Thank goodness I don’t have “the government” between me and my doctor!
That’s the standard reply in opposition to government run health care, so the Democrats came up with a solution. We’ll let the private market run health care. Even better, we’ll force our citizens to buy health insurance from this private market.
I have a suspicious skin lesion that my primary doctor examined today. He wants me to get it biopsied ASAP and set up an appointment tomorrow morning at the dermatologist he prefers.
Well guess what! Some accountant at my health insurance company does not approve of that dermatologist and wants me to go to their preferred guy but the earliest he can see me is FOUR WEEKS.
Fortunately, my doctor was able to pull strings (and spend HIS valuable time) to get me into the other practice tomorrow, despite the fact that HE would rather I went elsewhere.
Obamacare sucks. It’s better than what we had before, but that does not mean that it does not suck.
And there is this:
Back in March, my wife was experiencing tightness in her chest and other symptoms of a heart trouble. My wife is an R.N. She decided to call our general practitioner. Women are more likely than men to dismiss chest pain that signals heart problems and to delay seeking medical help, even though heart disease is a leading cause of death for both women and men, according to a Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) expert.
The office visit went well and our doctor was sure that my wife’s health was okay at that moment, but her symptoms made him suspicious and to be on the safe side, he recommenced that she be fitted with a heart monitor for 24 hours. That would require a visit to our local hospital. Our only question was “Is this covered by her insurance?” We received several answers ranging from “We think so” to “We won’t know until the billing is done and the codes are entered”. Finally, we did reach someone who assured us that this was covered, 100%, no co-pays, no deductibles.
The results were negative. That’s the good news.
The bad news is that since March, we’ve been getting bills from the hospital. My wife has spent hours on the phone with the hospital, her insurer, and others, trying to resolve this. Several times she received verbal assurance that this was covered, only to look in the mailbox later that week to see another bill from the hospital.
In August, we received notice that unless this was paid, it would be transferred to a collection agency.
More hours on the phone, more stress.
Finally, yesterday (late September), we received a call from the hospital telling us that the insurance company paid the bill and there is no money due, no collection agencies, no damaged credit ratings.
Obamacare sucks. It’s better than what we had before, but that does not mean that it does not suck.
Expanding it, as our nominee wants to do, is not the answer. You can make the Titanic as big as you want, it’s still poorly designed and not suited to protect its passengers or crew.
We need Medicare for all, or the Public Option, or something.
N/T
Thanks
Her plan includes an endorsement of a public option (you and your wife could select it) which is now in the DNC platform, an endorsement of expanding Medicare to cover citizens 55 and over (you and your wife are eligible to get it), an expansion of aid to the states to expand Medicaid to cover additional income brackets (you and your wife might be eligible if you’re already getting subsidized on the exchange), and cost controls on prescription drugs.
Under President Trump you lose the system you are already using, which I’ve found easy to use and better than employer insurance in my subjective experience, which is then replaced with “good luck pal, you shoulda been a rich winner like me”. Under President Clinton there are three options that are now open to you to get Medicare or Medicaid that don’t exist now.
As soon as you point to the Congress ready to enact Medicare for All and the insurance industry willing to roll over and accept it (it’s not like they fought Hillarycare or Obamacare tooth and nail…oh wait) you will likely also find a President Clintok eager to sign it into law. Just like President Obama favored it in theory, but we reform healthcare incrementally using the system we have not blowing it up and starting from scratch.
Last time I heard her, she was excited about how many people were covered by Obamacare. This is good news. I stand corrected.
You can be both supportive of ACA and want to improve upon it.
The ACA is market driven. The only way to “improve” it would be to remove the market.
I enthusiastically agree that today’s health care system sucks. I agree that we need to get to government-sponsored single-payer health care.
That does NOT mean that we need to ditch Obamacare or that Obamacare cannot be improved.
You seem to be comparing Obamacare to a mythical and ideal system where everyone gets world-class healthcare with no out-of-pocket spending. That doesn’t exist — it doesn’t exist in America, and it doesn’t exist in any comparable nation.
We should instead be comparing Obamacare to what we would have had we done nothing. By those standards, we are far better off today under Obamacare. The absurd and debilitating cost spiral that you describe was well underway in 2008. I ran a startup from 1989 to 1991, and our per-family health insurance costs were skyrocketing even then. From 1991 to 2010, I paid for my own family’s health insurance costs because I was running my own consulting business. The cost spiral you describe was already out of control. Each year’s premium was significantly higher than the preceding one. My 2006 annual premiums for my family coverage were well in excess of $18,000 — ten years ago and well before Obama care. That was for a high-deductable plan with no out-of-pocket maximums, with exclusions for “pre-existing conditions”, and with an ever-growing list of prescription medications and medical equipment that were excluded from coverage (including the equipment I needed to treat my obstructive sleep apnea).
I wonder how much visibility you had to family health care premiums from the mid 1990s to 2008. Were you paying them yourselves, or was your employer? I ask because they were absolutely out-of-control, well beyond what we are seeing today.
Our situation today is far improved over what it would have been without Obamacare. Our situation can be improved by much-needed changes to Obamacare, including a “public option” and the expansion of medicare.
Your comment strikes me as a canonical example of the perfect being the enemy of the good.
in Obamacare. Citizens being forced to purchase health insurance from a private “for profit” corporation is at the root of Obamacare. It’s history can be traced to the Heritage Foundation and then Republican Mitt Romney.
I am not saying that it’s better than what we had. Almost anything was better than what we had.
But is still sucks and it sucks at its core. It’s core is private corporations selling health insurance to citizens, forced by their government to buy it.
Eliminate that concept ….and you gut Obamacare.
Eliminate that concept and you join the nations of the developed world who see health care as a right, not a commodity for sale in the public market.
“Single Payer Healthcare,” the most favored method of healthcare adopted by developed nations, is…
A) A market solution
B) A regulatory function
C) A Communist plot to sap our precious bodily fluids
D) Worst recipe for blueberry pie, ever
You seem to be doubling down on your perfect-instead-of-the-good argument.
We agree that Obamacare is better than what we had. We also agree that it needs to be improved.
What your final paragraph fails to acknowledge is that other “nations of the developed world”, even if they “see health care as a right”, still do not provide health care for free.
It is the following two paragraphs that are the Achilles Heel of your argument:
Bernie Sanders rejected these, rather testily, during the debates. Ms. Clinton said he proposed to gut Obamacare, and he responded that he wanted to improve it. So you, in this comment, are going well beyond the proposals of Mr. Sanders.
You seem to be arguing that we must:
1. Scrap Obamacare
2. Create a single-payer government-sponsored health care system that costs residents nothing.
The GOP has been attempting to do the first of those for as long as Obamacare has been the law of the land. I’ve lost count of how many times the house has voted to repeal the ACA. I’m sure the GOP welcomes your support for this first step.
The second step will not happen anytime in the near future. It would not have happened in 2008 (even the Democrats had no stomach for it), it certainly will not happen with today’s house and senate, and it’s difficult to imagine a house and senate that will pass it — especially since no other nation in the world attempts to provide health care to its residents at no cost to those residents.
You have made the perfect (your ideal fantasy) the enemy of the good (the existing ACA), and in so doing effectively oppose any improvements to the ACA.
From her website:
Defend and expand the Affordable Care Act
Bring down out-of-pocket costs like copays and deductibles.
Reduce the cost of prescription drugs.
Expand access to affordable health care …
Nope, that’s not what I want. I do not want it expanded. I do not want it to be “affordable”.
Health care, in the majority of cases, does not belong in any market.
Inelastic demand is proof of this. If heart valve replacements get cheaper, I am not going to want one simply because I do not need one. However, if I need one, the cost is something I will pay not matter how high because without it, I die.
Hillary, once elected, has to make this bold move.
It’s just that the government acts as your HMO. This is also how Medicare works, it still bids for items and purchases in bulk to keep costs down. The supply side of healthcare is where costs can be reduced via price controls and an all rate payer system.
The only model where government directly provide health care to citizens is the NHS, and it would be prohibitively expensive and politically impossible to nationalize all of our hospitals and providers overnight.
I think you’re trying to argue it’s a geffen good and I don’t disagree, but the vehicle of payment delivery will be the system we already have. An opt in public option is the best we can possibly hope for in the American health care system and its supported by Sec. Clinton. Work for that, and you get your backdoor single payer.
ACA does the following:
-Expands Medicare to cover 150% above the poverty line
-Divorces employers from insurance
-Entitles anyone to coverage even with pre-existing conditions
-Subsidizes coverage in full or partially for employees making up to 300% of the poverty line
So the only folks left in the gap are folks under 65, who make between 45k and above. That’s still a lot of people-what will Sec Clinton to help them?
-Allow people between 55 and 65 to be eligible for Medicare
-Expand SCHIP to cover the majority of children in this country
-Allow anyone to opt in to a public option
-Expand Medicare again to cover 350%-400% of the poverty line
This basically means anyone making 50k a year or less will get government subsidized care of some kind, anyone making above 50k could opt in to a public option if they want to, and we now cover millions of more people under Medicare, Medicaid and chip.
This is single payer by a thousand steps, and while it might not be called “single payer”, a public option basically is. Anyone not enrolled in a government plan will essentially be someone choosing to reject it. This is awfully close to a two tier system like that of France, Germany or Switzerland. Or even an opt in Canada. American NHS is impossible, and to use that as a baseline is to deny that the last 75 years of health care policy ever happened. It’s akin to controlling greenhouse gases by preventing the automobile from being made.
Just like my local police force relies on the market to buy squad cars and uniforms and pistols. Yeah, we get that. But when I need police protection, I don’t get a bill.
Let me ask you all this:
Would you all embrace “Affordable Voting Rights” or “Affordable Gay Rights” and so on? If it’s a right, it does not need to be purchased in the marketplace from those who OWN it.
I think I have a Cadillac plan. My family policy probably costs a total of $15,000 or $16,000. I pay $7000+ and have relatively small copays ($20 for doctor’s appointments) and ($20, $30, and $50 for medications).
East Longmeadow belongs to a health insurance trust. We have had some changes, and my wife is still on the phone all the time. The bills are never right. My oldest daughter was in the ER three times last year (nothing serious), and we’re still getting bills that my wife thinks she paid. We have to deal with the insurer, the insurance trust’s funky relationship with the insurer, and the health care provider. It’s stupid. It’s a waste of time and money. But it’s not Obamacare.
As a teacher and a selectman, I’d love to see Medicare extended to people 60 or younger. It would save cities and towns a lot of money on insurance and lower that post-employment benefit. As it is now, I’ll retire at 60 and pay what I do know for health care, but I won’t qualify for Medicare until I’m 65. That’s five years medicare would have helped the town.
…if you are of that age? I spent 6 months fighting a $600 bill for my free colonoscopy…fighting with the insurance company was a very unhealthy experience.
It’s free just as long as they don’t find any polyps. If they find one and remove it, then we’re not looking at a preventative exam. Now it’s surgery and that has a deductible. So, the doc finds one and then how do you, as the patient, make the decision to spend your money on a surgery? Since this is “a market”, do you shop your polyp removal around? Ask for bids?
Nope, you wake up from the anesthesia and get faced with a bill.
Great system, eh?
will not reduce costs or allow choice of services.
http://www.pnhp.org/change/Public_Option_Myths_and_Facts.pdf