And there but for the grace of god (or the flying spaghetti monster, or woden) go all of us.
I deal every day with people from every walk of life. I think it has really helped me to learn, to understand, and to have some empathy. Many of us are a catastophe or less away from having a completely changed life.

I'm sorry about your miscarriage. That is a shame.

I don't remember Prop 45 at all. I usually remember most propositions. I would think I would have had to vote yes on it. How could anyone be in favor of insurance companies raising rates by huge amounts? Are you sure that there wasn't more to the proposition? I don't know how a proposition like that could have lost. Although the prop about labeling GMO food lost, so it shows you that the voters can easily be fooled by tons of misleading advertisements by one side.

With regard to having a really high deductible and a low premium, I think that is the way to go for a really healthy person. For me, the point of insurance is to insure against a catastrophic illness. My medical bills are extremely low. I take good care of myself. I eat right and exercise daily. Even though I'm in my 40s, my blood pressure is 105 over 70. I certainly don't want to pay $4,500 a year for insurance when my medical bills are typically less than $1,000 a year.

With regards to what you were saying in another post about an emergency room visit, if I have a cheap deductible I am saving close to $2,000 a year. When my monthly premium dropped from $520 a month to $210 a month, I was saving $3,600 a year. So over just a 3 year period, I was going to save almost $10,000. I would have no problem spending $2,000 on an emergency room visit once every 5-10 years. I would much rather do that than spend an extra $2,000-$3,000 a year on premiums.

Thank you for your kind words.

http://ballotpedia.org/California_Pr...itiative_(2014)

Anthem was one of the top 5 donors working to defeat it (contributed $250,000 towards campaigning against it) but didn't spend nearly as much as Kaiser and Wellpoint, which spent over $18 million. Each.

Propositions like that lose because people are influenced by advertising. Look at how much money grifters have made off of charter schools, which do no better than public schools and in many cases, do worse. And yet they are still being served up as the solution to education (when in fact the real issue is poverty, of course). It takes a lot of time and effort to be well informed on an issue, and most people have neither the time nor the inclination, though they still do get to vote on them.

As to your example of money saved, that's a fine idea if a person has the disposable income to put into a savings account that is reserved only for health care and if that person suffers illness or injury that is not more expensive than the money saved. For an example, here is the cost of a broken leg, which an active, 20 something might suffer while riding a bike, or crossing the street.

http://health.costhelper.com/broken-leg.html

Now, at the low end, three years of saving in your premiums would not have been enough to cover the cost of a broken leg that needed setting. And of course, the lifetime cap can become an issue if there is long term physical therapy needed. Did yours have a lifetime cap?

So many things can go wrong with the human body. I have a friend, in (she thought) great health, who, while volunteering at a riding stable, had a locker fall on her, breaking her neck. In treating the neck, they found she had a tumor growing there, which (oh, the irony!) likely would have killed her if she hadn't had a locker fall on her and break her neck. Tests also revealed she has multiple myeloma. While the combination of the broken bones in her spine and the tumor have resulted in her no longer being able to shake her head side to side (and, at this point, drive, or ride, or work sitting at a desk), she has, after a year, gone into remission. So now they can finally address the physical therapy for her neck, although she still must go through several more rounds of chemo.

How much of this would your old policy have covered?

A friend from high school had a double lung transplant 4 years ago- she has idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, which killed her father in his 30s. Her medical costs are now well into seven figures. But she was unaware she had a problem until her 30s, when she started having trouble breathing- hell, she ran track in high school, and her siblings are fine. As her father died of it, you'd better believe that was considered a pre-existing condition. What was your plan like about pre-existing conditions?

It's excellent that you take good care of yourself, but a huge part of health, especially where things like cancer are concerned, is just luck (with, as Dell often points out, the exception of lung cancer, though I had a professor who died of it and had never smoked in his life). You've been lucky so far, and here's to hoping that you continue to be lucky and enjoy good health into old age. But life doesn't owe you anything, and as infuriated as you are now about your premiums, I would wager it's better coverage overall than what you had before.

And hey, if your health is that good, then one doctor is pretty much like another at this point and if you have to switch, it's no big deal. I had to switch a lot in my 20s and early 30s when I was buying my own insurance. If it's that you happen to just personally like certain doctors over others (which is natural), then that just falls into, well, sucks to be middle class; the rich get to have nice things the rest of us don't.

Fantastic program for those trying to kick the cigarette habit :zz:

http://www.latimes.com/world/middlee...212-story.html

:tro:

Shiny graphs and whatnot.

Seniors on Medicare Advantage aren't technically receiving services from medicare. They give up that right to the private insurance companies.

I thought democrats hated medicare advantage? Now they like it?

Oh the spinning never ends when you're on the Titanic.

Small hospitals love Obamaca...oh wait.

Another one just closed.

:D

Another doctor retired too.

Holy shite!!!!...may monthly premium went up $150 bucks for worse coverage.

thanks obama. dont let the door hit you etc etc....d'bag

Post of the YEAR

:rolleyes:

Reggie?

There is an article on the 'fringe' news sites about 3 billion of the treasury being used to fund the ongoing lie that is Obamacare.

No big deal.

Your welcome.

Most people don't have a clue what 3 billion dollars is unless you say it's more money than all the money Oprah, Michael Jordan and Kim Kardashian have.

Meanwhile getting all riled up if someone from the WalMart family buys a $30 million apartment in NYC ignoring 3 billion could buy a 100 of them.

Then again the President spent 3 billion on Cash for Clunkers over 2 weekends and the lemmings applauded. :wf

Yes the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan were disastrous and any President that would continue to spend right after that disaster is either a moron or hates this country.

That link doesn't justify the continued spending of this idiot we have in office.

And remember Hillary voted for Iraq.

A lot of democrats voted for it. Just like the Republicans have bent over and took it in the ass on immigration, budgets, etc.

False left-right paradigm continues due to partisan bickering.

Both parties are useless and destroying this country. All part of the plan.

Nice to know Harvard's Kennedy School of Government now considers us an Imperialist nation as opposed to a Democracy.

Dell my point is that both parties are destroying this country.

And on that I agree with you.

If only we could have the 'Greatest Generation' back.

One's who valued independence from government as opposed to dependence on government.

Where actions meant more than feelings.

Dependence on the government by the Rich and Poor while us stuck in the middle pay the tab.