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<p>Average house price, San Mateo County: $739,750. Average house price, Humboldt County: $231,000. </p>
<p>65% is one end of a bracket, not an average. Insurers will likely budge, to get more.
Good article, Flossy, for being balanced and so informative. You get a special award. :-bd </p>
<p>Thank-you. I do like the people stories more than the constant counting on this thread. Happy to contribute.</p>
<p>LF, that is a great emoticon. </p>
<p>So the guy in the article who was finally able to get insurance with Medicaid and is now happy he can’t be denied because of preexisting conditions and the fact he has no money is not a justification for Obamacare. We could of just expanded medicaid for people like him without destroying the individual market for everybody else. </p>
<p>Let them eat cake, right?<br>
So many bullets you could have taken from that article.
It didn’t destroy the individual market for everybody else. That’s the broken record.</p>
<p>Well, there is the doctors not taking Obamacare problem. And, yeah, “So far it’s been great. I pay exactly nothing,” is bound to be a happy customer. The article seems to have something for everyone. </p>
<p>Don’t forget the huge premium increases for the unsubsidized, many of them who are not wealthy by any means. Let’s lift some by tearing down others. Great solution</p>
<p>Don’t forget my premium, direct from BCBS would have gone down about $30. And my exchange network is the same. And I got my confirmation within 5 business days and my billing comes like clockwork (except for this month’s early arrival.) And, when I was in the exchange office last week, the waiting room was packed- fwiw. And my daughter is covered by the PPO, 200 miles away in another state.</p>
<p>What you can say is that much in CA is screwed up.
And I know, as just one voice on this thread, I may be lucky in several respects. But your dislike for ACA, no matter how founded you think it is, cannot be construed in toto for the entire program. Not because your rates would have gone up, not because some media reports show some unhappy people. You want to make a broad statement, then take a broader view. And deeper. Be sure what you say about other states is on target.</p>
<p>"But can those Bay Area doctors get by on 65% less salary? "</p>
<p>It is actually a myth that doctors in lower cost of living locations make less money. They are usually much better off than those practicing in areas with a lot of competition like the bay area. In is a given among doctors that they can make a lot more money in smaller markets than the big ones. A cardiologist friend had to start at 125k in Houston back in the mid 90s. He mentioned his other offers ran into 300+ for starting about 150 miles in a much smaller town but give up what a major city had to offer. He made up the difference as soon as he made partner 3 years later but he still would have made lot more money over his lifetime in the other location.</p>
<p>^^^^Again, this holds for the private market. Medicare and Medical rates are different if the are is considered Rural, or Urban. FWIW, Santa Cruz - a bedroom community of Silicon Valley for at least 20 years is STILL under rural reimbursement rates. Docs on ‘the other side of the hill’ make more by seeing the same patient population. </p>
<p>I agree with what texaspg stated. </p>
<p>We (well - me - but I make all the healthcare decisions for the household and they follow my lead) try to stay away from a large, predatory, very expensive provider in our area. So, we go to smaller practices of Doc’s that are still rather independent. Of the two offices we visit, both have stated (in private conversations with the doc) they will not accept any additional Medicare/Medical patients. As it stands, the one OB-GYN practice already has a 3 month wait to see a physician for any sort of non-urgent care.</p>
<p>A friend of mine is 70. He needed a new gp this year. He had a little trouble getting one. He is paying a DO $500 a year to see him. This is at Eisenhower I believe.</p>
<p>Santa Cruz County is under rural reimbursement rates because it’s rural. Up the coast from the city of Santa Cruz are farms, and down toward the Watsonville area, farms. Inland, little mountain towns in steep redwood forests. ISome people drive over the mountain to Silicon Valley to work (a terrible commute) but most people who live in Santa Cruz County work in Santa Cruz County, because there are mountains in between there and Silicon Valley.</p>
<p>CF Hmmm…guess all those cars on 17 in the am and pm are just regular Silicon Valley shoppers. And here I thought they were going to work. How silly, I know. </p>
<p>And if Santa Cruz is rural …then so are major parts of Marin County.</p>
<p>Many parts of Marin County are rural.</p>
<p>Western Marin County is rural for sure. But very little of the population of Marin County is in the western, rural part. </p>
<p>Only 27% of Santa Cruz County’s workers work outside of the county, which as it turns out is the national average for out-of-county commuters. That includes agricultural workers from Watsonville who work in Monterey County as well as high-tech workers in Silicon Valley. </p>
<p><a href=“http://www.santacruzsentinel.com/santacruz/ci_25299504/santa-cruz-county-adds-2-300-jobs-year”>PG&E boss says company wasn’t fully ready for California outages – Santa Cruz Sentinel;
<p><a href=“The Cost Conundrum | The New Yorker”>The Cost Conundrum | The New Yorker;
<p>I thought this was relevant given people talking about salaries and COL.</p>
<p>I’ve asked all three of my doctors whether or not they’ll accept my Medicaid when I switch over in a few months. All yes, but then again I’m not a new patient. </p>
<p>^^exactly. DStark’s 20,000 acres adjacent to Muir Woods are very rural. :)</p>