<p>I don’t really think that health care should be connected as much to employers as it is, but I don’t believe that employers should be forced to offer health care, or forced not to. It seems right to me that they could choose to offer it as a benefit, if they want (though not as a huge tax break to them). I am always in favor of choice.</p>
<p>I really hate that employers feel they have to lay off and cut hours for people to make them part time, because they think they won’t be able to pay for required health care. This is going to be a huge burden on our kids generation.</p>
<p>I haven’t had homeowners insurance since the 1990s and just self-insure. This was triggered by my insurance company leaving the state and my agent quoting double the old rates for new insurance. It’s been many years and this has worked out well. I’d say that we haven’t had any issues that I would have filed a claim for.</p>
<p>Companies do the same thing. I work with people that have diabetes, have had cancer and lots of other problems. Treating that stuff is expensive and I’m sure that my premiums have gone to others. My opinion is that we have a good deal at my company. Our company works quite hard on providing carrots for people to live a healthier lifestyle. My feeling is that the people that would do so do so anyway and those that wouldn’t don’t. There are a few in-between.</p>
<p>It already is a huge burden on the very people it was supposed to help. My kid has a job with benefits. Your kid probably does, too. But ACA wasn’t designed to help them. That’s the place it’s not working, the exact place it was supposed to. Ironic</p>
<p>Separating everyone due to amount of claims or pre-existing conditions will eventually lead to separating out people with a risk of cancers in their families that are proven hereditary. Where does it all end?</p>
<p>My company already gives discounts for non-smokers, points for good health in biometric screenings that lead to further discounts. Now, in the coming year, employees are also required to take one on one coaching from subcontractor Web MD to receive discounts. What they don’t get is that 99% of the employees are doing these coaching sessions on company time. Is it really that cost effective?</p>
<p>I think that the idea of these programs is to promote healthy life changes. I also think that bringing about those changes is difficult because lifestyles are built up over time and strongly influenced by circumstances.</p>
<p>The ACA allows discrimination for smoking. Not sure if it will implement carrots and sticks for other metrics and behavior. If I’m a donor, then I have expectations that others will fix the problems in their lives that contribute towards my higher costs - certainly those that they have control of.</p>
<p>busdriver while I agree with your post 219 the devil is in the details. If we have a national system but you can opt out do you still pay the taxes required to fund the national system?</p>
<p>You can stay on your parents plan until you are 26.
No preconditions.
No lifetime caps which does help young people since they have more years to live.
Insuring young people is cheaper and both employers and health insurance companies know this. My daughter is still here but she is leaving. :)</p>
<p>If low income people will be getting tax breaks for insurance premiums - and low income people often don’t actually pay ANY income tax - is there any actual tax break to be had?</p>
<p>When one of those recent grads who otherwise wouldn’t be insured gets in an auto acident, or suffers some catastrophic illness, they will be covered.</p>
<p>ACAnis not what is driving costs up. People using the system who don’thave insurance are. We have an HSA with high deductible, and faced highcosts for one child this year. Met the dedictible, and then hit the cap. The individual cspnequals the family deductible, so the rest of the family has effectively met dedictible. I’ve seen the bills that were submitted to insurance, and it is clearthosecosts are padded to cover the uninsured. 20 minute ambulance transport was $1000 not including the EMT which was charged separately (professional services, $600). And those were the negotiated fees. </p>
<p>Health care is much like college funding. Hardly anyone pays ticket price. Everyone gets some sort of discount.<br>
I would be all for eliminating mandatory coverage, if we’re willing to tell those without coverage they can’t use the services. But I don’t think we really want to go there. Yes, there are healthy people who won’ t get their “money’s worth” this year, but they will likely benefitnover the course of their life. That is the point of insurance. I pay for home insurance, and have gone 22 years without a claim. I consider myself fortunate.<br>
The same applies to health care - this is the first year we have ever come out ahead, geting mir benefit than we paid in. If health care costs were reasonable, we still probably wouldn’t be ahead given what we paid in this year. One of D’s medications is $500 per month for one pill a day!</p>
<p>I have worked in a part time job for 10 + years. Never had benefits, but have had cutbacks in hours. Fortunately, husband had insurance through work for most of time. Not sure how we could have afforded to pay those premiums on our own for those years. It was brutal when we were paying COBRA out of pocket for family. Now we only pay half the premium that we would pay if getting it on our own due to employer contribution, get decent insurance and it is in pre-tax dollars. It has actually paid off this year when H had surgery. </p>
<p>I am for employers having the choice to offer health insurance, like busdriver. An added perk for employment - it is one reason husband took this last job. </p>
<p>Many families will do without health insurance, until they need it with new plans. Pay penalty, get insurance.</p>
<p>Whether you want care available to everyone or not, this law is a mess. Anyone who thinks this is a good law is not making sense to me. It was written by the lobbyists and it’s not designed to do what they said it would do.</p>
<p>In the end, you have the very people who were supposed to be insured getting their hours cut, which they seriously couldn’t afford to begin with and the insurance premiums rising on those of us who have insurance, and all sorts of new little taxes added, and yet, WILL the 30 million be insured in the end?</p>
<p>Most of us think the system we have is broken. </p>
<p>I do not see this new law, as written and amended after being made law of land as an improvement. Exactly what poetgirl said - people who need ACA will not be able to pay for it…and hours are getting cut. Not helpful to economy, either.</p>