<p>tom, in my perfect world, we could just expand the medicare system to help those who need or can’t afford insurance, and not mess with anyone else’s who wanted to keep theirs. Funded by some sort of national tax, or increase, or however. I think you agree. It would be easy, uncomplicated, non invasive, and not penalize the people as dietz says, are, “paying, taking responsibility, and sucking it up”.</p>
<p>I agree with dietz, it is going to turn out to be like the FA game. People will learn the best way to take advantage of it as soon as they can. In fact it will be so much like FA, in that people who have low income will get great deals, it will be irrelevant to the truly wealthy, and the middle class and upper middle class will get stuck for it. I wonder if there will be some sort of merit health care, if you can prove you’re in fit condition with good genes, you get a great discount. And since they don’t take assets into account, you can be a billionaire, make sure your assets don’t produce taxable income, and get the subsidies for health care. Great.</p>
<p>busdriver I want the system you advocate- Medicare for all with the ability to purchase gap policies.
If an employer wants to provide that gap policy fine.</p>
<p>Who said there was? But the more people who make irresponsible health decisions, the more in taxes (or premiums or pricing) everyone who pays taxes will have to pay. And not every tax goes to funding healthcare.</p>
<p>busdriver and tom – I also would have preferred Medicare for all – so I think when it comes down to it, we all agree on what would have been the easiest and most encompassing solution.</p>
<p>I agree with tom’s comment, " I do not believe a national system would be better for me as an individual. I do believe it would be better for the country overall though…"</p>
<p>I always assumed that my personal insurance premiums would go up with ACA, because I have no significant health problems and have qualified for preferred rates. Bottom line, my insurance premiums have been kept relatively lower because the insurance companies had the ability to restrict the pool to those of us who need the insurance the least. So in a sense, we healthy people have been buying from an artificially protected market. </p>
<p>But I didn’t have to go far to find people near and dear to me who were getting priced out of the insurance market or entirely shut out because of pre-existing conditions. </p>
<p>I think the problem with the ACA model is that it that the private insurance/ premium system really can never be compulsory enough. Citizens of countries with single-payer systems have no ability to opt out – their government covers them, and everyone pays via the tax system. They have high income taxes and/or VAT’s that fund their systems. </p>
<p>But I do know that there are many people who have been anxiously awaiting the exchanges, because they are now without any coverage at all, or else paying premiums that cost much more and offer much less than ACA will. The problem is that those are also the people with the greatest need for insurance: the reason they can’t get insurance under the old system is that their health needs are so high that the insurance companies don’t want them as customers.</p>
<p>Ok emilybee, if no one is a freeloader, then I guess LasMa has no case to complain about people who don’t sign up for insurance coverage. She is the one who was having issues about that, not me. If people want to eat themselves to poor health and unnecessarily cost the rest of us $$, that is what annoys me.</p>
<p>“Ok emilybee, if no one is a freeloader, then I guess LasMa has no case to complain about people who don’t sign up for insurance coverage”</p>
<p>There are no freeloaders in countries with taxpayer funded health insurance which insures everyone. We are not one of those countries so LasMa still has a valid case.</p>
<p>“The problem is that those are also the people with the greatest need for insurance: the reason they can’t get insurance under the old system is that their health needs are so high that the insurance companies don’t want them as customers.”</p>
<p>^I don’t agree with this statement. Our family’s health needs are not high. We are healthy.
Yet, our premiums (via our small business which insures our family of 4 plus 2 single male employees) are going up more dramatically than ever before as of Sept. 1st. Our plan rate of $24,000 for this past year is going up to $40,000/yr as of Sept. 1. </p>
<p>Needless to say, we are switching our small business to a high deductible version of our current plan (Emblem). The cost will be around $21,500. Single deductible will be $5500 and the family deductible will be $11,000. No complaints yet from our employees. Tough if they do complain. It’s better than nothing.</p>
<p>But the risk of someone in a small pool getting sick has to be covered by a limited number of people. What should be offered to small businesses is the ability to join together to form a large pool.</p>
<p>Yeah, because if you are a billionaire, that’s exactly what you want to do: forego the hundreds of thousands of dollars you can easily earn on your assets in order to get a tax break for a few thousand a year.</p>
<p>Thanks. We don’t want any employee to have a lapse in coverage. After consulting with 2 different insurance agencies and sorting through about 10 options that would work for medical care in our area, we feel that we’ve chosen the best coverage for the most reasonable price. We had to take into account which insurances are accepted by doctors and the hospital in our immediate area----not an easy task as we don’t live near a big city with many options.</p>