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| | AMERICANS COULD HAVE SAVED HUNDREDS IF OBAMACARE BENEFITS HAD BEEN IN PLACE FROM 2001-2008Page 1 of 4 (1, 2, 3, 4) |
http://thinkprogress.org/health/2012/05/16/485587/americans-could-have-saved-hundreds-if-obamacare-benefits-had-been-in-place-from-2001-2008/
| If the individual insurance benefits in the Affordable Care Act had been in place during 2001-2008, the annual out-of-pocket medical spending might have been $280 less on average for Americans, according to a new report from Health Affairs. And the research showed that near-elderly and low-income people might have saved more than $500. One key improvement in the health care reform law establishes limits on out-of-pocket spending for plans offered through the Exchanges and in the individual and small group markets, so “having out-of-pocket expenditures on care exceeding $6,000 would have been reduced for all adults with individual insurance, and the likelihood of having expenditures exceeding $4,000 would have been reduced for many.”
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| AMERICANS COULD HAVE SAVED HUNDREDS IF OBAMACARE BENEFITS HAD BEEN IN PLACE FROM 2001-2008
Posted: 5/28/2012 12:16:42 AM | The system is pretty pathetic. It's a shame Obama even tried to appease the Republicans. LA Times article that wa just released did an investigation on medical pricing and found:
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-medical-prices-20120527,0,4627745.story
A Long Beach hospital charged Jo Ann Snyder $6,707 for a CT scan of her abdomen and pelvis after colon surgery. But because she had health insurance with Blue Shield of California, her share was much less: $2,336.
Then Snyder tripped across one of the little-known secrets of healthcare: If she hadn't used her insurance, her bill would have been even lower, just $1,054.
"I couldn't believe it," said Snyder, a 57-year-old hair salon manager. "I was really upset that I got charged so much and Blue Shield allowed that. You expect them to work harder for you and negotiate a better deal."
Unknown to most consumers, many hospitals and physicians offer steep discounts for cash-paying patients regardless of income. But there's a catch: Typically you can get the lowest price only if you don't use your health insurance.
That disparity in pricing is coming under fire from people like Snyder, who say it's unfair for patients who pay hefty insurance premiums and deductibles to be penalized with higher rates for treatment.
The difference in price can be stunning. Los Alamitos Medical Center, for instance, lists a CT scan of the abdomen on a state website for $4,423. Blue Shield says its negotiated rate at the hospital is about $2,400.
When The Times called for a cash price, the hospital said it was $250.
"It frustrates people because there's no correlation between what things cost and what is charged," said Paul Keckley, executive director of the Deloitte Center for Health Solutions, a research arm of the accounting firm. "It changes the game when healthcare's secrets aren't so secret."
Snyder's experience is hardly unique. In addition to Los Alamitos, The Times contacted seven other hospitals across Southern California, and nearly all had similar disparities between what a patient would pay through an insurer and the cash price offered for a common CT, or computed tomography, scan, which provides a more detailed image than an X-ray.
Health insurance still offers substantial value for consumers by providing preventive care at no cost and offering protection from major medical bills that could bankrupt most families.
But cash prices — typically available for hundreds of common outpatient services and tests — have a real appeal to millions of consumers who are on the hook for a growing share of their medical costs as employers and insurers cut back on coverage and push more high-deductible plans.
Some doctors are trying to spread the word about cash prices and they're urging patients to pressure hospitals and insurers to offer a better deal.
David Belk, an internist in Alameda, launched a website about medical costs and speaks to community groups about the huge markups compared with the prevailing cash price.
Belk recently told a group gathered at a seniors center about the vast price difference when he requested routine blood work for a patient last year. A local hospital charged her $782. Her insurer said that with its discount, she owed only $415.
"She could have gotten it for $95 in cash. How does that make sense?" Belk said. "The last thing the insurance companies want you to know is how inexpensive this stuff really is."
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| AMERICANS COULD HAVE SAVED HUNDREDS IF OBAMACARE BENEFITS HAD BEEN IN PLACE FROM 2001-2008
Posted: 5/28/2012 12:42:27 AM | Terribly sad. However the fatal flaw of my mindset is the tendency to ask "why" until I have as much information from each side of the argument as I can possibly or legally have.
Healthcare services (along with financial services) is one of the most highly regulated and sued industries in America.
The easy answer would be to equate it to 'greed'...but I happen to believe in the inherent goodness of the human spirit (though only God knows why given my ex-wife's hellbound soul). I consider that both sides of the topic are in the interest of the greatest good until I'm proven wrong by one side or the other. | |
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| AMERICANS COULD HAVE SAVED HUNDREDS IF OBAMACARE BENEFITS HAD BEEN IN PLACE FROM 2001-2008
Posted: 5/28/2012 2:29:10 AM | This pricing versus real cost problem is why I am furious with both parties over the handling of the American Medical Business.
The thing I don't like about the so-called-Obamacare thing is, that it made no significant effort to address the wild overpricing, it just required everyone to pay, and hope that that would result in overall savings. I lost my own medical coverage after it passed, because all of the companies offering insurance, quadrupled the fees, in anticipation of being forced to cover all the "non-cherry" people.
The GOP in turn, wants absolutely nothing to do with even beginning to investigate or talk to Medical Corporations about their scam business models, because it's against Republican political religion to say anything at all about a business owners pricing, even when collusion is involved. Personally, I think the Insurance companies themselves must be the ones making all the big bucks over this, but I don't have any way to be sure.
A while back, the Washington Post started ( and then quickly stopped) a series of articles with the theme of investigating and annotating in detail, why various things cost what they do. I was REALLY looking forward to them looking at health care costs, since it is so obvious that gross inflation of actual costs is constantly taking place, but they gave up the series before reaching the point of talking about any significant systems. I was suspicious that advertisers may have made it clear that the paper would lose their money if they continued and got serious about it, but that could just be my paranoia at work.
Thus, both major political parties, and the Press wont make any serious effort to get this rigged game off our backs, leaving no one of stature or influence to address it. | |
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| AMERICANS COULD HAVE SAVED HUNDREDS IF OBAMACARE BENEFITS HAD BEEN IN PLACE FROM 2001-2008
Posted: 5/28/2012 3:10:16 AM |
The difference in price can be stunning. Los Alamitos Medical Center, for instance, lists a CT scan of the abdomen on a state website for $4,423. Blue Shield says its negotiated rate at the hospital is about $2,400.
When The Times called for a cash price, the hospital said it was $250.
It's all pure profit for the insurance company and the hospital . Otherwise, they'd naturally go with the cheaper price.
Both sides charge more....... because THEY CAN .
OH NOooooo.... we can't have socialism in America.
The free market is always more efficient ....... yea right. | |
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| AMERICANS COULD HAVE SAVED HUNDREDS IF OBAMACARE BENEFITS HAD BEEN IN PLACE FROM 2001-2008
Posted: 5/28/2012 12:46:19 PM | I don't care two hoots in he!! what miracles this sorry waste of paper is supposed to work. Either we live under constitutional rule of law, or we live under tyranny. And that is what this is about.
No one can be a socialist in the United States without having contempt for its constitution and for the principles of freedom and self-government on which the country was founded. Most of these malcontents are ignorant and dim, and there still aren't enough of them to have wrecked America permanently. The rest of us don't much like the fact they're trying.
These drones will really have something to howl about in a month or so, when a majority of the Supreme Court smacks down their 2,700-page assault on individual liberty. They had better get used to it, because they are in an even bigger whipping in November. | |
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| AMERICANS COULD HAVE SAVED HUNDREDS IF OBAMACARE BENEFITS HAD BEEN IN PLACE FROM 2001-2008
Posted: 5/28/2012 1:13:33 PM | No one can be a socialist in the United States without having contempt for its constitution and for the principles of freedom and self-government on which the country was founded.
Someone's been earning extra credit at Rush Limbaugh's school for advanced conservatism.
Let's get some facts in this fruit cake of ideology shall we:
1. FDR, largely considered one of the best presidents in history (also the longest presiding) established the social state with the 'new deal'. Elements of the country have consisted of social aspects ever since. His efforts helped end the great depression.
2. The founders were 'slave owners who wanted to be Free' (pause for a moment to absorb the irony). If you were black, brown, red, yellow old, poor or a woman in 1775; the founders weren't talking to you.
3. Kennedy and his successor LBJ are considered two of the architects of modern America (largely because of their stances on civil rights and poverty...two things that politicians valued but few had the courage to face). They were both progressive democrats.
4. Freedom is little more than MOBILITY through one's life with as little obstruction as legally possible. Without social programs in place, the poor, sick and elderly would have restricted mobility and thus restricted freedom; social programs aim to defeat that canundrum in America. Rather they take full advantage of it is irrelevant. This is America...and by virtue of being an American, they get the opportunity for success and a path out of austerity that these programs help solidify. It's not about measurements persay (if it was, the war on poverty and the war on drugs would both be utter failures); its about providing that freedom and mobility to people who didn't have it before.
One person who rises from poverty to prominence in this country is worth 100 that don't monetarily both in business opportunities and tax revenues. Without the (quote unquote) "socialism" aspects od our capitalstic society...that one person my die in the streets, right along with the 100 that his success would save.
Let's as Americans come to a consesus that the founders were on the wrong track going the right way and stop vilifying them as the crafters of the American dream as it exists today. Their view of liberty included slaves and subservient women for goodness sake. Is there REALLY anything ambiguous about that dichotomy? Is there REALLY? | |
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| AMERICANS COULD HAVE SAVED HUNDREDS IF OBAMACARE BENEFITS HAD BEEN IN PLACE FROM 2001-2008
Posted: 5/28/2012 2:08:45 PM |
Obamacare will greatly reduce premiums when enacted (by virtue of how insurance systems work)...but people are going to be fighting it tooth and nail until then. The only ones who will be fighting The PPACA will be those who don't know how it works ... are too lazy to read it so that they CAN understand it ... are not able to interpret it appropriately (perhaps need to go finish their education or improve their education?) ... perhaps don't deal well with change or things unfamiliar to them ... are listening to neo-cons who don't want the current president to succeed in helping this nation ...
No one can be a socialist in the United States without having contempt for its constitution and for the principles of freedom and self-government on which the country was founded. Someone's been earning extra credit at Rush Limbaugh's school for advanced conservatism.
Thank you for your continuing service to our country!!!!
OT ...
Yes ... OP ... Americans could have saved hundreds ... but just think what we could have paid for if we hadn't been paying for two illegal wars? How could we have helped the people (all the people) of our nation with the money that "Dumbya" squandered on the two illegal wars? | |
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| AMERICANS COULD HAVE SAVED HUNDREDS IF OBAMACARE BENEFITS HAD BEEN IN PLACE FROM 2001-2008
Posted: 5/28/2012 6:24:43 PM |
No one can be a socialist in the United States without having contempt for its constitution and for the principles of freedom and self-government on which the country was founded.
There is nothing in the Constitution which either proscribes or forbids any particular economic system.
Especially, not this demented, pornography that's peddled off today on gullible people as modern " Free Market Capitalism ". | |
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| AMERICANS COULD HAVE SAVED HUNDREDS IF OBAMACARE BENEFITS HAD BEEN IN PLACE FROM 2001-2008
Posted: 5/28/2012 6:30:32 PM |
No one can be a socialist in the United States without having contempt for its constitution and for the principles of freedom and self-government on which the country was founded. Most of these malcontents are ignorant and dim, and there still aren't enough of them to have wrecked America permanently. The rest of us don't much like the fact they're trying.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Preamble_to_the_United_States_Constitution
An example of the way courts utilize the Preamble is Ellis v. City of Grand Rapids.[18] Substantively, the case was about eminent domain. The City of Grand Rapids wanted to use eminent domain to force landowners to sell property in the city identified as "blighted", and convey the property to owners that would develop it in ostensibly beneficial ways: in this case, to St. Mary's Hospital, a Catholic organization. This area of substantive constitutional law is governed by the Fifth Amendment, which is understood to require that property acquired via eminent domain must be put to a "public use". In deciding whether the proposed project constituted a "public use", the court pointed to the Preamble's reference to "promot[ing] the general Welfare" as evidence that "[t]he health of the people was in the minds of our forefathers".[19] "[T]he concerted effort for renewal and expansion of hospital and medical care centers, as a part of our nation's system of hospitals, is as a public service and use within the highest meaning of such terms. Surely this is in accord with an objective of the United States Constitution: '* * * promote the general Welfare.'"[20]
ObamaCare promotes the GENERAL WELFARE for 99% of American.
American Right Wingers should actually READ the American Constitution | |
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| AMERICANS COULD HAVE SAVED HUNDREDS IF OBAMACARE BENEFITS HAD BEEN IN PLACE FROM 2001-2008
Posted: 5/28/2012 8:07:40 PM | The only ones who will be fighting The PPACA will be those who don't know how it works ... are too lazy to read it so that they CAN understand it ... are not able to interpret it appropriately (perhaps need to go finish their education or improve their education?)
I take it that as a supporter of this law, you--unlike the members of Congress who enacted it and the president who signed it--are *not* one of those lazy people who didn't read it, and that you *do* understand it. I suppose that with your education, you are also able to interpret it appropriately--whatever that may mean.
There is nothing in the Constitution which either proscribes or forbids any particular economic system.
The men who wrote the Constitution were strongly influenced by the political philosopher John Locke--including what he wrote about property, especially in his Second Treatise of Civil Government. It was Locke who spoke of the rights to "life, liberty, and property" that the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments prohibit government from depriving persons of without due process of law. The Taking Clause of the Fifth Amendment also protects private property by prohibiting government from taking it for public use without just compensation.
A number of other things in the Constitution are designed to protect individual property rights. The Federalist Papers, which were written to explain the new constitution to a questioning public, are full of discussions about these features and the reasons for them. Also, Adam Smith's "Wealth of Nations," the original work that explained the workings and benefits of capitalism, was first published in 1776 and is known to have influenced the framers of the Constitution. They were free market capitalists through and through, and they designed a government to protect the individual rights that allow that economic system to flourish.
It should be obvious that socialism and communism, which rely on central economic planning and redistribution of wealth, are anathema to a government designed to protect the individual's property rights. People who want to make the U.S. a socialist country are free to try to make the drastic amendments to the Constitution that would require. But they are NOT free to ignore the law to get their way. Anyone who wants to do that should either move to some other country or get ready to fight.
ObamaCare promotes the GENERAL WELFARE for 99% of American.
American Right Wingers should actually READ the American Constitution
Thank you for showing me the error of my ways. As a typical dumb right winger, I don't want to be overmatched in discussions with you about all this, so I'm going to make it a point actually to READ the Constitution. Thank you, too, for your keen analysis of how courts can twist the concept of "the general welfare"--even drawing on the *Preamble,* for God's sake--to make it a blank check for all sorts of abuses of government power. Your Wikipedia cut-and-paste mentions a case where the court used it to justify ignoring the "public use" requirement of the Taking Clause of the Fifth Amendment.
As someone who's read and studied most of the Supreme Court's takings cases, I know very well how far the "public use" requirement has been watered down. This process really got into high gear in Berman v. Parker, the 1954 Supreme Court decision that gave the green light to "urban renewal" (which blacks who were forced out sardonically called "Negro removal.") It's now gone so far that a few years ago--to make way for a *private* developer's project--the City of New London made Susette Kelo sell her beautiful old home and move. And the Supreme Court said that was just fine.
Oh--by the way, your Preamble/general welfare argument has absolutely nothing to do with the Obamacare law. The government's arguments for the individual mandate in it are based on two other parts of the Constitution: The Commerce Clause; and the Necessary and Proper Clause. | |
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| AMERICANS COULD HAVE SAVED HUNDREDS IF OBAMACARE BENEFITS HAD BEEN IN PLACE FROM 2001-2008
Posted: 5/28/2012 8:44:57 PM |
hese drones will really have something to howl about in a month or so, when a majority of the Supreme Court smacks down their 2,700-page assault on individual liberty.
I think you mean to say: "When the conservative majority of the Supreme Court drop down on their knees before David and Charles Koch, open their mouths wide and service their overlords."
The men who wrote the Constitution...
From reading your many posts on the topic, it is obvious your knowledge of Constitutional History is lacking. See George Curtis for a refresher. | |
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| AMERICANS COULD HAVE SAVED HUNDREDS IF OBAMACARE BENEFITS HAD BEEN IN PLACE FROM 2001-2008
Posted: 5/28/2012 10:43:30 PM | First of all OP, unless you're talking to the extreme left wing for whom O'bama and the democrats can do no wrong; thinkprogress.com is not a great source to present an argument. The site is so propagandist it makes Fox News truly look fair and balanced (As a conservative I admit it's not.)
Secondly, I don't buy it. The very first thing that happened after the O'bama Care bitter pill was shoved down America's throat was that my insurance premiums instantly went up almost 40 percent along with the mandated "extra coverage" that I had no interest in.
Finally I find myself in a unique position in that due to a recent job change, I for the first time in my adult life have no health insurance. When O'bama care kicks in I will likely be the first of those who are in non compliance. As I currently assess my situation I would like to purchase insurance that would cover only catastrophic events opting to self insure for preventive care and small insignificant events such as the sprained ankle I suffered early this year (total cost $250).
So all bitter rhetoric aside which serves no useful purpose other than to reveal ignorance; why are liberals so keen on taking that legitimate financial option away from me a lower middle class laborer who really needs to keep as much of my cashflow available for things that are more productive than insurance (which by it's nature is a rip off for a majority of those who buy it.) | |
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| AMERICANS COULD HAVE SAVED HUNDREDS IF OBAMACARE BENEFITS HAD BEEN IN PLACE FROM 2001-2008
Posted: 5/29/2012 2:09:40 AM |
It should be obvious that socialism and communism, which rely on central economic planning and redistribution of wealth, are anathema to a government designed to protect the individuals property rights. People who want to make the U.S. a socialist country are free to try to make the drastic amendments to the Constitution that would require. But they are NOT free to ignore the law to get their way. Anyone who wants to do that should either move to some other country or get ready to fight.
There is absolutely nothing about Free Market Capitalism which is naturally supportive of individual freedom, civil liberties, or human rights.
Some of the most repressive regimes in history were dedicated Free Market Capitalists. I suggest you read " The Arms of Krupp ", by Barbara Touchman. The major corporations loved and flourished in Nazi Germany.
There is absolutely nothing about socialism which naturally negates individual freedoms, civil liberties, or human rights. There is nothing about socialism which threatens anyone's personal property rights. This is all propagandist lies.
Freedom, liberty, and justice are things preserved by people, no matter what form of government they practice or economics they believe in. People and only people give them or take them away, not economic theories.
And speaking of poor Adam Smith...
I only wish today's Free Marketers would read " The Wealth of Nations ". Probably only the Bible is more **stardized than Adam Smiths wise tome. | |
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| AMERICANS COULD HAVE SAVED HUNDREDS IF OBAMACARE BENEFITS HAD BEEN IN PLACE FROM 2001-2008
Posted: 5/29/2012 8:25:37 AM | KCCal,
""So all bitter rhetoric aside which serves no useful purpose other than to reveal ignorance; why are liberals so keen on taking that legitimate financial option away from me a lower middle class laborer who really needs to keep as much of my cashflow available for things that are more productive than insurance (which by it's nature is a rip off for a majority of those who buy it.)""
A few things, using the Massachusetts model.
First, the Medicaid expansion part of this allows states to subsidize premiums for people according to a sliding scale. If you were on your own in the private insurance marketplace, you wouldn't get any help from anyone.
Second, the health insurance exchanges offer insurances at group rates, which discounts the premiums you'd pay with private individual insurance.
Third, I agree with you that there ought to be catastrophic insurance plans out there for those who want to self-insure for outpatient and preventive care, etc., absolutely. My guess is that those plans are out there and the AHCA is neutral on those. I dont know, but would guess that such a plan would qualify.
Assuming that is true, I don't know what your complaint is unless you don't want to carry any insurance at all. ... but it's the same argument people use for not wanting to carry car insurance, too, because they're such careful drivers... | |
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| AMERICANS COULD HAVE SAVED HUNDREDS IF OBAMACARE BENEFITS HAD BEEN IN PLACE FROM 2001-2008
Posted: 5/29/2012 8:38:09 AM | | not a valid argument... car insurance primarily insures other people against your stupidity.... I think if were gonna have a system where everyone is required to have healthcare everyone should pay into the system everyone..... people that underutilize the system should get discounts people that over utilize the system should pay more... | |
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| AMERICANS COULD HAVE SAVED HUNDREDS IF OBAMACARE BENEFITS HAD BEEN IN PLACE FROM 2001-2008
Posted: 5/29/2012 8:38:13 AM |
Let's as Americans come to a consesus that the founders were on the wrong track going the right way and stop vilifying them as the crafters of the American dream as it exists today. Their view of liberty included slaves and subservient women for goodness sake. Is there REALLY anything ambiguous about that dichotomy? Is there REALLY?
Oh look... Another one of those "Our country was created by evil racist slave traders" so everything they believed, thought, and fought for was wrong!
It is called Zeitgeist. If you don't understand it than please try. The model the US was founded on is unique in history and made a very impressive country that champions freedom and individual responsibility. Our growth was rapid and it does make sense to temper that growth because infinite growth leaders to collapse. That doesn't make them wrong. It makes them absolutely right.
Universal healthcare can be achieved but not with the idiots that created the obamacare proposal. It needs to be achieved with the American economic system without the government screwing it up. The current pricing of medical care is so far out of whack because of government involvement and their attempt to manipulate the market that no one can afford medical care now.
We have near universal coverage now although there are major flaws. Stop screwing the system up and give a challenge to the market to fix itself by the people who live it and not politicians. | |
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| AMERICANS COULD HAVE SAVED HUNDREDS IF OBAMACARE BENEFITS HAD BEEN IN PLACE FROM 2001-2008
Posted: 5/29/2012 9:21:02 AM |
There is nothing about socialism which threatens anyone's personal property rights.
You have a very unusual understanding of socialism. Any form of centralized economic planning necessarily infringes the individual's right to the fruits of his labor. The "individual mandate" at the heart of the Obamacare law, for example, is that everyone must buy a government-approved medical insurance policy--or else. When government can force its citizens to buy certain goods or services (and prohibit them from buying other ones they might prefer) those individuals no longer control their own money. And money is personal property--either the person who possesses it has the right to do with it as he sees fit, or not. | |
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| AMERICANS COULD HAVE SAVED HUNDREDS IF OBAMACARE BENEFITS HAD BEEN IN PLACE FROM 2001-2008
Posted: 5/29/2012 9:45:19 AM | "Free Market" capitalism is a far greater threat to the fuits of one's labor in the US compared to any imaginary "socialism". Following the Match logic, we should be able to opt out of the miltary budget part of our income tax because we oppose all the mineral/oil wars of the past half century. We should be able to opt out of the billions in subsidies paid to corporations by the government for fracking, mountain top removal, nuclear power, high fructose corn syrup corporations and others we don't care to use. Current Corporatocracy economic planning dictates eminent domain to steal the lands of citizens for new power lines, business infrastructure, toxic waste disposal, and other socialized corporate interests.
Meanwhile, back in realityland, the health "care" industry in the US is currently run by insurance companies, lobbyists, for profit hospitals and big pharma and big diagnostic industries. It is hardly a bastion of democracy or true free marketism. Industry, insurance companies, hospitals and their lobbyists conspire and succeed with the help of bought and paid for politicians to pillage the paying public and avoid transparency. The result, for example, a $250 CT scan than they can charge over $6000 for.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/aroy/2012/05/27/why-do-hospitals-charge-4423-for-250-ct-scans-blame-arizona-republicans/
And while some consider Veterans to be mere disposible tools of the Corporate War Machinery of the US, the Affordable Care Act would greatly benefit over 2,000,000 Veterans and family members currently unable to affort the un"free" market scheme/shell game of the status quo, I got Mine crowd.
http://capsules.kaiserhealthnews.org/index.php/2012/05/veterans-would-benefit-under-health-law-study-says/ | |
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| AMERICANS COULD HAVE SAVED HUNDREDS IF OBAMACARE BENEFITS HAD BEEN IN PLACE FROM 2001-2008
Posted: 5/29/2012 10:48:10 AM | ""not a valid argument... car insurance primarily insures other people against your stupidity.... I think if were gonna have a system where everyone is required to have healthcare everyone should pay into the system everyone..... people that underutilize the system should get discounts people that over utilize the system should pay more...""
One of the arguments for the AHCA is that due to the "stupidity" of people who get sick or have accidents without insurance, ERs are required to treat them and, if they can't dunn them to death, pass those costs on as free care or bad debts which raises the cost for everyone else.
At any rate, sickness and health have run along income lines as far back as written history.........sicker = poorer, healthier = richer ... health disparities are more closely correlated with income disparities than any other single factor .... so richer are going to need less resources and poorer/sicker more ... no need to punish them for it!
We all pay monthly insurance premiums, up to $1,200 a month for me, plus Medicare taxes .... seems to me that if it were Medicare for All and everyone pitched in then what we pay monthly would be half or less.... private insurances have a 30% or so admin overhead rate, Medicare's is 5-8%..... $400-500 billion saved a year? | |
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| AMERICANS COULD HAVE SAVED HUNDREDS IF OBAMACARE BENEFITS HAD BEEN IN PLACE FROM 2001-2008
Posted: 5/29/2012 10:54:02 AM |
http://capsules.kaiserhealthnews.org/index.php/2012/05/veterans-would-benefit-under-health-law-study-says/
Veterans Would Benefit Under Health Law, Study Says
By Phil Galewitz
MAY 25TH, 2012, 6:00 AM
If the 2010 health law is upheld by the Supreme Court, it would extend health coverage to thousands of the nation’s veterans, a new study says.
The study, released Thursday, said about 630,000 uninsured veterans would likely qualify for Medicaid, the state-federal health insurance program for the poor, which would be expanded under the law. In addition, 520,000 uninsured vets could qualify for subsidized health coverage in new marketplaces, or insurance exchanges.
“It is striking how many of the uninsured veterans would qualify for Medicaid under the ACA,” said co-author Genevieve Kenney, senior fellow for the non-partisan Urban Institute.
One in 10 of the nation’s 12.5 million non-elderly veterans report not having health insurance coverage and not using the Veterans Affairs health system, the study reported.
There are about 1.3 million uninsured veterans nationwide. Another 900,000 veterans use VA care, but have no other health insurance coverage. An additional 900,000 adults and children in veterans’ families are uninsured.
Uninsured rates among veterans vary around the country. Four states have uninsured rates below 6 percent—Massachusetts, Hawaii, Vermont, and North Dakota. Meanwhile, four states—Louisiana, Oregon, Idaho, and Montana—have uninsured rates above 14 percent.
The study, funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, said the uninsurance rate of veterans is lower than among the nonelderly population as a whole (10.5 percent compared with 17.9 percent). Nonetheless, 41 percent of uninsured veterans report having unmet medical needs, while nearly 34 percent say they have delayed care due to cost.
people against obamacare do NOT care about veterans and care only about themselves | |
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| AMERICANS COULD HAVE SAVED HUNDREDS IF OBAMACARE BENEFITS HAD BEEN IN PLACE FROM 2001-2008
Posted: 5/29/2012 11:10:51 AM | ""Meanwhile, back in realityland, the health "care" industry in the US is currently run by insurance companies, lobbyists, for profit hospitals and big pharma and big diagnostic industries. It is hardly a bastion of democracy or true free marketism""
Oh, yeah? They're having a sale on appendectomies right now down at St. Mary's and just last week there was a special on renal dialysis at the DocinaBox at Walmart ....... shop around, my friend, the bargains are out there! | |
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