Published
[h=1]another poll question?[/h]
Dee, do you live in FL? If you are 63, live in FL and have no income then you do not qualify for ACA. FL as a state as opted out of Medicaid expansion.
If the above is true then Obamacare has nothing to do with your situation. Your argument should be with the state of FL and the insurance companies not Obamacare.
We can't take care of our own citizen's healthcare needs, I don't understand why we should be paying for people who are not citizens of this country. Push is starting to come to shove with the affordability of healthcare and people who are not US citizens are going to have a bad time. I would like to live in an alpine valley in Switzerland, so why don't I just go there and then refuse to leave, I wonder how that would work out for me. I know how it would work out for me, jail and then a flight home. Enough is enough.
You say this as if the United States didn't have a hand in creating the conditions that have caused people to come here illegally. Not to say that necessitates financially supporting those people and by no means should we go to those countries and spend resources trying to fix what we did (because we have a fairly good track record of making things worse) but we do shoulder a part of the blame of why things are the way they are. Simply saying that we shouldn't have to be responsible because we aren't even good at taking care of our own is a cop out. Kids are the ones who are going to end up suffering because all the adults are so damn bad at being adults.
You say this as if the United States didn't have a hand in creating the conditions that have caused people to come here illegally. Not to say that necessitates financially supporting those people and by no means should we go to those countries and spend resources trying to fix what we did (because we have a fairly good track record of making things worse) but we do shoulder a part of the blame of why things are the way they are. Simply saying that we shouldn't have to be responsible because we aren't even good at taking care of our own is a cop out. Kids are the ones who are going to end up suffering because all the adults are so damn bad at being adults.
Meanwhile I, who have paid literally millions of dollars in federal and state taxes in my lifetime and received nothing for it, would like to be able to have basic healthcare and medications at a reasonable cost. I'm not asking for or demanding free healthcare but I do demand reasonable priced healthcare within the reach of average people. That's not a cop out to me.
I can confirm. Especially if you live in California, at age 63, your individual insurance at the lowest tier (the "bronze" one) can easily be $700+. I was 28 when I was paying for my own insurance (only because nursing school demanded it and I had stopped working -- big mistake) and it went from $111 to $280 (and that was from 2014-2015 when everything with the ACA was shiny and new). I can only imagine if I had to keep paying it and the premiums were adjusted again. It would probably be in the near-$400 range. Part of why I had to pay so much was because I had left a very good paying job and made too much to qualify for any assistance unless I remained unemployed for all of 2015 (not possible with tuition and a now-$280/mo insurance premium). It was a mess and a lot of stress that forced me back into full-time during nursing school (and, once I was full-time, the insanity that persisted with the corporate office with getting premiums together and having us make adjustments that were also fairly costly and dramatic). Not like I had never gone to school full-time and worked full-time but I could only imagine the burden this placed on other people who lived paycheck to paycheck or those who lived in stated like Arizona where the 2017 premiums went up dramatically. I managed okay but for people who didn't have the kind of flexibility I had? What are they to do?I think the best thing that came out of the ACA (and jeez **** can we stop calling it Obamacare? It's a pejorative at best) was that insurance companies could not exclude individuals on the basis of preexisting conditions.
As others have mentioned, however, it was a major boon to insurance companies. They are raking it in.
That said, there are plans to stop making Medicaid (Medi-Cal for California) payments for care provided to undocumented immigrants. This definitely includes children. I work at a children's hospital and Hispanics, undocumented and citizens alike, are a vast portion of the population we serve. With what the plans apparently in place to get rid of the ACA, California (who expanded funding to promote access to health care for all kids) will be making up the difference and it could be devastating. California's undocumented kids could be first to lose medical care under Trump
I have to admit my views on this have changed over the years. The United States is certainly one of the easiest nations in the world to enter and live in legally, so if foreign nationals expect to partake in the perks of living here why shouldn't they be expected to do so legally? Granted the kids are a stickier situation, it's certainly not their fault that their parents chose to not follow the proper [legal] path to stay in this country.
The ACA certainly hasn't helped my husband and I. We are lower middle class and it's killing us. We originally had coverage through his employer. After the ACA his employer put all of them on market place plans. Now we are paying just shy of $1,000.00/mo for terrible insurance!! Our plan doesn't even start until we have paid our ridiculously high deductible. So unless we are dying, we won't be getting ANY health care at all.
I have to admit my views on this have changed over the years. The United States is certainly one of the easiest nations in the world to enter and live in legally, so if foreign nationals expect to partake in the perks of living here why shouldn't they be expected to do so legally? Granted the kids are a stickier situation, it's certainly not their fault that their parents chose to not follow the proper [legal] path to stay in this country.
Here's the problem. Those who do not receive good primary care, will receive good ED and in-patient care. That goes for everyone, regardless of legal status.
That's super nice for you. Meanwhile I'm going to have to choose between going bankrupt if I stop paying for insurance or I can pay for my inhalers so I can breathe. I can no longer afford both things. My rates went up by hundreds a month and my deductible went up from $500.00 to $6500.00 to help subsidize lower cost insurance for people. I am paying an unsustainable $1250.00 a month for my insurance and inhalers. You got to have baseline healthcare with the discounted insurance you got, meanwhile I can't afford to go see a doctor because I have to pay for all my own healthcare until I hit my deductible. They cannot repeal Obamacare fast enough for me. I don't see why the healthcare of others is prioritized over mine when I'm paying through the nose.
DeAngel, is it possible to contact the drug company and get some financial assistance for your medications. Many of the pharmaceutical companies have programs that you can sign up for to receive medications free or at a substantially lower price. You enroll in there program. Or you can get your meds from Canada. Many people do this all the time. Also, depending on how close you are to the northern or southern borders of this country, you can even get your health care out of country for a fraction of the cost and it's good care. I also know medical professionals who do this when confronted with significant costs. I realize that after living in a country such as this I shouldn't need to give you such suggestions, but that's where we are. I'm praying things will get better for all of us. Also, when you see a doctor, go as cash pay. They give discounts for cash pay. I know NPs who have rates as low as $45 for cash pay. Look around. Talk to people.
Good day:I believe HSA's or a form of HSA's with insurance ONLY for catastrophic issues may be the solution along with measures to reduce the cost of healthcare across the board. Since almost all providers accept cash (which HSA qualifies thereof), that would improve access to healthcare. There would be little to no concern of in-network vs. out of network (a doctor where I used to work shared horror stories of ER's contracting agencies to fill the provider bank, and those contracted providers don't accept the same insurance as the ER the hospital is located; creating a huge mess for patients who thought they were going to an ER/hospital their insurance covered only to find out it was only partially true).
Also, while I'm not for wealth redistribution, but there could be real wealth redistribution with the rich funding the HSA's of the poor. Real cash for real healthcare vs. lining the pockets of insurance companies and the CEO's of insurance companies.
One of the effects of the ACA is that HSA based plans are more common than ever, using higher deductibles to lower premiums, so it doesn't appear there's much of a push to make deductibles even higher.
And while HSA's are great, it's not possible to make them the sole way that we pay for healthcare. Even if we required that everyone save up $1 million dollars in their HSA, that would still need to be a deductible based plan with coverage beyond that million dollars.
A large portion of the population is having the costs of their care subsidized by others, not that there is anything wrong with that, but paying for actual costs is already extremely expensive, I don't think it's realistic to expect those subsidizing costs to pay for both real and potential costs (by putting thousands of dollars into everyone else's HSA).
That's super nice for you. Meanwhile I'm going to have to choose between going bankrupt if I stop paying for insurance or I can pay for my inhalers so I can breathe. I can no longer afford both things. My rates went up by hundreds a month and my deductible went up from $500.00 to $6500.00 to help subsidize lower cost insurance for people. I am paying an unsustainable $1250.00 a month for my insurance and inhalers. You got to have baseline healthcare with the discounted insurance you got, meanwhile I can't afford to go see a doctor because I have to pay for all my own healthcare until I hit my deductible. They cannot repeal Obamacare fast enough for me. I don't see why the healthcare of others is prioritized over mine when I'm paying through the nose.
At 63 it's actually other people are subsidizing your costs, not the other way around. The per-person healthcare costs of those 60-65 are many times that of someone in their 20's, but thanks to the ACA insurers can't make your premiums 6 or 7 times that of someone in their 20's, even though that's what would be required to keep 20 somethings from subsidizing your insurance, instead they are capped at 3 times that of a 21 year old policyholder.
You seem to be comparing your pre-ACA individual market plan to what's available now, which is an apples and oranges comparison. In the pre-ACA individual market, plans rarely covered major costs, so you were basically paying less for something with almost no actuarial value.
Meanwhile I, who have paid literally millions of dollars in federal and state taxes in my lifetime and received nothing for it, would like to be able to have basic healthcare and medications at a reasonable cost. I'm not asking for or demanding free healthcare but I do demand reasonable priced healthcare within the reach of average people. That's not a cop out to me.
You've been paying to SS and Medicare, which doesn't kick in at only 63, I think maybe you should have calculated your costs a bit more before retiring at 63. Bronze plans are required to cover generic meds with just a copay prior to the deductible being met, so you might consider generics.
DeeAngel
830 Posts
We can't take care of our own citizen's healthcare needs, I don't understand why we should be paying for people who are not citizens of this country. Push is starting to come to shove with the affordability of healthcare and people who are not US citizens are going to have a bad time. I would like to live in an alpine valley in Switzerland, so why don't I just go there and then refuse to leave, I wonder how that would work out for me. I know how it would work out for me, jail and then a flight home. Enough is enough.