I know that most folks can’t help their kids with insurance costs…and I’m very lucky we can. I have said before…I would scrub floors if it was the difference between health insurance for my kids…or not
And I’m not sitting in an Ivory Tower feeling totally immune from financial issues…and in my opinion, no one should be doing that.
“I get it and understand how you feel, @emilybee. My spouse spends TONS of time volunteering in our local community, a community that has proven again that it doesn’t share his values. He says he’s done. I’m hoping he changes his mind and will regroup. I’d like him to stay involved but I get it.”
My husband has been in public service for 26 years because he believes deeply in public service and being a public servant was where he chose to put his energy. He could have gone to Wall Street.
0ff to go walk my dogs and enjoy the fresh air. 
Because the other side doesn’t volunteer and hold charities?
As someone who lives in a rural area, that is all true. Government funded healthcare tends to benefit urban people far more than it does rural people… heck, government funded anything tends to benefit urban people more than rural people. This is one of the reasons the election went the way it did, FWIW.
To put it into perspective, we have a limited selection of specialists here, and all of them travel from another location 100 miles away. I realize that’s the price I pay for living in the boonies, but it goes back to the question of why I’m paying for some guy living in the city to have better health care coverage than I do.
H and I were self-employed for about 12 years. During that time, we paid approximately $40K in insurance premiums for insurance with a $15K per person deductible. We got virtually no medical care. We could not afford to buy medical care because of the money we had to pay for our catastrophic policy. We simply did not seek medical care unless we were coughing up blood, as an example. Our son was covered thanks to public programs for children. (We know who to thank for that.)
Eventually, the premiums went up yet again, and we gave up and became uninsured. Not terribly long thereafter, H was under consideration for a job with the State Dept, and as part of the process we both had to undergo extensive health testing, at govt expense, or it would not have happened. He was diagnosed with prostate cancer, and I with T2 diabetes. His cancer treatment was paid for by the charity of the Sisters of Mercy, for which I will be forever grateful. Now both of us were uninsurable in the individual market. My treatment costs very little, since I only take metformin at a cost of about $8 per month and control with diet. I have no complications; nevertheless, I am uninsurable as an individual without the ACA.
H finally got a job with a regular company, which saved our lives. We were able to be covered by them because they are a corporation with a large group. If H loses his job, we will once again be uninsured, if the ACA is not there. We have a few years to go to Medicare.
The ACA is far from perfect, and I disagree with some of its provisions. I would dearly have liked to see the congress work with the president to improve it over the last 4 years. But that obviously did not happen.
I support single payer universal coverage through Medicare. People can buy supplementary insurance if they want to and can afford it.
The only people I know who are sanguine on this subject are those who have never experienced what it is like to be outside the cocoon of a corporate health plan.
ETA: S, thank doG, has a real job with health insurance.
MODERATOR’S NOTE: Please keep politics out of all posts. I know that’s difficult with this topic just after the election but the alternative is closing the thread.
Agriculture subsidies, infrastructure subsidies, parks and recreation operations?
I recently learned that Medicare pays rural doctors less than urban ones. Likely part of the reason for a doc shortage in those areas.
Anyone else realize that, though we know each other from so many threads, there is so much being revealed here that is touching, how many have ached? How can we not care about each other? And our communities?
Hugs to all. But let’s keep up the fight for Good.
Yeah, well I just found out that someone to whom I attempted to send a supportive message has me on ignore. Revelatory indeed.
"I know that most folks can’t help their kids with insurance costs…and I’m very lucky we can. I have said before…I would scrub floors if it was the difference between health insurance for my kids…or not
And I’m not sitting in an Ivory Tower feeling totally immune from financial issues…and in my opinion, no one should be doing that."
@thumper1 I think what you are doing is a good short term strategy for your kids. However, if they become ill/develop a preexisting condition, that option will go out the window without ACA.
@fractalmstr Did I claim they didn’t? Don’t put words in my mouth. I am expressing what my husband PERSONALLY does and how he feels. Don’t twist words.
“I recently learned that Medicare pays rural doctors less than urban ones. Likely part of the reason for a doc shortage in those areas.”
My understanding from my readings is that it has more to do with lifestyle and where people want to live. Many young, educated doctors are choosing to get their start in rural areas. The same holds true for other professions as well. Practicing in rural areas is less expensive in some ways due to a lower cost of living.
Their debt from med school is the same.
Some rural docs still make house calls and so gas costs would be more. Medical equipment and supplies cost the same. Making the Medicare reimbursements the same might help these medical need areas.
"How about “I HAD…”
I will still contribute monetarily to my favorite women’s health organization, but I believe in government, big government, and taxes, for government programs that benefit the less fortunate. Unfortunately for me that is not what the people of this country want, so.
I do not trust most charities and they will never fill the need.
“Blue states get higher healthcare ratings/rankings than red states. Ironic. I can’t help but think of all the families that must exist throughout Appalachia and the rustbelt who are benefitting from ACA and I wonder/worry about what they will do if it is repealed?”
Coal mining is going to ramp up big time and they will be able to earn great money and get great benefits. I’ve also heard we are going to start producing steel again. That will really open up high paying job opportunities with great benefits. Their children will once again have jobs to step into without a college education.
$-) ^ 
emilybee- I forget. Are you in one of the states that just legalized pot? In other words- What you been smokin’, girl?
No I’m not. It’s the one thing New York has been backward on. I don’t understand why but it goes way back to Rockefellers drug laws which were finally tossed out only a few years ago.
It’s ok for me personally. I gave it up when I was 17 when my parents gave me permission to smoke it in the house because of those laws. They were terrified I’d get busted. Lost all interest in smoking pot after that. I did smoke once more when I went to college in Boulder but it was stronger then any pot I ever had before and I hated it. It was practically hallucinogenic. Never again.
Just signed up for 2017 ACA health insurance. We are making the same “bet” we made for 2016 and opted for a bronze plan (lower level benefits/high deductible) that is fully covered by our subsidy. In other words, we get free health insurance. Not free healthcare, but free insurance. This is what bothers me the most about what is left of the ACA. We get free insurance, and fortunately can afford to pay for a doctor’s visit here and there, and if we had serious problems I think the insurance policy stops us out at $14k (out of pocket max) which we could pay without declaring bankruptcy. Meanwhile, due to no Medicaid expansion, people with far less money and income have NO health insurance and no affordable options. And also, people struggling to make a decent living who don’t qualify for subsidies are facing prohibitively expensive insurance. Don’t worry about blaming, or how ACA was designed to work, that is simply the current reality. So a couple of weeks ago, with help from Mr Google, I located a free clinic in our town. Wife and I stopped by to check it out and chat with the folks there. Turns out this clinic provides healthcare services for people who have NO insurance. In other words, nobody with Medicaid, Medicare, or VA, so they have very few children (most kids are medicaid eligible), very few elderly (Medicare or Medicaid), but they do have lots of clients, lots of people with chronic conditions, diabetics, etc. So we have commited to provide significant financial support to this clinic in our community. No, it won’t be the same amount as our ACA subsidy (a frightening large number), but it will be more than we have given to any charity in the past 10 years. (And if we lose our ACA subsidy at some point in 2017, we will just deal with that when/if it happens)
Just who will be the customers of all this coal? Natural gas prices are cheaper than coal, so they will have to produce at a significant loss to produce and sell it. As for steel, are we going to ban steel imports? I guess it’s a good thing Trump got his steel from Chinese mills before he decides to shut off the flow.
(my family worked as engineers for the largest coal mining machinery company on e planet. to suggest coal is coming back is ridiculous)
Anyway!! stay on task everyone!! Roll your eyes in your living rooms all you want, but, back to healthcare practical issues!
If you try to switch coverage from parent plan to new job plan OUTSIDE the open enrollment, do your pre-existing conditions (PEC) come in to play? Do any of us have experience in the pre ACA world with this?
“Just who will be the customers of all this coal? Natural gas prices are cheaper than coal, so they will have to produce at a significant loss to produce and sell it. As for steel, are we going to ban steel imports? I guess it’s a good thing Trump got his steel from Chinese mills before he decides to shut off the flow.”
I don’t know but that is what has been promised.
Yes, there will be extremely high tariffs on imported steel and all other imported goods.
Do you think Google, or hedge funds are going to move to West Virginia/kentucky/Ohio? No. They need an educated workforce and the educated don’t want to live there.
There is going to be a revitalization of our old industries.