the aca

[Rudeboyelvis]

Originally Posted by Danzig

it's a mess. not sure how it'll go, but did find this article, and it had some interesting info.

http://www.cnn.com/2013/11/14/opinio...ntent=My+Yahoo

an excerpt, especially important for those who thought everything was just fine with our system before:

CHART 2: How bad it was before Obamacare

We may need a reminder of how disastrous our health insurance system was before Congress passed Obamacare. Just one way of looking at this is that health care spending as a percent of family income was already an astronomical 19% in 2009 but was projected to be 30% by 2019 and 48% by 2029 — unless something was done.

those are certainly unsustainable.
now, i know some are anti-aca, because they think they don't want to subsidize other peoples health care, while ignoring the fact that we've been subsidizing it for years already.
i don't like the aca because i think the whole thing could have been fixed in a much easier way, without all the involvement of so many agencies, and without all the various and sundry components.
however, something had to be done. it has been done. now we'll see how it goes.
another thing i'd recommend-allowing insurers across state lines. it's done with other lines of insurance, it should be for health as well.

Firstly, there are absolutely no guarantees whatsoever that obamacare will not surpass these levels in 10 to 20 years. In fact they will - it is simple economics.

As pointed out in another thread, when you cut through all the partisan bullsh1t this is where we are and how we got here:

1. Insurance carriers and Hospital systems are corporate entities that are required to not only turn a profit, but exceed expected revenue levels quarterly. This is not them being the Devil, they simply have a corporate, fiduciary responsibility to their shareholders to do so.

2. They pay for legislation (or more accurately lack of legislation) that allows them to act in a manner that is financially beneficial to THEM, not the people they are tasked with treating, which in turn increase their profits (duh).

3. The projected increases in costs under the "old" system are directly tied to the exponential charges (not costs) they pass on to their patients. Have you ever seen an itemized hospital bill for someone treated without insurance? 25.00 for an Advil??!!

4. The reason that the uninsured charges were/are astronomical is that they fully expected that these bills would either not be paid, or a negotiated payback would be struck between patient and accounts recievable at a miniscule fraction of the charged rate. They would then use these losses to write down against profits for further corporate tax subsidies - they never lose a dime and even profit from the writedowns.

Our glorious leader ran on a platform to change this. It's a perpetuating downhill spiral that as has been pointed out, is unsustainable.

Big O, circa 2006 - "Healthcare needed to be reformed - the way we do business in the healthcare industry needs to be evaluated and changed so that healtcare is available to all"

Big O, circa 2012 - "Well, I didn't accomplish a fuc1<ing thing in trying to get these parasitic fuc1<s to come off a single dime. So here's what we're gonna do. Everybody pays for everyone else and that way these healthcare corporations never have to write off a loss. They can pick and choose whomever they want, and lay all of the risk at the feet of the taxpayer, oh, and I circumvented the entire process, cuz you know I'm a constitutional law guy, so that it's a law. And cuz it's a law, the SCOTUS had no recourse but bless it as such. So you're all fuc1<ed. Look on the bright side, you can recoup some of your taxes by buy stock in the hospitals and insurance companies, because their profits will be off the charts!!

Of course, know that if you do, Ima gunna tax your gains too!" Who do you think you are, not being poor?

God Bless America

[Danzig]

^^ all true, many pies.

why is aca as it is. cause health insurers want it so. they don't care if our spending is more and more geared to health. hell, that's more and more money they'll get.

we shouldn't be trying to help people make a profit on health care. because everything they do will be geared to their bottom line.

they took a good idea, care for everyone, no ban on pre-existing. but there had to be something given in return. why? because of profits.

it's a bad system, aca only forces more people into that bad system.

[Danzig]

http://news.msn.com/us/house-oks-cov...bamacare-rules


i think it would make sense to allow people to buy bare bones plans.

however, every change in rules will damage the aca, eventually causing it to fail completely.
i don't wish to see a return to our current, deeply flawed system.
but, if it leads to single payer, have at it!

[joeydb]

"You can keep your health care plan" = REPEAL.

[Danzig]

not going to happen.

you really think insurance companies are going to keep these plans? don't be silly.
why would they sell you something for $50 if they can get $100?

[joeydb]

Originally Posted by Danzig

not going to happen.

you really think insurance companies are going to keep these plans? don't be silly.
why would they sell you something for $50 if they can get $100?

They have to get the $100 because the government will force them to cover people who will never pay. Or else they go out of business, which is also OK with the government so they can push socialized medicine, incorrectly referred to as "single payer".

[Danzig]

Originally Posted by joeydb

They have to get the $100 because the government will force them to cover people who will never pay. Or else they go out of business, which is also OK with the government so they can push socialized medicine, incorrectly referred to as "single payer".

one, people have gotten care for years that couldn't pay. any of us with insurance has been paying huge bills for years to cover those without ability to pay.
health insurers won't get pushed out of business. who do you think included all these rules about coverages, so as to pay for those who will use their insurance?

and, please, do tell how single payer equals socialized equals bad? i can't wait for that.

and i guess the interstate highway system is socialized? we all paid, and we don't all use them.