<p>There were, GP. </p>
<p>But it would not have been fair.</p>
<p>Lots of people drive if they’re impaired when they don’t think they’re impaired. People can even kill people when they think they’re not impaired. </p>
<p>No one can enroll you in a plan “against your will”. If you don’t want to enroll, you pay a fine.</p>
<p>If people are dying when there is medical care that is reasonably easily available and affordable against some measure to save them, then I would agree that it is “unfair” when some get the treatment and others don’t. The problem lies in defining what is easily available and affordable and why the costs are what they are.</p>
<p>Goldenpooch, Why wouldn’t the plan cover you adequately for a serious illness or accident? Under the ACA, there are no lifetime caps.</p>
<p>momfromme, because none of my doctors are included in the plan and the hospitals where I would get the best care for complicated health problems are also left out of the network. Unless this is fixed, I wouldn’t pay 5 cents for this plan.</p>
<p>GP, you said you might drive after you had two beers with dinner. You’d have a BAC around .02. That’s enough to be removed from the job if you have a sensitive transportation job. If you’re not safe to drive truck, train or plane because of BAC, you’re impaired when you drive a car, too.</p>
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<p>What? The only plans available to you have no hospitals that treat cancer, heart attacks and car crashes? Really? I think your notion of “adequate” is flawed.</p>
<p>I don’t know why I responding to you CF about something that is not relevant to this thread. I said occasionally I might have a second beer but rarely would finish it. I also said I wouldn’t drive if I thought I was impaired.</p>
<p>CF, I guess beauty is in the eye of the beholder. If I had a serious problem like cancer or a brain aneurysm, I know where I want to be treated and it is not by the providers in the ACA network</p>
<p>The issue with a lot of the arguments being tossed around on this thread is that they simply assume the idea that the wealthiest are the ones who are paying the highest premiums.</p>
<p>This is not the case. </p>
<p>The premium is based on income not assets. The premium, therefore, is already gamed to favor the truly wealthy. The premium can only be 3X more for the older insured. The premium is already gamed to favor the old. Therefore, given who has assets and who does not, the entire thing is geared to transfer wealth from the younger to the older.</p>
<p>I don’t buy that a system in which we have 8 figure salaries and 7 figure salaries going to the executives in the insurance industry, which games the premiums off of income and not assests, is in anyway a “fair” system, designed to make people “pay their fair share.”</p>
<p>In no universe does THAT math work out.</p>
<p>I would just stop this argument now, CF. You are far too bright to act as if you think this system has less losers and winners than the last one. It just has different winners and losers. </p>
<p>What we needed was affordable health care available, not some complicated bizarre health insurance reform. We have yet to see what this will do. But, it’s not making people pay their “fair share.” It’s asking a lot of individuals, based on income, to pay higher premiums to subisidize, in some cases, people with tremendous assets who no longer work.</p>
<p>carry on.</p>
<p>^^Yes, it is bizarre not to consider assets, like they used to for Medicaid. I could quit my job right now, with good assets and no income, and get a full subsidy. Ridiculous.</p>
<p>Both the old system and the new system have one thing in common: both are based on insurance companies whose incentives – indeed, their fiduciary responsibilities - are to collect as much money as possible while providing as little care as possible. It is, of course, a balancing act, but what is to be balanced is pretty clear - in both systems. In other words, “managing to care less”.</p>
<p>It’s no way to run a health system, or provide for a healthier population.</p>
<p>“I guess the reality is that health insurance was never guaranteed for life. If you hit the unlucky numbers genetically or through accident or disease, you probably would not get to keep your plan.”</p>
<p>But now, because of ACA my daughter can get insurance. Same with southbel’s daughter. </p>
<p>GP… You can buy catastrophic insurance if your premiums are more than 9.5 percent of your adjusted income. You can save around 1500 a year.</p>
<p>Samurai, when people start talking about fairness (a term that can mean anything), hold on to your wallet</p>
<p>What I want to know, and it is corrolary to the ACA premiums - but what will happen with FAFSA and CSS Profile formulas?</p>
<p>dstark, doesn’t solve the problem of the crappy network and it doesn’t save me much money.</p>
<p>I checked it out for my region and it doesn’t come close to $1,500</p>
<p>“Samurai, when people start talking about fairness (a term that can mean anything), hold on to your wallet”</p>
<p>Or hold on to your life…</p>
<p>GP, I dont want to talk about your network anymore. You have the UCs and Stanford in your network if you want… Go fool somebody else.</p>
<p>
You have “good assets” but none are in any income producing investments?</p>
<p>All of the truly wealthy people I know own income-producing investments, such as real estate. Most of them have far more money coming in every month just in passive income than I could dream of earning. </p>
<p>Anyone who has a lot of “assets” and is worried about health insurance subsidies needs a new financial advisor. </p>
<p>There are probably ways that people can game the system, just as with anything else, but there are better and more lucrative ways for rich people to shelter their money. If you have millions, you aren’t worried about a $8K in a tax credit to help with your insurance premium.</p>
<p>I just don’t think “fairness” is ever a rational argument, unless you’re talking grade school sports. Definitely not if you’re talking about a small segment of individually insured sucking it up for the rest of the individually insured markets. Just doesn’t make sense. </p>
<p>The only thing that lasts forever is insurance company’s CEO salaries and pensions…</p>