What did people expect? Insurance companies are the house. They always make money. By accepting pre-existing conditions everyone else’s premiums go up. By definition. The only way health insurance can work is if it is universal (code for mandatory). Can’t have people who can do math, like Chuck, opting out. Or healthy people saying no. Everyone in. Everyone pays. Spreads out the costs.
ObamaCare was never about controlling costs. It was about increasing coverage. More coverage costs more. Why are people surprised at this? If you want to control costs you have to redesign the way money flows. Our system of providers and insurance companies is *designed* to maximize heath costs. It is a positive feedback loop. What is needed is a single payer system, like Canada, where one paying party can have maximum leverage to minimize costs and who has limited ability to raise taxes. It is a proper (negative) feedback system that has inheritably more control. Canada, for the record, is not privatized health care like the VHA. In fact it is the opposite. The Government of Canada purchases all its healthcare from private entities, like Medicare. A fact yet to be discovered by the media in the USA. It is hard to understand why the Republican’s hate ObamaCare since it was mostly their idea. Well, other than ObamaCare was championed by Obama and I guess that is enough reason. The basic concept to use the free market and let industry to its thing is normally what Republican’s want. Not to mention its inherent ability to make more money for insurance companies and private industry. Sure, they are upset that it is being used as a wealth distribution system that makes people with money pay more and people without pay less. Ok, so that is two reasons they hate it. The mistake made, was not implementing a single payer system simultaneously with universal coverage. The CBO calculated the saving from the former would pay for the later resulting in no increase in out-of-pocket costs. Then the other benefits of such a privatized system would start to kick in and the open market competition for services will drive costs down. With health care general health would improve and costs would go down even more. Unfortunately the Government is dysfunctional and has zero chance of overcoming the trillions of dollars companies are making off of the existing out of control health care system. And if they could pass the laws, would anyone trust our Government to run such a program? And there is the root problem. Obviously an over simplification but now back to my real job. PC Blaze Broadband From: Af [mailto:af-boun...@afmug.com] On Behalf Of Rory Conaway via Af Sent: Thursday, October 9, 2014 12:33 AM To: af@afmug.com Subject: Re: [AFMUG] ObamaCare People with pre-existing conditions are one of the few groups benefitting from this. Rory From: Af [mailto:af-boun...@afmug.com] On Behalf Of Jeremy via Af Sent: Wednesday, October 08, 2014 7:32 PM To: af@afmug.com Subject: Re: [AFMUG] ObamaCare We pay about the same as we did but our deductible is lower, our out of pocket max is lower, and they covered our pregnancy. We switched during the first trimester because we didn't have maternity coverage (no self-insured plans in our state had it), and Obamacare made pregnancy not count as a pre-existing condition. It saved us about $7,000-$8,000 this year. The craziest part is that we actually stayed with the same provider, Select Health (IHC). It was just the difference between them providing maternity and not providing maternity. We have been very happy with our Obamacare. On Wed, Oct 8, 2014 at 6:50 PM, Glen Waldrop via Af <af@afmug.com> wrote: Further the subsidies have been deemed unconstitutional, so they're forcing us to pay insurance with the promise of subsidies that they are now going to take away. Bait and switch. The whole thing has been a screwup from day one. It is actually cheaper for me to pay out of pocket than pay for this insurance, but the fines will get you either way. ----- Original Message ----- From: Rory Conaway via Af <mailto:af@afmug.com> To: af@afmug.com Sent: Wednesday, October 08, 2014 7:03 PM Subject: Re: [AFMUG] ObamaCare And so did the quality and options of your care. I know that 2 of my doctors retired early and the other one doesn’t take Obamacare. Fortunately I don’t have to use it. Here is my question though, doesn’t the fact that the federal government wasted a couple billion dollars of your taxes on websites that don’t work, companies that are paying workers to do nothing, and companies that are friends with the First Lady with no bid process in place? Rory From: Af [mailto:af-boun...@afmug.com] On Behalf Of Sean Heskett via Af Sent: Wednesday, October 08, 2014 5:00 PM To: af@afmug.com Subject: Re: [AFMUG] ObamaCare Please don't forget that this whole "obamacare" thing was "invented" by the American Heratage Foundation which is a republican think tank. And the republicans tried to squash "Hillarycare" with it in the 1990's. Be careful what you ask for because you just might get it. Also, so far in the states that set up their own exchanges medical costs and premiums have been going down...mine sure did :) 2cents Sean On Wednesday, October 8, 2014, Travis Johnson via Af <af@afmug.com> wrote: Hi... I'm not sure exactly how this ObamaCare thing was supposed to "save everyone money" and provider "better health care". We just received our group health insurance premium notice for the upcoming year, and our rates will go up by 10% starting 2015. On top of that, everyone is now paying a 3% ObamaCare tax on their personal income taxes. This doesn't really seem like much of a savings to me... :( Travis
