Women's preventive health care now easier to afford

[dellinger63]

Originally Posted by Riot

Take a deep breath and see how preventive health care means lower premiums for all:

Cost of the pill for 20 years (to insurance company) about $1000 or less

stop right there and do the math!

20 years equals 240 months. BC pills at $4.17 per/month or 13 cents a day?

And the president thinks that's too much to have a co-pay

How about paying a 34% co-pay of BC pills just to make it fair to everyone! And a lesson to how much the 'rich' are actually paying!

[Riot]

And the president thinks that's too much to have a co-pay

No. The President had nothing to do with it. That's what medical commissions recommended to improve womens health. Much easier to pay .13 a day than pay for an unwanted pregnancy, birth, and 20 years of life, right?

Only you could be making the argument that it is better to not pay preventive care, and rather pay for the disease.

[Danzig]

Although the new women's preventive services will be free of any additional charge to patients, somebody will have to pay. The cost will be spread among other people with health insurance, resulting in slightly higher premiums.


well, no joke. that's as obvious as the statement that medicare is run by the government. who knew?!?!

my bills keep going up, and i haven't done a thing to cause that. most premiums for insurance are based on specific things-your age, your level of risk, your past claims, your bad driving.
health insurance-nope, the hard working and healthy get to carry that burden, and it won't be getting lighter.

[Riot]

Originally Posted by Danzig

Although the new women's preventive services will be free of any additional charge to patients, somebody will have to pay. The cost will be spread among other people with health insurance, resulting in slightly higher premiums.

Yes, exactly as it is now. But again: would you rather, as a group paying for the others in your insurance group, pay for a pap smear? Or cervical cancer? Pay for a mammogram? Or treating breast cancer? Pay for birth control pills? Or for a pregnancy, delivery, and 20 years of health care for the child?

Which do you think is gonna lower your premiums over time? Paying for preventive care for everyone, or paying for the diseases?

BTW, birth control pills cost about a dollar a month or less to make. The pharmacist buys them for a couple dollars. The insurance company negotiates a charge to their insured at that pharmacy, and they pocket your "copay".

You guys would be furious if you knew how little it costs to make drugs that you pay hundreds of dollars a month for. But, the drug companies put the money into research and development, so I can't begrudge them their profit. But it is sad to see people die because insurance companies won't pay exaggerated inflated prices to the drug companies for particular drugs. Death panels.

[Danzig]

i don't take any regular medication.

and i know that the more people who buy insurance, the better. the trick is getting everyone to buy, and i still don't see how they're going to do that. hell, most states still can't get drivers to buy liability on their car; they buy a policy just to get tags renewed, and then they cancel. why pay? they won't wreck-they think. it's why the rest of us have to carry uninsured and underinsured motorist coverage.
and many will rather pay the fine then buy when it comes times-but what happens when they need care? we pay for it.
i never, ever understood the mindset of people that i hired where i used to work. they were all for the insurance til it came time to sign up, then they balked at the small amount they had to pay. then they'd bitch when they had to go to the doctor-it coooosts sooo muuuuch. duh


as for credit cards, i don't have any of those. easy to avoid that gouging.

[Danzig]

another concern i have-how much will this cost the states? the feds say it'll save them money in the long run, but the states say that's because they will bear more of the burden.
how much will my taxes go up? my premiums go up every year, so now i guess i have an increase in taxes to go along with it...no insurance co. is going to do a thing out of the goodness of their hearts-any increases they will face will be passed on. carrying people with pre-existing conditions will cost me, not the co. kids til age 26-that'll cost me, even tho none of mine are on my insurance. free coverages, yeah, nothing is free.

all the govt should have done was expanded coverage thru medicaid to cover those who can't get coverage.
and get this, arkansas has had that available for some time. if you couldn't get covered, or your plan was too high-you could get covered thru the state. i wonder how many other states have the same type of program...

thing is, many who don't have insurance don't have it for a reason..they don't want to pay.

[Riot]

Originally Posted by Danzig

another concern i have-how much will this cost the states?

I don't know what you are talking about. The ACA in it's entirety? The costs are listed in the Wikipedia entry for it, if you want to see how it was paid for. The CBO has scored it a net zero - meaning your taxes are not predicted to go up to pay for any of it.

The birth control thing is a consumer protection for private insurance companies.

all the govt should have done was expanded coverage thru medicaid to cover those who can't get coverage.

I agree. But that was called socialized medicine and death panels, and people feared it and screamed they didn't want that government takeover of their healthcare (they talked about expanding Medicare, not Medicaid). That is essentially what they have come up with temporarily, until the insurance exchanges kick in.

Actually, I think everyone in the country should be able to buy into Medicare if they want.

That would also leave the private insurance companies with only the healthy patients, they would refuse to insure and orphan anyone with any problem at all. That wouldn't work.

[Riot]

Why have your insurance premiums gone up in the past couple of years?

Health Insurers Making Record Profits as Many Postpone Care
By REED ABELSON
Published: May 13, 2011

The nation’s major health insurers are barreling into a third year of record profits, enriched in recent months by a lingering recessionary mind-set among Americans who are postponing or forgoing medical care.

... snip ...

Yet the companies continue to press for higher premiums, even though their reserve coffers are flush with profits and shareholders have been rewarded with new dividends.

Many defend proposed double-digit increases in the rates they charge, citing a need for protection against any sudden uptick in demand once people have more money to spend on their health, as well as the rising price of care.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/14/bu.../14health.html

[Danzig]

Originally Posted by Riot

I don't know what you are talking about. The ACA in it's entirety? The costs are listed in the Wikipedia entry for it, if you want to see how it was paid for. The CBO has scored it a net zero - meaning your taxes are not predicted to go up to pay for any of it.

The birth control thing is a consumer protection for private insurance companies.



I agree. But that was called socialized medicine and death panels, and people feared it and screamed they didn't want that government takeover of their healthcare (they talked about expanding Medicare, not Medicaid). That is essentially what they have come up with temporarily, until the insurance exchanges kick in.

Actually, I think everyone in the country should be able to buy into Medicare if they want.

That would also leave the private insurance companies with only the healthy patients, they would refuse to insure and orphan anyone with any problem at all. That wouldn't work.

i doubt the cbo counts anything that goes towards the states portion. i just read the other day that medicaid is going to explode cost-wise to help pay for what is affectionately termed obama care. that by 2020 the states are going to be in a world of hurt because of their share, that grows every year.

medicare is part of ss. it's supposedly paid for by ss taxes with extra $ required for anything beyond part A, and extra premiums if you don't have that oh so difficult to achieve 40 credits. i can only imagine the sheer cost if people could just jump in earlier...as i said above, i know this state has something in place to cover those who can't otherwise find insurance, either due to prohibitive cost, pre-existing conditions, etc. i doubt arkansas is the only one to have this program. medicaid is for the indigent, medicare for the elderly...problem is, medicaid is so beyond screwed up already, i don't know how they'll handle the increase they're about to get. or how we'll pay for it.

[Riot]

my bills keep going up, and i haven't done a thing to cause that.

And, that is exactly why the ACA exists. It's mostly consumer protections. To stop insurance companies from gouging their clients for profit. While they are making record profit.

The insurance companies will gouge you for all they can, until the ACA provisions kick in to stop it.

Just like the credit card companies gouged their clients for all they could, before those consumer protections kicked in.