it with?
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happyhoix
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Post by happyhoix on Oct 5, 2015 7:47:29 GMT -5
Yes they went down in HCOL areas but shot WAY up in LCOL areas - you know, areas where people couldn't quite afford to pay what constitutes a second rent/mortgage payment.
And the poor were once again subsidized while the middle class once again got f'ed over.
that makes sense, actually. this is probably WHY the ACA is so wildly unpopular in the red counties- most of them are in LCOL areas. In Georgia, in the last election in our county, the Republicans got a question added to the ballot "do you think Obamacare should be repealed" - it was enthusiastically approved. At the same time, Democrats added the question "Do you think the government should subsidize healthcare for poor people' to the ballot, and that question was also enthusiastically approved. IMHO, the name 'obamacare' has been so villanized in this LCOL area that everyone reflexively wants to get rid of it, without realizing that it's providing subsidies so that poor people can have insurance.
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happyhoix
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Post by happyhoix on Oct 5, 2015 7:54:01 GMT -5
"Cheap insurance" or lower premiums with high deductible is just a minimal requirement by the new law. In its own is a contradiction. I wouldn't even call that insurance. Before ACA there was something similar that we generally called disaster insurance. For how much money we as a nation, private and government bundled, spend on staying healthy, we could have universal health care for everybody. Problem is that in such a case we would get rid of Health Insurance carriers, a useless middle man. If one needs to go see a doctor, then one goes to see a doctor after ofcourse setting up an appointment. I lived in places where health care was universal and had no problems nor seen any. By removing the middle man, the risk is that we will remove many jobs, many of them being of high pay. We, as a nation, like dealing with the midle man for some unknown reason. Yet, when we have to pay the dues we start complaining about the price. Remove the midle man and you have lower prices, allow regulation on pharmaceutical companies and their product, etc Health coverage is a much much more complicated issue that high/low premiums and such. It is more related to everyone's mentality of "right to choice" and as much as we hate to admit it, related to "I'm better than this guy next to me because I drive a better car and I make more money. So why do we get to see the sme doctor and he is in front of me? I should be first!"
When we will make our peace with and understand that "all men are created equal!" we will have single payer. In the mean time, as it was already said, ACA lowered our premiums and as far as I'm concerned it is t least a decent if not good approach to health care. Like any issue of national importance, this was approached like war: sacrifice few for the well being of the many! Who doesn't like it could choose a different path/nation where he/she has advantage because of their beliefs in personal superiority. Riiiiight...so then it becomes "everyone gets the same level of care but at progressive prices." So someone making $40k a year gets to pay double the price for healthcare as someone who makes $20k, but both get the same level of care.
How about we apply that to everything? You make $60k a year, so you pay double the rent of someone who makes $30k a year, for the same type of apartment. Doesn't that sound like a great system? It sure makes people want to succeed doesn't it? Can the left side of the aisle ever promote anything that doesn't screw over one group of people in order to support another group?
If you make 60K a year and want to live in a 20 year old single wide trailer for $50 a month, that's up to you. However, if you make 60K a year and want subsidized health insurance that I, as a tax payer, have to help pay for, that's another thing. You never know when you'll get cancer, break a leg or be in an accident. So you have to pay for insurance, which sucks, but the alternative is that you don't pay for insurance and a single hospital stay wipes out your savings, if you've got any, or the tax payers end up footing your bill, if you don't. You're pissed at the wrong thing. It isn't the ACA that's causing your problems, it's the high cost of healthcare, and we should all be pissed at that.
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djAdvocate
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Post by djAdvocate on Oct 5, 2015 13:34:12 GMT -5
no. it was not meant to "stick it" to anyone. it was meant to get people covered. it ACCOMPLISHED that by "sticking it" to people. it was meant to stop uninsured people from showing up at the Emergency room and getting "free" care (which has been the law since Reagan signed it). i have no idea whether it has accomplished that. but i do know this:the percentage of the US public that is uninsured will likely drop to the lowest level in 50+ years of record keeping in 2015. I'm not going to bother to post the two separate posts in threads past where I have posted studies that show that the 'free' preventative care hasn't reduced ER visits or higher priced follow up care... because they are overwhelmingly ignored because they don't fit the convenient narrative that we 'save money' by having 'free' preventative care. But to answer your question. No it hasn't accomplished it. Feel free to go back into my previous posts if you'd like to find the studies. really? i am a little surprised by that, given that half of the uninsured 3 years ago now have insurance.
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djAdvocate
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Post by djAdvocate on Oct 5, 2015 13:35:07 GMT -5
that makes sense, actually. this is probably WHY the ACA is so wildly unpopular in the red counties- most of them are in LCOL areas. In Georgia, in the last election in our county, the Republicans got a question added to the ballot "do you think Obamacare should be repealed" - it was enthusiastically approved. At the same time, Democrats added the question "Do you think the government should subsidize healthcare for poor people' to the ballot, and that question was also enthusiastically approved. IMHO, the name 'obamacare' has been so villanized in this LCOL area that everyone reflexively wants to get rid of it, without realizing that it's providing subsidies so that poor people can have insurance. this has been shown by pollsters asking these two questions: 1) do you favor the Affordable Care Act (ACA)? 2) do you favor ObamaCare? there is a 20% difference between those two questions.
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happyhoix
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Post by happyhoix on Oct 5, 2015 14:05:47 GMT -5
I'm not going to bother to post the two separate posts in threads past where I have posted studies that show that the 'free' preventative care hasn't reduced ER visits or higher priced follow up care... because they are overwhelmingly ignored because they don't fit the convenient narrative that we 'save money' by having 'free' preventative care. But to answer your question. No it hasn't accomplished it. Feel free to go back into my previous posts if you'd like to find the studies. really? i am a little surprised by that, given that half of the uninsured 3 years ago now have insurance. The study I looked at in detail concerned people without insurance who waited until they were really, really sick before they went to the ER for treatment - at that point they usually required a lot more treatment, at a much greater cost, than people who had insurance and went to their doctor when they got sick, rather than waiting and hoping they got better without medical intervention. For instance, someone with a cold that turned into a lung infection who waited until it was pneumonia before going to the ER, at which point they had to be hospitalized, vs people who went to a clinic and got an antibiotic before it got that bad. It also compared how people with chronic diseases like diabetes did better if they had insurance and went to a regular clinic where there was follow up care vs waiting until they had a serious issue and went to the ER - ER's don't usually do follow up care, especially for the uninsured. I haven't seen a study that looked just at 'preventative' care though.
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happyhoix
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Post by happyhoix on Oct 5, 2015 14:06:45 GMT -5
In Georgia, in the last election in our county, the Republicans got a question added to the ballot "do you think Obamacare should be repealed" - it was enthusiastically approved. At the same time, Democrats added the question "Do you think the government should subsidize healthcare for poor people' to the ballot, and that question was also enthusiastically approved. IMHO, the name 'obamacare' has been so villanized in this LCOL area that everyone reflexively wants to get rid of it, without realizing that it's providing subsidies so that poor people can have insurance. this has been shown by pollsters asking these two questions: 1) do you favor the Affordable Care Act (ACA)? 2) do you favor ObamaCare? there is a 20% difference between those two questions. I sometimes think there should be some kind of testing required before people are allowed to vote.
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Politically_Incorrect12
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Post by Politically_Incorrect12 on Oct 5, 2015 14:06:37 GMT -5
In Georgia, in the last election in our county, the Republicans got a question added to the ballot "do you think Obamacare should be repealed" - it was enthusiastically approved. At the same time, Democrats added the question "Do you think the government should subsidize healthcare for poor people' to the ballot, and that question was also enthusiastically approved. IMHO, the name 'obamacare' has been so villanized in this LCOL area that everyone reflexively wants to get rid of it, without realizing that it's providing subsidies so that poor people can have insurance. this has been shown by pollsters asking these two questions: 1) do you favor the Affordable Care Act (ACA)? 2) do you favor ObamaCare? there is a 20% difference between those two questions. Thinking that the poor should have subsidized healthcare (i.e. Medicaid) is not the same thing as thinking the ACA (aka Obamacare) is a train wreck. A lot of people don't like the ACA (some because they thing it doesn't go far enough and others because they think it's just a bad bill). As far as the difference in polling, some of that has to do with the name (i.e. who wouldn't agree with an "Affordable" care act until you realize it doesn't actually do it and who wants to agree with anything that has "Obama" in it).
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djAdvocate
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Post by djAdvocate on Oct 5, 2015 14:11:02 GMT -5
this has been shown by pollsters asking these two questions: 1) do you favor the Affordable Care Act (ACA)? 2) do you favor ObamaCare? there is a 20% difference between those two questions. Thinking that the poor should have subsidized healthcare (i.e. Medicaid) is not the same thing as thinking the ACA (aka Obamacare) is a train wreck. A lot of people don't like the ACA (some because they thing it doesn't go far enough and others because they think it's just a bad bill). precisely. that is why when you ask the question "do you favor repealing ObamaCare?", about 2/3 of respondents say NO. As far as the difference in polling, some of that has to do with the name (i.e. who wouldn't agree with an "Affordable" care act until you realize it doesn't actually do it and who wants to agree with anything that has "Obama" in it). asking people whether they like something about which they are profoundly ignorant doesn't strike me as sensible surveying.
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Politically_Incorrect12
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Post by Politically_Incorrect12 on Oct 5, 2015 14:40:55 GMT -5
Thinking that the poor should have subsidized healthcare (i.e. Medicaid) is not the same thing as thinking the ACA (aka Obamacare) is a train wreck. A lot of people don't like the ACA (some because they thing it doesn't go far enough and others because they think it's just a bad bill). precisely. that is why when you ask the question "do you favor repealing ObamaCare?", about 2/3 of respondents say NO.
And if you would have asked prior to the ACA being implemented, how many people were in favor of it...you probably would have gotten similar numbers. It's always harder to repeal a law once it's in place, even a bad one. If you asked how many people think healthcare for the poor should be subsidized, you probably wouldn't have gotten a different answer, and arguing against the ACA while thinking the poor should have subsidized healthcare aren't necessarily in disagreement. The disagreement with subsidizing healthcare for the poor seems more about how much than if it should be.
As far as the difference in polling, some of that has to do with the name (i.e. who wouldn't agree with an "Affordable" care act until you realize it doesn't actually do it and who wants to agree with anything that has "Obama" in it). asking people whether they like something about which they are profoundly ignorant about doesn't strike me as sensible surveying. People do it all the time during an election (i.e. voting for one candidate over another, even though they might agree more with the other candidate if you just asked them about individual stances on a variety of issues). If you just put stances on issues without the name or party of the person, you'd probably be surprised how many issues people agree with the candidate they say they wouldn't vote for in an election.
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happyhoix
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Post by happyhoix on Oct 5, 2015 14:46:10 GMT -5
I saw your studies. They refer to high deductible health care plans. I'm not an ACA expert but I thought for the very poor, the government off set the deductible?
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djAdvocate
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Post by djAdvocate on Oct 5, 2015 15:14:53 GMT -5
really? i am a little surprised by that, given that half of the uninsured 3 years ago now have insurance. The study I looked at in detail concerned people without insurance who waited until they were really, really sick before they went to the ER for treatment - . that doesn't concern me in the slightest. if people are INSURED, and they need a triple bypass surgery, i won't be paying for that. they will. through their insurance. that is what it is there for.
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djAdvocate
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Post by djAdvocate on Oct 5, 2015 15:16:01 GMT -5
asking people whether they like something about which they are profoundly ignorant about doesn't strike me as sensible surveying. People do it all the time during an election (i.e. voting for one candidate over another, even though they might agree more with the other candidate if you just asked them about individual stances on a variety of issues). If you just put stances on issues without the name or party of the person, you'd probably be surprised how many issues people agree with the candidate they say they wouldn't vote for in an election. so, we agree. good. asking people stuff that they don't know about is immaterial to the actual debate. edit: the way to go about this is to qualify people. ask them what the law does, FIRST, for example, and then survey based on how informed they are.
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Politically_Incorrect12
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Post by Politically_Incorrect12 on Oct 5, 2015 15:20:08 GMT -5
I saw your studies. They refer to high deductible health care plans. I'm not an ACA expert but I thought for the very poor, the government off set the deductible? Did you read the studies or even the abstracts? Delaying care for non-essential issues is kind of the purpose of HDHP..simply making the consumer make the choice over whether it is important enough to go into the doctor if they have to pay the first $X to do it. I would imagine that once the deductible is met, even those in the HDHP would have similar numbers as those who didn't have them with going to the doctor/ER (although that is only a guess on my part). It's also one of the discussions that comes up when trying to determine how much subsidized healthcare should be provided to the "poor" because on one hand you want them to have access, OTOH you don't necessarily want them to have exponentially better coverage than most people either. One of the issues that different healthcare providers have mentioned to me (all anecdotal of course) is that many times, especially if there is no cost associated with it, they have trouble getting people from lower socioeconomic backgrounds set up with a primary care doctor because "it's easier for them just to come to the ER since there isn't a wait." Again, it's all anecdotal, but pretty consistent from what I've heard from people in different areas.
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happyhoix
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Post by happyhoix on Oct 5, 2015 16:21:51 GMT -5
I saw your studies. They refer to high deductible health care plans. I'm not an ACA expert but I thought for the very poor, the government off set the deductible? Did you read the studies or even the abstracts? I scanned them. The one titled "The Downside of High Deductible Healthcare Plans" says that poor people will avoid going to a doctor more than a wealthy person will, if they have a HDHC plan, which is pretty much common sense. It ends with this: The subsidies that will be available through Obamacare will provide some relief beginning in 2014, but plans might consider restructuring the deductible rate to encourage lower-income enrollees to seek appropriate care for serious conditions.
That was my point - the ACA provides some relief for the really poor people in meeting their deductibles, so they won't be as reluctant to go to the doctor. Maybe you got something else out of that article? I'm not spending $40 so I can read your second source, but the abstract states that people with high deductible insurance are more likely to forego or delay treatment. Again, this seems to be to be common sense. Again, the ACA is supposed to help offset deductibles for poor people for just this reason. The third source was a review of people in California in 2007 who had high deductible healthcare plans. Since the ACA wasn't enacted until 2010, I'm not sure why you included this one. Again, I don't think anyone will argue with you that, when a poor person has a HDHC policy, they are going to be less likely to go to the doctor than if they had a low deductible, or no deductible. You're being coy with your point. What is it, exactly? Yes, I agree with you that HDHC plans discourage poor people from seeking treatment until they absolutely need it. Is your point that all the plans available through the ACA are HDHC plans, and therefore terrible for poor people? Are you saying that the poor aren't getting any assistance with their deductibles or premiums through the ACA, so the ACA isn't helping them? Do you think HDHC plans are so horrible we should outlaw them? Or only outlaw them for poor people? What are you saying? I've done your required reading, now maybe you can explain to me what you think those articles actually said? Or do you have an ax to grind against Obamacare and you're reading into these articles findings that aren't there?
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happyhoix
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Post by happyhoix on Oct 5, 2015 16:24:47 GMT -5
Did you read the studies or even the abstracts? Delaying care for non-essential issues is kind of the purpose of HDHP..simply making the consumer make the choice over whether it is important enough to go into the doctor if they have to pay the first $X to do it. I would imagine that once the deductible is met, even those in the HDHP would have similar numbers as those who didn't have them with going to the doctor/ER (although that is only a guess on my part). It's also one of the discussions that comes up when trying to determine how much subsidized healthcare should be provided to the "poor" because on one hand you want them to have access, OTOH you don't necessarily want them to have exponentially better coverage than most people either. One of the issues that different healthcare providers have mentioned to me (all anecdotal of course) is that many times, especially if there is no cost associated with it, they have trouble getting people from lower socioeconomic backgrounds set up with a primary care doctor because "it's easier for them just to come to the ER since there isn't a wait." Again, it's all anecdotal, but pretty consistent from what I've heard from people in different areas. They must not live in our area. Last time I had to go to the ER, DH was puking his guts out and falling over due to an inner ear problem. We sat in the ER for an hour, then in the examining room another four hours, until someone came along finally and told us he only had an inner problem and he should go home. Except if you go in the middle of the night, our ER's tend to be crowded, and unless you've got a limb falling off or your heart has stopped, you're going to be way at the bottom of the list in terms of who gets seen next....
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