<p>Of course there’s plenty of speculation in my posts. That’s why I often say, “I’m guessing, I think, I’d speculate, I suppose, I believe.” I don’t want to pretend like I am dead certain, when nobody can be so.</p>
<p>No, I don’t think my plan will be demolished. Not at all. And if it was, I’d supplement it with something else, not a big deal. But I’m interested in how things work for everybody else, and hoping and helping the system improve for others. What a boring little world it would be if we only cared about ourselves.</p>
<p>I am not necessarily advocating for the elimination of employer based healthcare. Employees have been getting the short end of the stick for about 3 decades. I say this because the employee share of the economy is extremely low compared to other periods if our lifetime.</p>
<p>Busdriver11, do you read Bclintonk’s posts? </p>
<p>The projections are what? 2/3 of the already insured will save money and 1/3 wont. 2/3 is a lot more than 1/3. We are talking 5 million more people are going to see lower costs than those who will see higher costs. People like romani…Then… In addition… Millions more people will be able to have insurance. Right now… There are 15 million insured 35 mullon uninsured. Those numbers are going to flip.</p>
<p>Instead of 20 million more uninsured in the individual market, 20 million more will be insured.</p>
<p>I dont know. When I add up the numbers… ;).</p>
<p>However, quality of care will go down. No-one denies this, instead they call it cost-savings. People are not numbers and health insurance is not health care. If one woman with cancer loses her doctor so 20 healthy people can have free insurance that sounds like a bad deal to me. But, I do lose the number game.</p>
<p>Bclintock’s numbers sound rosy. But projections are not reality, and there have been a number of things already that haven’t gone as projected (or as pretended to be projected). There seem to be plenty of people who are surprised. Everything is in flux so much right now, that we will have to wait to see if premiums settle down or not. I wonder, in the course of history, have any massive programs ever cost or worked as projected?</p>
<p>I agree with flossy in that people are not numbers, and health insurance is not health care.</p>
<p>Well, we have to remember, there won’t be as much cost savings as the inflicted decline in the quality of the care. That’s one way insurance companies leap profits. They have a lot of wiggle room that way. We don’t have that. It’s kind of the opposite of free-market dynamics.</p>
<p>It infuriates me somewhat to read people claiming it is the insurance companies inconveniencing consumers not the law, ACA. You don’t write a law that will be grossly exploited. If you did, we call it ill-conceived and usually scrape it off.</p>
<p>The standard on CC is that you can discuss something when it is sourced or else it is just an opinion and not a fact. As we all know, we don’t value that as applicable to everyone, only to one’s self. I have mentioned in the past that my management wrote letters each year claiming most of our raises are being taken over by increased healthcare costs but that is internal to our company and they could be making up those numbers. So theoretically I might agree with kmcmom based on my experience but without sourcing, it becomes irrelevant as a discussion point.</p>
<p>It irritates me as well, when people blame the insurance companies, not the law. It is pretty predictable when a law incentivizes private businesses to behave in a certain way, that the businesses will in fact, behave that way. Insurance companies are not charities.</p>
<p>It’s a bad deal only to the extent that the woman with cancer has to move to a new doctor who is not as good as the one she’s leaving. High-priced physicians are not necessarily better practitioners. Most of us do not have the knowledge or the facts to be good judges of medical care. If she moves to a different physician group and receives the same medical treatment, without the nicely-paneled waiting room, she has not lost anything meaningful at all.</p>
<p>^^But if she has to move from a state of the art medical facility, where she’s been working with people who know her health needs well, and are on the cutting edge of research…she may lose far more than the nicely paneled waiting room. She might lose her life.</p>
<p>Interestingly, even most of the people for whom this is free do not seem to be clamoring for it in record numbers. Next, comes a big taxpayer-funded advertising campaign and recruitment drives to give it away. It’s odd.</p>
<p>First, state of the art teaching facilities cannot survive if they reduce their patient base to only Cadillac plans and/or self pay. </p>
<p>Second, at teaching facilities where the state of the art work is done, more times than you want to know, you’re receiving a high amount of care from residents. Not always an ideal care environment. I could tell you stories that would curl your toes. </p>
<p>Third, state of the art facilities “who know her health needs well” - if you mean they know their patients well, that doesn’t come close to my experience, where large facilities have a new face showing up at the bedside frequently. If you mean that only teaching facilities know tertiary care, that is just not accurate. </p>
<p>The dichotomy you all are positing of either high priced health care or lousy healthcare just doesn’t hold up in the aggregate. Furthermore, if you require the most advanced types of care but your plan doesn’t have practitioners capable of providing it, you are typically allowed to go out of network.</p>
<p>Fwiw, I just checked the U of M health system and they’re accepting the vast majority of the ACA plans. I can’t remember the number but I’ll link later.</p>
<p>Flossy, I don’t know who is “bickering” about losing your doctor. I’m just sharing my 30-years of experience in the healthcare industry. </p>
<p>And as far as losing your doctor because of ACA, I’m not the one to complain to. I’ve had to change physicians 3 of the last 4 years, as my company moved back and forth from BCBS to Aetna, then back to Blue Cross. And ACA had nothing to do with it.</p>