So I wonder why anyone (other than someone seeking reelection in a heavily republican district) would even want to talk about why Obamacare isn't good. It is good. It is the law of the land. It helps people get insurance. It's been very beneficial to millions of people who now have access to health care coverage that they otherwise wouldn't have.
I know that Social Security was once viewed in the same light - just another government program that seeks to give benefits to people. Now, of course, Social Security is a mainstay of our Federal spending, benefiting millions and millions, and is something no one would ever think of touching.
So, bark on, dogs. The caravan plods on.
And to the suggestion that this is just one step in the way of getting "free" health care - you're right. It is. And maybe it's time - it's time to stop making people worry about getting sick because they can't afford it. It's time to realize that people wait for treatment here, too. It's time to understand that no health care is "free" - that we're all paying the costs of health care, anyway. As an example, I recently had a sleep study done. I had electrodes stuck to my head, chest, and leg. I then spent a rather uncomfortable night in what amounted to an extremely expensive hotel room (which was just fine, by the way - it was decent) where there were some cameras to watch my progress. One guy monitored the sleep of several people. I know this because he came and woke me up half way through and told me that 140 apnea events in a hour were too many, and had me get on the CPAP machine. I've been on the machine for several weeks now and it's good.
Then I got the bill. My insurance covered 80%, which meant that my portion of the bill was around $700. Which, if my math is right, amounts to $3500. For one night of electrodes. The doctor who reviewed the computer printout sent me a bill for $250, which - again assuming the 80% coverage - amounts to a "real" bill of $1250. So, I was out almost $1000, and my insurance was charged $4750, for one night.
One. Night.
I'm grateful for the insurance. Without it, I'd never have done the test, which enabled me to get the machine, without which I may have had significant health issues going forward. Or even died. I could not have afforded the nearly $5000 I'd have had to pay, so I would have had to pay the even more expensive costs of the health care in the future...
Interesting, isn't it?
So what gets me is that the reason why things are so expensive is because health care providers have to charge more to people who can and do pay to cover for those who cannot or do not. Further, health care providers deal with insurance companies, who exist independent of the actual care givers, and who also exist to make a profit for their share holders. They're beholden not to the people who pay premiums, but to the accountants and CEOs who make decisions regarding my health care and how much they're willing to pay.
Which astounds me.
I work hard. I like what I do, but I have made concessions in how much I earn because there are benefits associated with that which help to offset those concessions. Included in that is the health care benefit I receive. Since the first of the year, I've paid about $900. Where I work, my employer pays 90% of that cost, so I might have earned about $10,000 more if someone else were covering my insurance. That's a lot of money, and it could be used to paying down some debt (we owe a little bit on my car, and the rest might have gone to the house), we could have saved some of it, but most of it would probably be used to buy other things - clothes, vacations, food, electronics, whatever...
I know, I'd still have to pay - and probably most of it - even if we went to a no payment at point of service system. But my point is (and I'm sorry for the rambling) we're already paying it. I'm paying it. I have not received $10,000 worth of benefits this year - it's actually been half that, and that's extremely unusual for our family of four. We usually spend around $1000, mostly dental checkups and things...
Anyway. I'm grateful for what I have, while hoping for better things in the future. And I'm glad that Obamacare remains valid and in force, because it benefits all of us.
I know that Social Security was once viewed in the same light - just another government program that seeks to give benefits to people. Now, of course, Social Security is a mainstay of our Federal spending, benefiting millions and millions, and is something no one would ever think of touching.
So, bark on, dogs. The caravan plods on.
And to the suggestion that this is just one step in the way of getting "free" health care - you're right. It is. And maybe it's time - it's time to stop making people worry about getting sick because they can't afford it. It's time to realize that people wait for treatment here, too. It's time to understand that no health care is "free" - that we're all paying the costs of health care, anyway. As an example, I recently had a sleep study done. I had electrodes stuck to my head, chest, and leg. I then spent a rather uncomfortable night in what amounted to an extremely expensive hotel room (which was just fine, by the way - it was decent) where there were some cameras to watch my progress. One guy monitored the sleep of several people. I know this because he came and woke me up half way through and told me that 140 apnea events in a hour were too many, and had me get on the CPAP machine. I've been on the machine for several weeks now and it's good.
Then I got the bill. My insurance covered 80%, which meant that my portion of the bill was around $700. Which, if my math is right, amounts to $3500. For one night of electrodes. The doctor who reviewed the computer printout sent me a bill for $250, which - again assuming the 80% coverage - amounts to a "real" bill of $1250. So, I was out almost $1000, and my insurance was charged $4750, for one night.
One. Night.
I'm grateful for the insurance. Without it, I'd never have done the test, which enabled me to get the machine, without which I may have had significant health issues going forward. Or even died. I could not have afforded the nearly $5000 I'd have had to pay, so I would have had to pay the even more expensive costs of the health care in the future...
Interesting, isn't it?
So what gets me is that the reason why things are so expensive is because health care providers have to charge more to people who can and do pay to cover for those who cannot or do not. Further, health care providers deal with insurance companies, who exist independent of the actual care givers, and who also exist to make a profit for their share holders. They're beholden not to the people who pay premiums, but to the accountants and CEOs who make decisions regarding my health care and how much they're willing to pay.
Which astounds me.
I work hard. I like what I do, but I have made concessions in how much I earn because there are benefits associated with that which help to offset those concessions. Included in that is the health care benefit I receive. Since the first of the year, I've paid about $900. Where I work, my employer pays 90% of that cost, so I might have earned about $10,000 more if someone else were covering my insurance. That's a lot of money, and it could be used to paying down some debt (we owe a little bit on my car, and the rest might have gone to the house), we could have saved some of it, but most of it would probably be used to buy other things - clothes, vacations, food, electronics, whatever...
I know, I'd still have to pay - and probably most of it - even if we went to a no payment at point of service system. But my point is (and I'm sorry for the rambling) we're already paying it. I'm paying it. I have not received $10,000 worth of benefits this year - it's actually been half that, and that's extremely unusual for our family of four. We usually spend around $1000, mostly dental checkups and things...
Anyway. I'm grateful for what I have, while hoping for better things in the future. And I'm glad that Obamacare remains valid and in force, because it benefits all of us.
Comments
Cue image of Founding Fathers in graves, rolling.
Health. Care. Is. Not. A. Right.
Except, now it is. And the reverberations due to be heard around the country from this core outcome of the court’s ruling – 6-3, in favor of upholding the subsidies in Obamacare – are going to be massive. How so? Just take a before-after shot.
Once upon a time, some guys with some good orating skills and even better writing talents gathered together for some political shop-talk in Philadelphia to see if they could come up with a proper way to inform the King of England they weren’t going to play his reindeer games any more. Idea men were appointed: This “Committee of Five,” as it was dubbed, included John Adams of Massachusetts, Roger Sherman of Connecticut, Benjamin Franklin of Pennsylvania, Robert Livingston of New York, and Thomas Jefferson of Virginia. Jefferson spent nearly three weeks penning what was to become one of the greatest political policy positions the world’s ever seen, the Declaration of Independence.
And among its many simple premises was this powerful phrase – that governments are instituted to uphold the God-given rights of “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”
Health care did not make the list.
But now, thanks to the Supreme Court, the floodgates of this limited government principle have been thrust wide. As Justice Antonin Scalia wrote in his fiery dissent: The court was guilty of “interpretive jiggery-pokery,” a phrase defined by Merriam-Webster as “dishonest or suspicious activity.”
What would be the proper term, I wonder, to describe a court case that now solidifies what many in the patriotic, traditional-minded and conservative-thinking camps of politics and culture fear is a socialist vein creeping into American society?
So to recap: We’ve got a Supreme Court that just threw a dagger at limited government. We’ve got a sitting president who just received a judicial hand-clap for his socialist Obamacare. And we’ve got an emerging Democratic presidential candidate (Bernie Sanders) with a self-declared love of socialism and a voter base that finds his message compelling – and a Republican Party that seems emasculated, at worst, and confused, at best, in how to rein in this entitlement-minded atmosphere. Reminds me a little of the Nephites at the beginning of 3rd Nephi. Certainly NOT something we ought to be striving to be like!
The days of America as a republic seem to be reaching their end. So how about a note of inspiration, to turn back the clock and remind who we are? This one from Patrick Henry seems most apt: “I know not what others may choose but, as for me, give me liberty or give me death.” I choose to stand on the right hand of history. I want my name to be recorded on the side of liberty, not of socialism.
What we CAN know is that 6 of 9 justices of the Supreme Court found in favor of the law. I'm certainly no Constitutional lawyer or scholar (I'll leave it up to these folks who ARE, after all, the SUPREME authority on such matters), but I do know that the generally accepted stance on existing laws is that they remain legal unless (!) it can be definitively proven that they are unconstitutional. The end.
Your slippery slope argument is also a logical fallacy. Just because something appears to be headed a certain way, does not mean that it WILL, nor does it mean that the effect on the world/society will be what you determine it might be.
You should continue reading in the Book of Mormon. There's some pretty hopeful stuff in 4th Nephi. You know, all about how there's no rich or poor, no racial divisions, no class separations, and they had all things in common... That's hopeful. That's something we can achieve. And honestly, I think that people taking care of each other in this way is a step in the right direction.
I want my name to be recorded on the side of loving my brothers and sisters, my fellow travelers on this mortal coil, rather than on the side of superficial and fleeting liberty.
It's nice that you'very drunk the Kool-aid and feel that Obama is compassionate, but he's not. He is trying to destroy America. And he's succeeding, with you (and thousands of others) blindly cheering him on on the sidelines.
Straw man arguments are still logical fallacies. No one said Obama or the law is about compassion. So, you lose on that one, too. Whether or not I think Affordable Care is compassionate is irrelevant. Simply, irrelevant. And, I do not see how Affordable Care is giving more power to the government. Does Social Security give more power to the government? It's a complete non sequitur, which means you lose there, again. If anything, it removes power from health care organizations and gives it back to the people, where it belongs. If you stand for liberty, surely having greater choice regarding health care insurance, providers, and coverage is a good thing, right?
Clearly, your resorting to personal attacks indicates I'm scoring points against your argument, which means you feel your position is weak and indefensible.
My subsidized insurance coverage from my former employer ends this month, so my wife and I took time to search out an individual plan to cover our family going forward. We found a plan that suits our needs for about $900/month, and proceeded to sign up and arrange for the COBRA coverage to end (as it would cost about $1800/month).
Once the old coverage had been canceled, and the new signed up, I get a message that we are declined for the applied insurance. The reason for the decline? We voluntarily ended our COBRA plan.
I call to ask the reason for the decline, and they tell me that due to the ACA regulations, you cannot decline your COBRA coverage for a more affordable plan, you must finish out the contract - which is 18 months long.
Shocked, I call my previous employer's benefits administrator and they tell me that everything is fine, and there should be no problem. Call the insurance company back and they inform me (correctly) that my previous employer doesn't know what they are talking about.
So I call former employer back and let them know that I can't cancel my insurance. What do they tell me? Due to ACA regulations, once I cancel, they are not allowed to reinstate coverage.
So now I don't have any insurance because the Affordable Care Act prevents me from getting my old insurance back, and prevents me from getting new insurance, which means we will not only be on our own for health emergencies, but we will also be fined for not having insurance!!!
"Luckily," employer has since reinstated our insurance since they realized they did not know what they were talking about, but it's funny that the Affordable Care Act is forcing us to pay $1800/month under threat of a fine, when there are much more affordable options out there.
I'm glad that in the end, we have enough saved to be able to afford something like this. I cringe throwing away money, but with four kids, at least we have insurance.
I'm guessing this is a wonderful, Obamacare success story yout are rambling on and on about...incidentally, I am not the same Anonymous that commented above, but I'm definitely on his side. Obamacare is not about helping the needy, it's about government control, and we the people are getting screwed in the process.
This means that at some point your employer was paying the $1800/month for your insurance (whether you had that before the ACA came online or after isn't clear, but I'm not sure it matters to my point, which is...) So you've been paying it all along, really. Either you insurance is paid by the company, or by you directly, but either way it's money that you are technically entitled to. In my mind, the beef is not with the ACA, but with (A) your employer, who's decided to pay that much and (B) the insurance company who charges it. If anything, the ACA doesn't go far enough, because there is very little in the way of corporate profit regulation (even for so-called non-profit health care organizations) (who are making A LOT of money)(some of which is even profitable for their shareholders). We should be clamoring for greater control, transparency, and choice in our health care coverage...
So, while your frustration is understandable, I feel like it's a little misplaced.
Also, your second employer didn't have to pay for your insurance while you were under the COBRA time period/contract, right? So did they give you a stipend for the money you were saving the company? No? Why not? It's money you should have been entitled to otherwise... If yes, then the $1800 wasn't as big a bite as it might otherwise have been, depending on how much they paid for you...
Incidentally, we've unfortunately had some medical expenses that were quite expensive. Our out of pocket expenses are well into the thousands, and that's only been a very small percentage of what we were originally billed for. So I'm grateful we have the insurance, and like you, I'm grateful we have the ability to pay.
I think that we need some government control, just like when the robber barons were monopolizing on train fares in the late 1800s. I'm not naive enough to assume that the government is the end-all, be-all, but I'm also cognizant of the good the government does - including regulating commerce (per the Constitution - you know, that really old document that tells the government what it can and can't do...)