President Obama announces health law fix

[NeverSure]

There is a fallacy that people want choice with their healthcare. But people don't choose when to get sick, nor do they get to select the variety of their ailment and how long they'll have it for.

As such having 'choice' in your level of insurance cover is in the main a dodgy practice. While I undertand the politics of the decision, allowing substandard insurance coverage to continue is a mistake.

I don't think you quite understand. Last night on TV I was watching a very smart and articulate man being interviewed about his canceled insurance.

He was obviously well-off and self-employed, and bought insurance for himself and his wife. He had opted for much the same thing I used to have - a high deductible policy. He said he and his wife had a $6,000 per year deductible, meaning that they had to pay for the first $6,000 of their health care every year. But after they paid $6,000 (which they had never needed) the full-blown insurance kicked in and covered everything with no lifetime limit.

So he was insuring against the catastrophic, and willing to pay up to $6,000 out of his own pocket if necessary.

By doing this, it cut his premium by 1/2 and he said he was paying about $400 a month, or $200 per person. His policy was canceled because that's not legal any more. That high deductible doesn't meet the Obamacare standards so he lost his freedom of choice.

His new policy's premium was going to double and he had no choice and he wasn't happy. If you do the math, his added premiums for his Obamacare policy will be an enforced additional $4,800 per year, or not far from the "maybe" $6,000 deductible he had, but never paid.

It's easy to look at the one side of the equation: $2400 per head more for insurance than last year. And that sucks.

The other side of the coin is that they're no longer subject to as large a deductible. Given that the average health care spending per capita in the USA is over $8,000- they seem to fall under the "I'm healthy, so why should I pay for insurance I don't need" crowd. So far, they have dodged the bullet- but then, so do most of the folks who will be bankrupted by next years' cancer.

Maybe having the lower deductible will make it less costly to get preventive care they seem to be forgoing if they've never hit their deductible as they claim.

Let's talk to the same guy in 3-5 or in 10 years and see how he has really fared for his insurance dollar. The reality may be a lot different than the fear..

To your statement: They don't/won't grasp the fact that so many doctors and hospitals have said they won't accept it.

The medical profession may not like it. But they've had their way for too many years and the cost of healthcare has spiraled out of control. When every man, woman and child is required to be covered under a policy acceptable to these rules, the medical profession will either accept it, or they'll go out of business or they'll move to Thailand to retire. And when they're gone (doubtful), a new batch will take their place with the understanding that it's a different ballgame.

Like I said, the people who like this program don't understand it. The US needs to make many changes in health care, but this isn't it.

As for the couple which has been saving $4,800 per year with a $6,000 deductible, if they've been doing that for ten years they've saved $48,000. When they reach age 65 they can switch to Medicare. He looked to be about 50. Who knows how many years he's been saving money on premiums? He looked like he could pay $6,000 a year and never miss it if someone got sick. He lost his choice to manage his own affairs.

As for "They don't/won't grasp the fact that so many doctors and hospitals have said they won't accept it," apparently you don't know than some hospitals and many doctors already won't accept Medicaid because it doesn't pay enough. It's free insurance for the poor.

Subsidized Obamacare is just more Medicaid. Since all of these providers already won't accept it, what makes you think they will accept it if millions more people show up with Medicaid? No, they won't.

America has a health care system which is mostly privately owned from hospitals to doctors' offices to the insurance companies. America isn't communist and no one can tell private businesses who they have to serve. That's obvious just from watching 5 million people get their insurance policies canceled because the private insurance companies didn't like the new rules.

The real problems with the system didn't get addressed and they aren't on the radar. The things that keep costs so high didn't get looked at. All of the people keeping the costs so high got a pass because they are big campaign donors. Obamacare does nothing to address the cost side, but rather just throws more money at it making it even more costly.

The people supporting this bill are very confused about what it is.

Even the Democrats who brought us this bill are awakening to what it is and are ripping into Obama.

[HeijoshinCool]

There is a fallacy that people want choice with their healthcare. But people don't choose when to get sick, nor do they get to select the variety of their ailment and how long they'll have it for.

As such having 'choice' in your level of insurance cover is in the main a dodgy practice. While I undertand the politics of the decision, allowing substandard insurance coverage to continue is a mistake.

Freedom of choice means freedom of choice. Even if it's a poor one.

At least, it did in the America I grew up in.

The only choice, if you want to call it that, is a binary one. Opting out, or opting in. Medical care and the consumption of medical care is fundamentally different to every other consumer good. You have about as much choice in the matter as if you get to choose if need to take a crap. But funnily enough, no one is decrying the provision of public lavatories as an assault on your civil liberties are they?

Maybe I'm misunderstanding, but I think you are making my point.

And, medical care is no different than any other product. You pick quality, price, and service levels, you hand over money, you get what you paid for.

All of my adult life I had hundreds of companies and policies and deductibles and co-pay choices. I chose what was right for me, and paid for it.

My provider was excellent, never a problem.

[samran]

There is a fallacy that people want choice with their healthcare. But people don't choose when to get sick, nor do they get to select the variety of their ailment and how long they'll have it for.

As such having 'choice' in your level of insurance cover is in the main a dodgy practice. While I undertand the politics of the decision, allowing substandard insurance coverage to continue is a mistake.

Freedom of choice means freedom of choice. Even if it's a poor one.

At least, it did in the America I grew up in.

The only choice, if you want to call it that, is a binary one. Opting out, or opting in. Medical care and the consumption of medical care is fundamentally different to every other consumer good. You have about as much choice in the matter as if you get to choose if need to take a crap. But funnily enough, no one is decrying the provision of public lavatories as an assault on your civil liberties are they?

Maybe I'm misunderstanding, but I think you are making my point.

And, medical care is no different than any other product. You pick quality, price, and service levels, you hand over money, you get what you paid for.

All of my adult life I had hundreds of companies and policies and deductibles and co-pay choices. I chose what was right for me, and paid for it.

My provider was excellent, never a problem.

There are a couple of things which make it different. Hope I don't bore you to death:

Most things in life you consume cause you want them. You generally have a good idea of what you want, how much you want to pay, and who you'll buy it from. Can't afford a Merc, buy a Toyota. Don't like this Toyata dealers price, go up the road. We have genuine choice in that situation both on the demand side (the type of car) and the supply side (which dealer I work with).

Health care flips all that on its head.

- As I said earlier. We don't know when we are going to get sick, we don't choose what you are going to get, you don't know how long you'll be sick for. Thats the demand side. You have no choice when you get sick or how much you are going to pay.

- On the supply side, you have very few options for who provides the services. Doctors are relatively few and far between. Specialists, as the name implies, are ever rarer. So as much as we say we like to choose our doctor, if you need a brain surgeon or a particular type of patiented cancer drug, your choices are limited. And you need to pay the price ((there are no-inbeweens like walking, catching a bus if you can't afford the Toyota like in the car example I used...)

So basic supply/demand economics that everyone likes to apply to this argument are actually no-applicable.

Given this, it is really hard to say, well I need 'x type of insurance'. As show, the insurance coverage might have limits, so then your are screwed, despite your best intentions.

Which is why I said in reality there only a binary decision, you either opt out, and get nothing, or you get insurance, and it covers everything. In betweens give us the illusion of choice, but the reality is, they are only differing levels of under-insurance.

[Scott]

An off-topic post has been deleted.

[Credo]

Samran said:

Which is why I said in reality there only a binary decision, you either opt out, and get nothing, or you get insurance, and it covers everything. In betweens give us the illusion of choice, but the reality is, they are only differing levels of under-insurance.

And that under-insurance is relatively cheap and it's great....as long as you don't need it.

[uptheos]

"On Thursday, Mr Obama said improvements to the website, which was launched last month, would be "marked and noticeable" by the end of November".

I presume the same clowns that worked on setting up the original website, will be fixing it?

Good luck.

[Scott]

A reply to a deleted post has been deleted.

People do not have to make an justification for posting their opinion or experience. Insinuation that they do is inflammatory and will not be tolerated.

[cloudhopper]

This latest move will not fix anything because it will never be implemented. The insurance companies that wrote the ACA are relying on large numbers of people being forced to subscribe to their "approved" plans, or else rates will skyrocket. They will anyway because only the sick can even afford the new premiums.

[hawker9000]

There is a fallacy that people want choice with their healthcare. But people don't choose when to get sick, nor do they get to select the variety of their ailment and how long they'll have it for.

As such having 'choice' in your level of insurance cover is in the main a dodgy practice. While I undertand the politics of the decision, allowing substandard insurance coverage to continue is a mistake.

I don't think you quite understand. Last night on TV I was watching a very smart and articulate man being interviewed about his canceled insurance.

He was obviously well-off and self-employed, and bought insurance for himself and his wife. He had opted for much the same thing I used to have - a high deductible policy. He said he and his wife had a $6,000 per year deductible, meaning that they had to pay for the first $6,000 of their health care every year. But after they paid $6,000 (which they had never needed) the full-blown insurance kicked in and covered everything with no lifetime limit.

So he was insuring against the catastrophic, and willing to pay up to $6,000 out of his own pocket if necessary.

By doing this, it cut his premium by 1/2 and he said he was paying about $400 a month, or $200 per person. His policy was canceled because that's not legal any more. That high deductible doesn't meet the Obamacare standards so he lost his freedom of choice.

His new policy's premium was going to double and he had no choice and he wasn't happy. If you do the math, his added premiums for his Obamacare policy will be an enforced additional $4,800 per year, or not far from the "maybe" $6,000 deductible he had, but never paid.

It's easy to look at the one side of the equation: $2400 per head more for insurance than last year. And that sucks.

The other side of the coin is that they're no longer subject to as large a deductible. Given that the average health care spending per capita in the USA is over $8,000- they seem to fall under the "I'm healthy, so why should I pay for insurance I don't need" crowd. So far, they have dodged the bullet- but then, so do most of the folks who will be bankrupted by next years' cancer.

Maybe having the lower deductible will make it less costly to get preventive care they seem to be forgoing if they've never hit their deductible as they claim.

Let's talk to the same guy in 3-5 or in 10 years and see how he has really fared for his insurance dollar. The reality may be a lot different than the fear..

To your statement: They don't/won't grasp the fact that so many doctors and hospitals have said they won't accept it.

The medical profession may not like it. But they've had their way for too many years and the cost of healthcare has spiraled out of control. When every man, woman and child is required to be covered under a policy acceptable to these rules, the medical profession will either accept it, or they'll go out of business or they'll move to Thailand to retire. And when they're gone (doubtful), a new batch will take their place with the understanding that it's a different ballgame.

You left out one other very significant option. 'To not train for and enter the medical profession in the first place. Are we then going to start "importing" doctors from India or wherever, the way we recruit nurses from the Philippines now? Is that the "new batch" you're talking about? Government involvement in these things always turns into a game of whack-a-mole, where the only real people benefiting are the career politicians and blood-sucking bureaucrats. A bandaid is applied, and the patient starts hemorrhaging in three other places. Eventually he ends up on permanent life support with ten others having to donate blood for him... This goes on until EVERYONE (except the politicians & bureaucrats just mentioned...) is either a donor or a seriously ill patient!

[JSixpack]

[

Most things in life you consume cause you want them. You generally have a good idea of what you want, how much you want to pay, and who you'll buy it from. Can't afford a Merc, buy a Toyota. Don't like this Toyata dealers price, go up the road. We have genuine choice in that situation both on the demand side (the type of car) and the supply side (which dealer I work with).

Health care flips all that on its head.

No.

- As I said earlier. We don't know when we are going to get sick, we don't choose what you are going to get, you don't know how long you'll be sick for. Thats the demand side. You have no choice when you get sick or how much you are going to pay.

Actually, people do have much control over their health. If I go to the effort to take good care of my health, why should I pay as much for insurance as someone who doesn't?

Why should men, or women over 60, pay for maternity care coverage?

- On the supply side, you have very few options for who provides the services. Doctors are relatively few and far between. Specialists, as the name implies, are ever rarer.

Mostly because of unhelpful gov't interference in the marketplace.

Think Wal-Mart and other discount stores.

So basic supply/demand economics that everyone likes to apply to this argument are actually no-applicable.

Merely because the gov't and various lobbies haven't allowed normal economics to work.

Medical care could be plentiful and fairly cheap if sold freely and competitively like any other commodity. For example, where's the advertising? Insurance sold across state lines? Tort reform? Cut-rate shops? Diagnoses via internet, including from accredited foreign doctors in, say China or India? Choices of accepting care from nurse practioners rather than doctors?

Same with prescription drugs . . . .

It goes on and on.

The USA certainly needed healthcare reform, but Obamacare, as is becoming abundantly clear, ain't it. Lack of previous reform led to the opportunity for this debacle.

[thaibeachlovers]

Obama said on the news this morning that he wants people to be able to re apply for the same plan they had before they were cancelled ( that's always supposing the insurance companies agree, and how can he make them? ).

That is a HUGE back down on his part and he must be really fuming

[chuckd]

The "fix" is already in trouble. The Washington Insurance Commissioner has turned the White House down on their idea of a mulligan. (golf term)

With the requirements being placed on the insurance companies before they can re-start their cancelled policies, the Commissioner has said no deal.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

November 14, 2013 at 12:34 PM

State insurance commissioner rejects Obama’s proposal to extend canceled policies

Posted by Amy Snow Landa

State Insurance Commissioner Mike Kreidler has rejected President Obama’s proposal to allow insurance companies to extend health insurance policies for people who have received notices that their policies will be cancelled at the end of the year.

Within two hours of President Obama’s news conference announcing the proposed administrative fix for Americans upset by their policy cancellations, Kreidler issued a statement rejecting the proposal.

“I understand that many people are upset by the notices they have recently received from their health plans and they may not need the new benefits [in the Affordable Care Act] today,” he said.

http://blogs.seattletimes.com/healthcarecheckup/2013/11/14/state-insurance-commissioner-rejects-obamas-proposal-to-extend-canceled-policies/

FYI, Washington has a Democratic party legislature, governor and they voted for Obama...two times.

[impulse]

The USA certainly needed healthcare reform, but Obamacare, as is becoming abundantly clear, ain't it. Lack of previous reform led to the opportunity for this debacle.

IMO, you nailed it right there. USA healthcare is broken, at least on the financial side. Entrenched interests have made the real reforms pretty much impossible.

Add to that the partisan bickering, and the fact that the Repubs aren't going to allow anything Obama does to succeed, regardless of how much they have to damage the country to discredit and obstruct him.

The point where I disagree is that Obamacare hasn't even been rolled out and you're declaring it a disaster. Maybe it will be. Or maybe it's the first step in an incremental process. Given that the status quo has been a proven disaster for millions of Americans, and the economy, I'm willing to allow it an honest try before declaring it a fiasco.

[uptheos]

Why didn't Pres Obama go to someone like google who have experience of handling heavy traffic?

Surely they would have done it for less than the now estimated 600 million dollars.

[Jingthing]

...

Subsidized Obamacare is just more Medicaid. Since all of these providers already won't accept it, what makes you think they will accept it if millions more people show up with Medicaid? No, they won't.

...

This BLATANTLY FALSE statement demands a clear correction. That is just wrong. 100 percent factually WRONG. There is the Medicaid expansion PART of it, which is optional state by state because of the supreme court ruling. That is ONLY for people in a defined VERY LOW income level. In the states not participating, those people there are being shafted big time but that is NOT Obama's fault, rather that's the fault of their GOVERNORS. Then there is core of the program which is based on PRIVATE health insurance policies. The VAST majority of Americans (excepting already defined MEDICARE people, etc.) will continue to get that supplied from employers. Those buying private plans not eligible for Medicaid or expanded Medicaid receive SUBSIDIES based on their income. I am no fan of the Obamacare system but I am LESS of a fan of the pre-Obamacare status quo and I believe when all this right wing hysteria plays out, the majority of Americans WILL feel the same way.

I do agree with your focus in one degree. Health INSURANCE (of whatever flavor) is not a guarantee of actually receiving health care services. The USA does indeed to have serious systematic issues in both access and costs that Obamacare certainly does not solve. I can't see any solution but a fully nationalized system so that's something for the younger generation to look forward to in however long it takes, maybe 50 years.

[Jingthing]

...

And, medical care is no different than any other product.

...

Your opinion. An opinion NOT shared by the U.S. SUPREME COURT.

[midas]

...

Subsidized Obamacare is just more Medicaid. Since all of these providers already won't accept it, what makes you think they will accept it if millions more people show up with Medicaid? No, they won't.

...

This BLATANTLY FALSE statement demands a clear correction. That is just wrong. 100 percent factually WRONG. There is the Medicaid expansion PART of it, which is optional state by state because of the supreme court ruling. That is ONLY for people in a defined VERY LOW income level. In the states not participating, those people there are being shafted big time but that is NOT Obama's fault, rather that's the fault of their GOVERNORS. Then there is core of the program which is based on PRIVATE health insurance policies. The VAST majority of Americans (excepting already defined MEDICARE people, etc.) will continue to get that supplied from employers. Those buying private plans not eligible for Medicaid or expanded Medicaid receive SUBSIDIES based on their income. I am no fan of the Obamacare system but I am LESS of a fan of the pre-Obamacare status quo and I believe when all this right wing hysteria plays out, the majority of Americans WILL feel the same way.

Website nowhere near working,, the POTUS deliberately misleading the people, people having their existing insurance policies cancelled without notice and

leaving millions of uninsured and you call it ´ right wing hysteria ………………WOW you do set the bar high, don't you?

[chuckd]

...

And, medical care is no different than any other product.

...

Your opinion. An opinion NOT shared by the U.S. SUPREME COURT.

Wrong. The Supreme Court changed the words "fine" and "penalty" to the word "tax" and declared the mandate constitutional since it is in the Constitution that Congress may levy taxes, in accordance with Article I, Section 8.

Theoretically Congress could now pass legislation that every family must purchase at least one GM (Government Motors) vehicle or be required to pay a tax equal to the cost of the average GM car and that would be Constitutional.

SCOTUS never declared medical care was different from any other product or service.

[Jingthing]

The website will be fixed. A website is not Obamacare. It is an important mechanical tool which WILL be fixed but it is not in any way the LAW itself.

Yes I think the right wing and especially Fox News and Ted Cruz have been extremely hysterical.

Arguments in the supreme court case argued that access to health care was not the same as any typical product, and that side MOSTLY won, excepting the Medicaid option for the states. So I stand by my assertion.

[hawker9000]

The USA certainly needed healthcare reform, but Obamacare, as is becoming abundantly clear, ain't it. Lack of previous reform led to the opportunity for this debacle.

IMO, you nailed it right there. USA healthcare is broken, at least on the financial side. Entrenched interests have made the real reforms pretty much impossible.

Add to that the partisan bickering, and the fact that the Repubs aren't going to allow anything Obama does to succeed, regardless of how much they have to damage the country to discredit and obstruct him.

The point where I disagree is that Obamacare hasn't even been rolled out and you're declaring it a disaster. Maybe it will be. Or maybe it's the first step in an incremental process. Given that the status quo has been a proven disaster for millions of Americans, and the economy, I'm willing to allow it an honest try before declaring it a fiasco.

Amazing. Just plain amazing. Dems pass a thousand-page law that they don't even read, to seize govt control of arguably the single most important, far-reaching aspect of people's lives, and then imagine (with similar clarity of thought...) that they can blame conservatives for the inevitable train wreck because they opposed it. OF COURSE they opposed it! It's a train wreck!!! 'Guess we'll see what people think about it all in 2014.

[chuckd]

The website will be fixed. A website is not Obamacare. It is an important mechanical tool which WILL be fixed but it is not in any way the LAW itself.

Yes I think the right wing and especially Fox News and Ted Cruz have been extremely hysterical.

Arguments in the supreme court case argued that access to health care was not the same as any typical product, and that side MOSTLY won, excepting the Medicaid option for the states. So I stand by my assertion.

I can think of around 15 Democratic Senators and over 200 Democratic Representatives that are becoming borderline hysterical as well.

[Jingthing]

The democrats want to FIX it. The republicans want to KILL it. They're not fooling anybody and they have NO SOLUTION to replace it with.

[samran]

[

Most things in life you consume cause you want them. You generally have a good idea of what you want, how much you want to pay, and who you'll buy it from. Can't afford a Merc, buy a Toyota. Don't like this Toyata dealers price, go up the road. We have genuine choice in that situation both on the demand side (the type of car) and the supply side (which dealer I work with).

Health care flips all that on its head.

No.

Actually, people do have much control over their health. If I go to the effort to take good care of my health, why should I pay as much for insurance as someone who doesn't?

Why should men, or women over 60, pay for maternity care coverage?

- On the supply side, you have very few options for who provides the services. Doctors are relatively few and far between. Specialists, as the name implies, are ever rarer.

Mostly because of unhelpful gov't interference in the marketplace.

Think Wal-Mart and other discount stores.

So basic supply/demand economics that everyone likes to apply to this argument are actually no-applicable.

Merely because the gov't and various lobbies haven't allowed normal economics to work.

Medical care could be plentiful and fairly cheap if sold freely and competitively like any other commodity. For example, where's the advertising? Insurance sold across state lines? Tort reform? Cut-rate shops? Diagnoses via internet, including from accredited foreign doctors in, say China or India? Choices of accepting care from nurse practioners rather than doctors?

Same with prescription drugs . . . .

It goes on and on.

The USA certainly needed healthcare reform, but Obamacare, as is becoming abundantly clear, ain't it. Lack of previous reform led to the opportunity for this debacle.

Staggering. Total denial of basic economic principals.

i guess it should be expected from flat earthers.

[chuckd]

The democrats want to FIX it. The republicans want to KILL it. They're not fooling anybody and they have NO SOLUTION to replace it with.

One of the reasons Obama came out with his so called 'fix' on Thursday is because the Republicans in the House of Representatives have a vote scheduled for Friday to legislatively help solve the problem.

He came out on Thursday to try and stop the stampede of Democrats to the other side.

This is no fix and will only cause more turmoil.

Edit in to add three words.

[impulse]

There is a fallacy that people want choice with their healthcare. But people don't choose when to get sick, nor do they get to select the variety of their ailment and how long they'll have it for.

As such having 'choice' in your level of insurance cover is in the main a dodgy practice. While I undertand the politics of the decision, allowing substandard insurance coverage to continue is a mistake.

I don't think you quite understand. Last night on TV I was watching a very smart and articulate man being interviewed about his canceled insurance.

He was obviously well-off and self-employed, and bought insurance for himself and his wife. He had opted for much the same thing I used to have - a high deductible policy. He said he and his wife had a $6,000 per year deductible, meaning that they had to pay for the first $6,000 of their health care every year. But after they paid $6,000 (which they had never needed) the full-blown insurance kicked in and covered everything with no lifetime limit.

So he was insuring against the catastrophic, and willing to pay up to $6,000 out of his own pocket if necessary.

By doing this, it cut his premium by 1/2 and he said he was paying about $400 a month, or $200 per person. His policy was canceled because that's not legal any more. That high deductible doesn't meet the Obamacare standards so he lost his freedom of choice.

His new policy's premium was going to double and he had no choice and he wasn't happy. If you do the math, his added premiums for his Obamacare policy will be an enforced additional $4,800 per year, or not far from the "maybe" $6,000 deductible he had, but never paid.

It's easy to look at the one side of the equation: $2400 per head more for insurance than last year. And that sucks.

The other side of the coin is that they're no longer subject to as large a deductible. Given that the average health care spending per capita in the USA is over $8,000- they seem to fall under the "I'm healthy, so why should I pay for insurance I don't need" crowd. So far, they have dodged the bullet- but then, so do most of the folks who will be bankrupted by next years' cancer.

Maybe having the lower deductible will make it less costly to get preventive care they seem to be forgoing if they've never hit their deductible as they claim.

Let's talk to the same guy in 3-5 or in 10 years and see how he has really fared for his insurance dollar. The reality may be a lot different than the fear..

To your statement: They don't/won't grasp the fact that so many doctors and hospitals have said they won't accept it.

The medical profession may not like it. But they've had their way for too many years and the cost of healthcare has spiraled out of control. When every man, woman and child is required to be covered under a policy acceptable to these rules, the medical profession will either accept it, or they'll go out of business or they'll move to Thailand to retire. And when they're gone (doubtful), a new batch will take their place with the understanding that it's a different ballgame.

Like I said, the people who like this program don't understand it. The US needs to make many changes in health care, but this isn't it.

As for the couple which has been saving $4,800 per year with a $6,000 deductible, if they've been doing that for ten years they've saved $48,000. When they reach age 65 they can switch to Medicare. He looked to be about 50. Who knows how many years he's been saving money on premiums? He looked like he could pay $6,000 a year and never miss it if someone got sick. He lost his choice to manage his own affairs.

Maybe they saved $2400 a year for each of them on the insurance. But you're completely neglecting the fact that they will get more back in reimbursement.

And you're forgetting the fact that their insurance company can cancel their policies if they get sick and really need the coverage. Or at the very least, put them into a higher risk pool and massively increase their monthly premiums.

And you're forgetting that we, as a society, have said some things are so important that we aren't going to give you a choice. You have to do them. And if you can't afford it, we'll help.

That's why I paid tens of thousands of $$$ in school district taxes to educate kids that weren't mine. I never had kids, yet I paid every year, renting or owning.

That's why we have to send kids to school through a certain age. You as a parent have no choice. Educate your kids or go to jail and/or we'll take them away and do it for you. Lots of people kicked and screamed because they couldn't enjoy the income their kids were making working in sweat shops, but it seems to have worked out fine.

And I now pay extra for lead free paint IN MY OWN HOME. Because we as a society decided that nobody is allowed to use lead paint.

If the wealthiest country in the history of the world can't decide that the life and death and health of our neighbors isn't important enough to make sure every one of us can get health care when we need it, that's a sad statement. I pray that we're collectively better than that.

[HeijoshinCool]

There are a couple of things which make it different. Hope I don't bore you to death:

Most things in life you consume cause you want them. You generally have a good idea of what you want, how much you want to pay, and who you'll buy it from. Can't afford a Merc, buy a Toyota. Don't like this Toyata dealers price, go up the road. We have genuine choice in that situation both on the demand side (the type of car) and the supply side (which dealer I work with).

Health care flips all that on its head.

- As I said earlier. We don't know when we are going to get sick, we don't choose what you are going to get, you don't know how long you'll be sick for. Thats the demand side. You have no choice when you get sick or how much you are going to pay.

- On the supply side, you have very few options for who provides the services. Doctors are relatively few and far between. Specialists, as the name implies, are ever rarer. So as much as we say we like to choose our doctor, if you need a brain surgeon or a particular type of patiented cancer drug, your choices are limited. And you need to pay the price ((there are no-inbeweens like walking, catching a bus if you can't afford the Toyota like in the car example I used...)

So basic supply/demand economics that everyone likes to apply to this argument are actually no-applicable.

Given this, it is really hard to say, well I need 'x type of insurance'. As show, the insurance coverage might have limits, so then your are screwed, despite your best intentions.

Which is why I said in reality there only a binary decision, you either opt out, and get nothing, or you get insurance, and it covers everything. In betweens give us the illusion of choice, but the reality is, they are only differing levels of under-insurance.

Nah. I exercise daily, eat right, sleep well, drink sparingly, don't smoke or snort or shoot up, and have tons of hot monkey sex often.

i.e., I take care of myself. It was a reasonable bet that I would only need major catastrophic coverage, which is what I chose. I was right.

I am tired of a "state" that demands I pay for others transgressions: groping my testicles at airports, snooping my emails and phone conversations to stop a few terrorists; and I am equally fed up with the crappy drivers, and with the drunks and the obese, lazy $hits who make my car insurance and health care premiums go up.

I say, be one of those, be uninsurable.

I'm secure in my knowledge that someday I must die. Doesn't scare me. I'd rather go without insurance, than to pay for that of others.

Let Darwin off the bench, back in the game.

[thaibeachlovers]

The "fix" is already in trouble. The Washington Insurance Commissioner has turned the White House down on their idea of a mulligan. (golf term)

With the requirements being placed on the insurance companies before they can re-start their cancelled policies, the Commissioner has said no deal.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

November 14, 2013 at 12:34 PM

State insurance commissioner rejects Obamas proposal to extend canceled policies

Posted by Amy Snow Landa

State Insurance Commissioner Mike Kreidler has rejected President Obamas proposal to allow insurance companies to extend health insurance policies for people who have received notices that their policies will be cancelled at the end of the year.

Within two hours of President Obamas news conference announcing the proposed administrative fix for Americans upset by their policy cancellations, Kreidler issued a statement rejecting the proposal.

I understand that many people are upset by the notices they have recently received from their health plans and they may not need the new benefits [in the Affordable Care Act] today, he said.

http://blogs.seattletimes.com/healthcarecheckup/2013/11/14/state-insurance-commissioner-rejects-obamas-proposal-to-extend-canceled-policies/

FYI, Washington has a Democratic party legislature, governor and they voted for Obama...two times.

Look to see the Dems up for re election next year panicking BIG TIME. Is that the sound of chickens coming home to roost I hear 555555555555555555.

[impulse]

There are a couple of things which make it different. Hope I don't bore you to death:

Most things in life you consume cause you want them. You generally have a good idea of what you want, how much you want to pay, and who you'll buy it from. Can't afford a Merc, buy a Toyota. Don't like this Toyata dealers price, go up the road. We have genuine choice in that situation both on the demand side (the type of car) and the supply side (which dealer I work with).

Health care flips all that on its head.

- As I said earlier. We don't know when we are going to get sick, we don't choose what you are going to get, you don't know how long you'll be sick for. Thats the demand side. You have no choice when you get sick or how much you are going to pay.

- On the supply side, you have very few options for who provides the services. Doctors are relatively few and far between. Specialists, as the name implies, are ever rarer. So as much as we say we like to choose our doctor, if you need a brain surgeon or a particular type of patiented cancer drug, your choices are limited. And you need to pay the price ((there are no-inbeweens like walking, catching a bus if you can't afford the Toyota like in the car example I used...)

So basic supply/demand economics that everyone likes to apply to this argument are actually no-applicable.

Given this, it is really hard to say, well I need 'x type of insurance'. As show, the insurance coverage might have limits, so then your are screwed, despite your best intentions.

Which is why I said in reality there only a binary decision, you either opt out, and get nothing, or you get insurance, and it covers everything. In betweens give us the illusion of choice, but the reality is, they are only differing levels of under-insurance.

Nah. I exercise daily, eat right, sleep well, drink sparingly, don't smoke or snort or shoot up, and have tons of hot monkey sex often.

i.e., I take care of myself. It was a reasonable bet that I would only need major catastrophic coverage, which is what I chose. I was right.

I am tired of a "state" that demands I pay for others transgressions: groping my testicles at airports, snooping my emails and phone conversations to stop a few terrorists; and I am equally fed up with the crappy drivers, and with the drunks and the obese, lazy $hits who make my car insurance and health care premiums go up.

I say, be one of those, be uninsurable.

I'm secure in my knowledge that someday I must die. Doesn't scare me. I'd rather go without insurance, than to pay for that of others.

Let Darwin off the bench, back in the game.

That's what a lot of people think right up until they or a loved one is in the hospital staring down years of chemo and surgeries for millions of dollars.

[thaibeachlovers]

I don't think you quite understand. Last night on TV I was watching a very smart and articulate man being interviewed about his canceled insurance.

He was obviously well-off and self-employed, and bought insurance for himself and his wife. He had opted for much the same thing I used to have - a high deductible policy. He said he and his wife had a $6,000 per year deductible, meaning that they had to pay for the first $6,000 of their health care every year. But after they paid $6,000 (which they had never needed) the full-blown insurance kicked in and covered everything with no lifetime limit.

So he was insuring against the catastrophic, and willing to pay up to $6,000 out of his own pocket if necessary.

By doing this, it cut his premium by 1/2 and he said he was paying about $400 a month, or $200 per person. His policy was canceled because that's not legal any more. That high deductible doesn't meet the Obamacare standards so he lost his freedom of choice.

His new policy's premium was going to double and he had no choice and he wasn't happy. If you do the math, his added premiums for his Obamacare policy will be an enforced additional $4,800 per year, or not far from the "maybe" $6,000 deductible he had, but never paid.

It's easy to look at the one side of the equation: $2400 per head more for insurance than last year. And that sucks.

The other side of the coin is that they're no longer subject to as large a deductible. Given that the average health care spending per capita in the USA is over $8,000- they seem to fall under the "I'm healthy, so why should I pay for insurance I don't need" crowd. So far, they have dodged the bullet- but then, so do most of the folks who will be bankrupted by next years' cancer.

Maybe having the lower deductible will make it less costly to get preventive care they seem to be forgoing if they've never hit their deductible as they claim.

Let's talk to the same guy in 3-5 or in 10 years and see how he has really fared for his insurance dollar. The reality may be a lot different than the fear..

To your statement: They don't/won't grasp the fact that so many doctors and hospitals have said they won't accept it.

The medical profession may not like it. But they've had their way for too many years and the cost of healthcare has spiraled out of control. When every man, woman and child is required to be covered under a policy acceptable to these rules, the medical profession will either accept it, or they'll go out of business or they'll move to Thailand to retire. And when they're gone (doubtful), a new batch will take their place with the understanding that it's a different ballgame.

Like I said, the people who like this program don't understand it. The US needs to make many changes in health care, but this isn't it.

As for the couple which has been saving $4,800 per year with a $6,000 deductible, if they've been doing that for ten years they've saved $48,000. When they reach age 65 they can switch to Medicare. He looked to be about 50. Who knows how many years he's been saving money on premiums? He looked like he could pay $6,000 a year and never miss it if someone got sick. He lost his choice to manage his own affairs.

Maybe they saved $2400 a year for each of them on the insurance. But you're completely neglecting the fact that they will get more back in reimbursement.

And you're forgetting the fact that their insurance company can cancel their policies if they get sick and really need the coverage. Or at the very least, put them into a higher risk pool and massively increase their monthly premiums.

And you're forgetting that we, as a society, have said some things are so important that we aren't going to give you a choice. You have to do them. And if you can't afford it, we'll help.

That's why I paid tens of thousands of $$$ in school district taxes to educate kids that weren't mine. I never had kids, yet I paid every year, renting or owning.

That's why we have to send kids to school through a certain age. You as a parent have no choice. Educate your kids or go to jail and/or we'll take them away and do it for you. Lots of people kicked and screamed because they couldn't enjoy the income their kids were making working in sweat shops, but it seems to have worked out fine.

And I now pay extra for lead free paint IN MY OWN HOME. Because we as a society decided that nobody is allowed to use lead paint.

If the wealthiest country in the history of the world can't decide that the life and death and health of our neighbors isn't important enough to make sure every one of us can get health care when we need it, that's a sad statement. I pray that we're collectively better than that.

The wealthiest country in the world won't even help conscripts it sent to Vietnam, and ruined their lives. Something is rotten in the US.

Broken healthcare is just another symptom.

One quoted reply deleted to allow posting.

[HeijoshinCool]

There are a couple of things which make it different. Hope I don't bore you to death:

Most things in life you consume cause you want them. You generally have a good idea of what you want, how much you want to pay, and who you'll buy it from. Can't afford a Merc, buy a Toyota. Don't like this Toyata dealers price, go up the road. We have genuine choice in that situation both on the demand side (the type of car) and the supply side (which dealer I work with).

Health care flips all that on its head.

- As I said earlier. We don't know when we are going to get sick, we don't choose what you are going to get, you don't know how long you'll be sick for. Thats the demand side. You have no choice when you get sick or how much you are going to pay.

- On the supply side, you have very few options for who provides the services. Doctors are relatively few and far between. Specialists, as the name implies, are ever rarer. So as much as we say we like to choose our doctor, if you need a brain surgeon or a particular type of patiented cancer drug, your choices are limited. And you need to pay the price ((there are no-inbeweens like walking, catching a bus if you can't afford the Toyota like in the car example I used...)

So basic supply/demand economics that everyone likes to apply to this argument are actually no-applicable.

Given this, it is really hard to say, well I need 'x type of insurance'. As show, the insurance coverage might have limits, so then your are screwed, despite your best intentions.

Which is why I said in reality there only a binary decision, you either opt out, and get nothing, or you get insurance, and it covers everything. In betweens give us the illusion of choice, but the reality is, they are only differing levels of under-insurance.

Nah. I exercise daily, eat right, sleep well, drink sparingly, don't smoke or snort or shoot up, and have tons of hot monkey sex often.

i.e., I take care of myself. It was a reasonable bet that I would only need major catastrophic coverage, which is what I chose. I was right.

I am tired of a "state" that demands I pay for others transgressions: groping my testicles at airports, snooping my emails and phone conversations to stop a few terrorists; and I am equally fed up with the crappy drivers, and with the drunks and the obese, lazy $hits who make my car insurance and health care premiums go up.

I say, be one of those, be uninsurable.

I'm secure in my knowledge that someday I must die. Doesn't scare me. I'd rather go without insurance, than to pay for that of others.

Let Darwin off the bench, back in the game.

That's what a lot of people think right up until they or a loved one is in the hospital staring down years of chemo and surgeries for millions of dollars.

Been there.

I, personally, would not bother with chemo. If you would, then you can chose to buy coverage for it.