Posted on 11/05/2018 8:09:28 AM PST by SeekAndFind
Great analogy. Similar to purchasing car insurance AFTER totaling the vehicle.
basics of my health coverage plan, not currently online:
subsidies now based on historical silver plan amounts, by state
no employer or individual mandates or fines
drug coverage and health care service coverage
could have separate subsidies and could be bought separately
[You might chose say a Blue Cross care plan and a Brazilian River drug plan]
Grandfathered PPACA plans would receive a slightly higher subsidy for two years.
no governmental coverage item mandates - only federal policy shortfall specific subsidy reductions
[buy a policy offering 83% of a “loaf” -> get a 17% subsidy reduction]
[plans need not include any particular type of service or product]
[care plans would only need to cover at least ~80%* of services by estimated value to be federal subsidy eligible]
[all providers would have to compete hard to have a “slice” of your coverage plan money]
extraordinary mandatory issue open season - every 4 years
employer tax credits for optional annual open seasons
80% maximum federal subsidies,
except with hospital block grant money to help exceptional cases with premium payments
loss ratio tax on non-employer plans
[no need to expensively micromanage insurer premiums]
small premium increases possible in case of insurer need
an income-based pricing Federal Drug Marketplace to allow drug makers to offer drugs at affordable prices
state PPACA Medicaid expansion contributions 10% -> 28%,
(or block grants, on a 80/20 [and 70/30] federal/state matching basis)
[to free federal funds to cover millions more people]
*Imagine if Aunt Sue had to buy exactly A,B,C,D,E,F,G,H,I and J.
The price on each would be high and the total price would be budget-busting.
Imagine instead if Aunt Sue only had to buy at least eight of the ten.
Each seller would realize that yearly revenue from Aunt Sue might be near zero.
Deals would be offered and good deals made.
Aunt Sue would probably wind up with all ten and at a much lower cost.
The market system made the US great. Markets need be allowed to function.
Except that "health insurance" is not really insurance at all. It is a system that hides the cost of health care and forces "somebody else" to pay for it.
Health insurance has evolved into a colossal fraud which Medical companies and Pharmaceutical companies use to jack up prices beyond anything that could be sustained in a real free-market system. The Insurance companies take their skim off the top. Most of the money goes to executives and administrative staff rather than actual health care providers.
The entire system is beyond salvaging and should be abolished. Enforcement of current anti-trust and commercial practices laws would instantly drop health care expenses by 80%. Some highly publicized jail terms and asset forfeitures imposed on a few key executives would make the necessary point clear.
The Congress-critter at the center of the epi-pen fiasco should be marched off to jail for corruption along with all the of the family members involved.
You want health care reform.? These are some necessary features of it.
-—What is a pre-existing condition?-—
It’s all they’ve got. It is a catchphrase to snare the gullible ner do wells. It is typical democrat appeal to the ignorant masses.
A couple decades ago, on their member services recommendation, I appied for a change of healthcare plans with the same hmo I was already with and had been with for decades. I was on cobra and they denied me the new plan. My “preexisting condition” was being slightly overweight.
The only healthcare dollars I was using was for annual physicals, flu shots and routine visits. Preventative care. Even their member services thought it was ridiculous but they didn’t make the decision. If you got it through an employer they didn’t care what you had in your history. As healthy individual in the market I paid outrageous prices, more than my brother with his family of five with ongoing medical needs, including children with disabilities. Same hmo, same coverage, one vs five but I wasn’t subsidized.
I knew the real cost. Decades later, I have maintained the same health profile and take no medication regularly. I’m not getting any younger though!
My healthcare is now subsidized by an employer and I’m still with that HMO. With Obamacare my coverage got worse.
In Texas we had an excellent High Risk Pool. Deductible was $2,000 per year and premiums were $300 per month. This plan was outlawed by Obamacare.
Now deductibles are at least three times that for everyone. Premiums are about twice what they used to be.
How is this a win for Democrats? Do all these people who have insurance for the first time not have the same charges for premiums and deductibles everyone else I know now pay?
For later...
As much as you charge the rest of the world.
Pre-existing conditions = AIDS.
The lavender mafia strikes again.
“Now it is up to states to work with the federal government to create the safety net for the small portion of our population”
The ideal is to bring maximum possible market force to the medical industrial complex.
“for the small portion of our population who have expensive medical conditions”
It’s not small.
Many conditions are artificially expensive.
“In Texas we had an excellent High Risk Pool.”
In Florida, we had a high-risk pool too.
It was closed to new people as I remember.
Is it a crime to come up with treatments which are cheaper, more effective, or safer than the alternatives? Having come up with something which fills these criteria, are potential recipients entitled to them?
Unlike Obamacare, which actively destroyed alternatives, few previous treatments go away by mandate. Where that does occur, THAT is what should be addressed.
Add to those things a lack of transparency in pricing.
One part of the ACA should be kept (imho): the website where people can shop for insurance plans.
That was the GOP’s original idea - sort of a free market for insurance plans.
Allow older people to buy lower-cost catastrophic plans.
Quite agree. I’m on a 14 day 3 x a day GI antibiotic. Has no generic, EXPENSIVE at Retail. Expensive at negotiated Tricare Price, Tricare BALKED at covering at a Private Pharmacy, had to get it on the Navy base, which is surprising a small base would have it. SIBO is what the Small intestinal Infection is called it is hard to kill and Repeats itself. Very painful. Retail is $1,850.
We had Tricare around 20 years ago, through a gov’t contractor. We had trouble finding doctors who would accept it.
I hope Tricare offers a better plan these days.
bfl
One of the big problems regarding that continuity of coverage is that typically the individual doesn’t own their insurance. That is a cause of the mess you Draco, as well as a host of others.
Describe.
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