Obama Care vs Republicans

[henry quirk]

Lamp,

Or, mebbe, sometimes, it's about a services receiver who's conscious about what he or she is payin' for (and who demands bang for buck) instead of someone who just kinda ignores price since 'it's covered' (the insurance version of 'the commons').

[infinite monkey]

And did I mention my new caps are almost PERFECT? Better than what I had before from my now dead dentist and after two breakings of THOSE caps.

[henry quirk]

"the incentives for healthcare providers to do things a certain way"

Also the incentives for the insured to turn a blind eye to cost.

After one meets his or her deductible: the cost is absorbed by the pool (the commons) so 'how much' is less important.

And: if 'how much' is less important, one is incentivized to just let the doc or hospital go nuts with tests and whatnot that may not be 'necessary'.

Sure, the insurance company wants to keep costs down but how 'gratuity-laden' is the relationship between insurer and medical provider? Buried in the line items are how many kick backs?

[henry quirk]

"my new caps are almost PERFECT"

Perfect example of one demanding bang for her buck...

[DanaC]

Which is a s lightly different thing to demanding bang from her buck... ;p

[BigV]

Originally Posted by infinite monkey

A sort of tangent/agreement to the 'charging more' claim above.

My teeth fiasco would have cost me about 3600 dollars, if'n I'd had dental insurance still. That would've cost me 1800 out of pocket, as it did before. With discounts for not having insurance it cost me ~2500. So it's true: they would charge more if I had insurance knowing insurance would pick up some costs.

Now how does that make sense?

One simple explanation is that the dentist is offering a cash discount. Getting paid cash and right away is worth more to the dentist than getting paid more by an insurance company later and with more hassle, claim filing, etc.

Maybe it "costs" the dentist more to deal with insurance patients and he's just passing those costs along to his customers.

[infinite monkey]

Originally Posted by infinite monkey

lamp AND NOW BIG V: as I'm studying medical coding I'm starting to see some of the incentives for healthcare providers to do things a certain way. It's really confusing to me right now, but I'm just getting through the first couple chapters/basics.

And the irony is: drumroll please...if I HAD the dental insurance I would still be employed. IF I were still employed I wouldn't have my PERS paid out. IF I didn't have my PERS paid out I wouldn't have been able to afford 1800 out of pocket and would've have been in debt again (like last time, and that almost killed me) but since I'm unemployed and I have the PERS I wrote a check.

Weird, is all

[Griff]

Originally Posted by DanaC

Which is a s lightly different thing to demanding bang from her buck... ;p

I'm not sure anybody's had a buck bang since 1929.

[Lamplighter]

I did not see this last September... but here is something of a surprise (at least to me).

Forbes
9/15/13

Wal-Mart, the nation’s largest employer, announced Monday that
35,000 part-time employees will soon be moved to full-time status,
entitling them to the full health care benefits that were scheduled to be denied them
as a result of Wal-Mart’s efforts to avoid the requirements of Obamacare.

While some analysts believe that the move comes as Wal-Mart is attempting to deal
with the negative view many Americans have of its worker benefits program,
a closer look reveals the real reason for the shift—

Wal-Mart’s business is going south due to the company’s penchant for putting politics
and the squeeze on Wal-Mart employees ahead of the kind of customer satisfaction
that produces prosperity over the long-term.<snip>

The result?
Empty shelves, ridiculously long check-out lines, helpless customers
wandering through the electronics section and general disorganization at Wal-Mart store locations.

I'll count each of those 35k improved health care plans indirect WIN's for the A.C.A.

[glatt]

This whole health care topic is spread through about a dozen threads here. I don't know where to post.

This should possibly even go in the post whore thread, because it's really not contributing to the discussion. But...

It's open enrollment here at work. Today I got the breakdown of the 3 plans I can choose from: the good expensive plan, the crappy expensive plan, and a new high deductible plan that is slightly cheaper but it so crappy, it's almost like not being insured. It only kicks in after a $3000 deductible. But then you'll be glad you have it, because you are SICK.

Anyway, looking at the price tags on all these plans, it occurred to me that when you count my employer's premium contributions, and my premium contributions, and also consider that we recently refinanced our house for a lower payment, we are now spending about double for health insurance what we are spending for housing here in expensive Arlington VA.

We are healthy, and we(including my employer) are spending twice as much for health insurance as we are for housing. I think that's messed up.

[Lamplighter]

This should possibly even go in the post whore thread,
because it's really not contributing to the discussion. But...

Well, excuse me ~

[BigV]

Originally Posted by glatt

This whole health care topic is spread through about a dozen threads here. I don't know where to post.

This should possibly even go in the post whore thread, because it's really not contributing to the discussion. But...

It's open enrollment here at work. Today I got the breakdown of the 3 plans I can choose from: the good expensive plan, the crappy expensive plan, and a new high deductible plan that is slightly cheaper but it so crappy, it's almost like not being insured. It only kicks in after a $3000 deductible. But then you'll be glad you have it, because you are SICK.

Anyway, looking at the price tags on all these plans, it occurred to me that when you count my employer's premium contributions, and my premium contributions, and also consider that we recently refinanced our house for a lower payment, we are now spending about double for health insurance what we are spending for housing here in expensive Arlington VA.

We are healthy, and we(including my employer) are spending twice as much for health insurance as we are for housing. I think that's messed up.

holy shit.

[Adak]

Good for Wal-Mart! As we get into the ACA practice, we may find it's better than we thought.

Of course, it would have been nice to have seen it in action in a pilot program first, and to have the website for it working alright, but I digress.

[Lamplighter]

The morning tv talk shows were a disappointment for me today.
Even the moderators used remarks that took the GOP stance of conflating
the Obamacare website performance and President Obama’s pledge
that "if you like the insurance you have, you can keep it".

Here is a more realistic view:

NY Times
Editorial
11/2/13

Insurance Policies Not Worth Keeping

Mr. Obama clearly misspoke when he said that.

By law, insurers cannot continue to sell policies that don’t provide
the minimum benefits and consumer protections required as of next year.
So they’ve sent cancellation notices to hundreds of thousands of people
who hold these substandard policies.

(At issue here are not the 149 million people covered by employer plans, but the
10 million to 12 million people who buy policies directly on the individual market.)<snip>

But insurers are not allowed to abandon enrollees.
They must offer consumers options that do comply with the law,
and they are scrambling to retain as many of their customers as possible with new policies
that are almost certain to be more comprehensive than their old ones.

Indeed, in all the furor, people forget how terrible many of the
soon-to-be-abandoned policies were. Some had deductibles as high
as $10,000 or $25,000 and required large co-pays after that,
and some didn’t cover hospital care.

This overblown controversy has also obscured the crux of what
health care reform is trying to do, which is to guarantee that everyone
can buy insurance without being turned away or charged exorbitant rates
for pre-existing conditions and that everyone can receive benefits that
really protect them against financial or medical disaster, not illusory benefits
that prove inadequate when a crisis strikes.<snip>

[classicman]