|
|
 |
|
|
|
#1
02-08-2015, 12:25 AM
|
|||
|
|||
Quote:
I have been with Anthem for well over 15 years. Everything was alright until the last 5-6 years. Back in 2005 I was paying around $250 a month. I had about a $2,500 deductible. Starting in about 2008, they started raising the premium pretty much every year. It went up to $300, then $350, then $410, then $470, and finally $520 in about 2011 or 2012. I finally called them and said, "This is ridiculous. You keep raising my premiums by crazy amounts. I can't afford $520 a month. Don't you have a cheap plan with a really high deductible?" It turns out they did. They gave me a plan with a $8,800 deductible that was only $210 a month. I was thrilled. But after the ACA passed, they switched me to another plan that was $320 a month this past year. Now this year they raised it to $367 a month. I think this might be the first year that it is an EPO. I didn't even realize it was an EPO until I went to the doctor a couple of weeks ago and they told me that I have an EPO, not a PPO, and they don't take EPOs. Then I called my internist's office to ask them if they take EPOs. They said, "No." So now I don't have any doctors that take my insurance. 
|
|
#2
02-08-2015, 12:54 AM
|
||||
|
||||
|
Quote:
__________________
Tod Marks Photo - Daybreak over Oklahoma
|
|
#3
02-08-2015, 03:05 AM
|
|||
|
|||
|
Quote:
Switching to a PPO with a different company won't do me any good unless my doctors take the PPO. I know they take PPOs from Anthem. My internist's office told me that they take a company called Assurant. That could be an option but I don't know if I would want to switch to that if nobody else takes it. I don't know if Cedars takes Assurant.
|
|
#4
02-08-2015, 08:45 AM
|
||||
|
||||
|
Quote:
http://finance.yahoo.com/echarts?s=U...22linear%22%7D
|
|
#5
02-08-2015, 02:46 PM
|
|||
|
|||
|
Quote:
Anyway, my whole point is not that the system was great before. My point was simply that that Obama totally mislead people about what was going to happen under ACA. He never said that rates would go way up in many states and that many people would not only not get to keep their doctors, they would also have to get new plans. I finally had a plan that I was happy with, that was only $210 a month and almost all my doctors were taking it. Now I have a plan that is $367 a month that none of my doctors take. I'm not claiming that ACA is bad for everyone. It is actually very good for some people and there are certain things that I like about it. But I think it was totally wrong the way we were lied to about it. Obama should have told us the good and the bad and then let people decide whether they would support it or not. It would have never passed had he been totally honest about it. As I said before, I don't think the old system was great. I think reform was needed. But I think the ACA went way too far and has had very negative consequences for a lot of people. It has obviously helped some people too.
|
|
#6
02-08-2015, 03:44 PM
|
||||
|
||||
|
Quote:
|
|
#7
02-08-2015, 04:14 PM
|
|||
|
|||
|
Quote:
http://townhall.com/tipsheet/katiepa...eople-n1916605 By the way, you have it backwards with regard to my views about Obama. You think I criticize Obama's performance because I don't like him. It is the opposite. I don't like Obama because he does a poor job. I'm not stubborn with these types of things. For example, there was a woman running for president of my homeowner's association that I did not vote for. I absolutely did not want her to win. She ended up winning and I was very disappointed. I thought she would do a lousy job. Anyway, I ended up being pretty pleased with the job she did. She wasn't prefect but overall she was pretty good. I ended up voting for her in the next election. If someone does a good job, I'm going to give them credit, regardless of whether I voted for them and regardless of whether I had a negative opinion of them going in. With regards to Obama and the ACA, I agree with you that there were some things that they didn't necessarily lie about. They just didn't foresee some of the things that would happen. But when you have a plan, you are supposed to be able to foresee obvious unintentional consequences. It's not as if the critics didn't predict these things. Most of the negative things that have happened as a result of ACA were not hard to foresee. It was incompetence on Obama's part to be so ignorant about what the consequences of his plan would be. I agree with you that if you make a sound decision based on good intelligence that you had at the time you made the decision, then I'm not going to criticize you if you end up with a bad result. But with regard to Obama and the ACA, the whole thing was simply not well thought out, not to mention the parts that they intentionally mislead people about. Last edited by Rupert Pupkin : 02-08-2015 at 04:34 PM.
|
|
#8
02-09-2015, 03:34 PM
|
|||
|
|||
|
Quote:
"The Obama administration has known for at least three years that millions of Americans would not be able to keep their current health care plans, despite repeated promises to the contrary made by President Barack Obama, NBC News reports, citing sources “deeply involved” in Obamacare." http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013...sed-it-anyway/ This isn't a lie like, "I didn't have sex with that woman". This is a major lie that was going have major implications on the lives of millions of Americans. How can anyone defend that?
|
|
#9
02-08-2015, 12:47 PM
|
||||
|
||||
|
Quote:
__________________
Tod Marks Photo - Daybreak over Oklahoma
|
|
#10
02-11-2015, 12:25 PM
|
||||
|
||||
|
Quote:
Rupert, none of us are getting any younger. At this point you should be on your knees, thanking the ACA for requiring young, healthy people to get insurance, because that's what brings the rates down on older folks. The ACA is what will keep health insurance even possible for you. You honestly think Anthem wants you as a customer? Please. They want young non-smoking men in their 20s. That's it. No olds, no people with chronic conditions and no women who have an annoying habit of getting pregnant and having expensive babies. THEY DO NOT WANT PEOPLE WHO ACTUALLY NEED HEALTH CARE. You didn't answer my early question- how did you vote on Prop 45, which would have made it illegal to arbitrarily raise health care premiums by 15 or 20 percent? How did you vote on it?
__________________
Gentlemen! We're burning daylight! Riders up! -Bill Murray
|
|
#11
02-11-2015, 12:45 PM
|
||||
|
||||
|
Post that does have something to do with the thread-
Here's an example of why the low-cost, high deductible plans are bad, Rupert. I'll use an example from myself this summer, so apologies if it's TMI. I had miscarriage this year  that came on very suddenly and very severely. I called the midwife who had delivered my son, and who was, I thought, going to see me through this very much-wanted pregnancy, to ask what to do and she said the bleeding was bad enough that I needed to go to the ER.My husband has good, employer provided health insurance, so I was aware our copayment for the trip would be something like $50 (in fact it was $100, which I wasn't thrilled about when I paid, but it's still not going to break us). So, fifteen minutes later, once my best friend had raced over to watch our son and once I was fairly certain I wasn't going to pass out in the taxi (I was getting a bit woozy at that point), we headed to the nearest hospital. If I'd had one of these low-cost, high deductible plans that are no longer legal under the ACA, my mind would have gone to the cost of an ER visit ($500 just to get into the room, then add on everything they might have to do- D&C, the thingy they put in in case I lost too much blood and needed electrolytes or a transfusion, blah blah blah) and I'm looking at least a few thousand dollars, all of which I'd be responsible for, and which we didn't have, and I might have decided to stay at home in my bathroom and hope for the best. And I might have bled out and died on my bathroom floor and my son might have grown up telling the story of how his mom died from a miscarriage. But, because I knew I had coverage, I went to the ER, they took care of me, and sent me home the same night to grieve the loss of a pregnancy, which sucked to be sure, but is nothing compared to a child grieving the loss of a mother. Those catastrophic plans forced people suddenly confronted with a health crisis to choose between their physical health and their financial health. It's good they're gone.
__________________
Gentlemen! We're burning daylight! Riders up! -Bill Murray
|
|
#12
02-11-2015, 01:01 PM
|
||||
|
||||
|
Quote:
What's next? Requiring all citizens with driver's licenses to carry comprehensive, low deductible auto insurance regardless of the condition of one's vehicle or whether one even owns a vehicle, so those who are bad drivers and those with tickets and DUI's can be supplemented to purchase the same? 'Free Choice Hypocrites!'
__________________
“To compel a man to furnish funds for the propagation of ideas he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical.” Thomas Jefferson
|
|
#13
02-11-2015, 01:20 PM
|
||||
|
||||
|
Quote:
Yes, people who don't use insurance having insurance is what makes insurance work. That's why insurance companies don't want to insure people in flood zones and the government has to do it. The problem is that we view health care as an insurance product at all. But as the defeat of Prop 45 showed, health insurance companies see great value in keeping the status quo as unchanged as possible, and they'll spend a lot of money to that end.
__________________
Gentlemen! We're burning daylight! Riders up! -Bill Murray
|
|
#14
02-11-2015, 02:49 PM
|
|||
|
|||
|
Quote:
 as for flood insurance....yeah, that's separate so that the majority of us who don't choose to live in flood zones don't have to help pay for those that do. people like to compare health to other insurance, but it's really not comparable. one can choose not to drive a car, or to not drive drunk, they can be good drivers so they get good rates. health is a crap shoot for the most part. non smokers get lung cancer, people who eat well get diabetes, or crohns, or colon cancer, etc. as long as health insurance is handled for profit, it's going to remain a mess. when one is a bad driver with multiple violations, one has to buy high risk auto insurance which is costly. obviously health insurance can't be handled the same way.
__________________
Books serve to show a man that those original thoughts of his aren't very new at all. Abraham Lincoln
|
|
#15
02-11-2015, 03:17 PM
|
||||
|
||||
|
Quote:
Quote:
Quote:
However, unlike obesity smokers billow 2nd hand smoke and if one is regularly exposed to it either at work or home it increases the chances of lung cancer by 20%-30%. And don't get me started on exercise or the lack of it by many who are too lazy to do even basic calisthenics. Obese people should be paying at least $1,429 per year more (plus whatever the increase since that number is outdated by 6 years) than those who are not and smokers should be paying for 90% of the costs associated with lung cancer. We need to stop looking for the nanny and start looking in the mirror. I and many others don't smoke, are not obese and exercise daily yet we are unfairly mandated to supplement obese, lazy, smokers. Just as at risk drivers pay more for automobile insurance so should the at risk health insured especially considering they did it to themselves.
__________________
“To compel a man to furnish funds for the propagation of ideas he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical.” Thomas Jefferson Last edited by dellinger63 : 02-11-2015 at 03:53 PM.
|
|
#16
02-11-2015, 05:05 PM
|
||||
|
||||
|
Quote:
Please explain to me how my mother, who had both of her kids before the age of 30 and breast fed both of us for an extended time, gave herself breast cancer. Because that's what you do to reduce your risk- have kids before 30 and breast feed. In fact, the first two specialists she saw didn't believe her, because she was in such a low-risk group. They made fun of her alleged hypochondria ("You nurses are all the same") and sent her on her way. And actually, according to this study, the obese and smokers are cheaper than health nuts: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/05/he...8884.html?_r=0
__________________
Gentlemen! We're burning daylight! Riders up! -Bill Murray
|
|
#17
02-11-2015, 11:28 PM
|
|||
|
|||
|
Quote:
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. Last edited by Rupert Pupkin : 02-11-2015 at 11:44 PM.
|
|
#18
02-13-2015, 12:38 PM
|
||||
|
||||
|
Quote:
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.
__________________
Gentlemen! We're burning daylight! Riders up! -Bill Murray
|
|
#19
02-13-2015, 02:27 PM
|
||||
|
||||
|
Fantastic program for those trying to kick the cigarette habit
http://www.latimes.com/world/middlee...212-story.html
__________________
“To compel a man to furnish funds for the propagation of ideas he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical.” Thomas Jefferson
|
|
#20
02-23-2015, 09:15 PM
|
||||
|
||||
|
__________________
All ambitions are lawful except those which climb upward on the miseries or credulities of mankind. ~ Joseph Conrad A long habit of not thinking a thing wrong, gives it a superficial appearance of being right. ~ Thomas Paine Don't let anyone tell you that your dreams can't come true. They are only afraid that theirs won't and yours will. ~ Robert Evans The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command. ~ George Orwell, 1984.
|
Hybrid Mode
