<p>[Important:</a> What are Medicare?s true administrative costs? - PNHP’s Official Blog](<a href=“http://pnhp.org/blog/2013/02/19/important-what-are-medicares-true-administrative-costs/]Important:”>Important: What are Medicare's true administrative costs? - PNHP)</p>
<p>According to this article the administrative cost of Medicare is 1.4%. Since poet is correct that the insurance industry wrote the bill we are giving them a nice profit.</p>
<p>CF, if you read my post, I also think people with preexisting conditions should have health insurance. Just don’t think we went about it the right way.</p>
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<p>Give me some numbers.</p>
<p>Health insurance is relatively new. How did we all survive without it?</p>
<p>Calmom, that’s probably because the tax brackets are indexed for inflation.</p>
<p>DStark, I also want to extend my well wishes to your daughter and add that I can’t begin to fathom the anxiety and distress that your family has weathered over the past months – and it sounds like your daughter still has a ways to go in her recovery. </p>
<p>Thank you for taking the time to share your experience. That’s just one more reminder that there is very little point in the long run of distinguishing among insurance buyers on the basis of their health histories. No one is immune.</p>
<p>My neighbor just got back from attempting the “Santaigo De Compostela”.</p>
<p>[Camino</a> de Santiago - The pilgrimage routes to Santiago de Compostela in pictures](<a href=“http://www.santiago-compostela.net/]Camino”>http://www.santiago-compostela.net/)</p>
<p>He is probably about 70 or 75, also a physician. He fainted while on the pilgrimage, and was hospitalized in Madrid. They put a stent in. When he got back home, he had another; his third.</p>
<p>Y’know, when Obamacare opponents are asked for actual proposals about how they would solve the problems Obamacare is trying to solve: health care for the poor, health care for people with pre-existing conditions? Crickets.</p>
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<p>I’ve paid COBRA premiums several times, and they are the same price that employers + employees are paying for coverage.</p>
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<p>This is what I am hoping but I am not counting on it. My understanding was that Obamacare was going to save us all money on healthcare. I’m crossing my fingers this is what will happen.</p>
<p>“My mother, grandmother, and uncle by marriage all had brain tumors, but the youngest was in her late 50s. None of the tumors were related to one another, and no one ever recalls a brain tumor in their family’s history.”</p>
<p>Oldmom - How did their insurances work after the tumors were removed? What kind of liminations were enforced?</p>
<p>After 12 days, I was finally able to log into the healthcare.gov site to set up an account today, although I had to re-register. And once I was in, the site was very fast. No delays at all!</p>
<p>My mother’s brain tumor was in 1976, covered by my dad’s health insurance from two union jobs. My grandmother’s was in 1972 and she was covered by Medicare, as was my uncle’s two years ago.</p>
<p>But I don’t know the details. Sorry.</p>
<p>My comment to dstark was about the apparent randomness of brain tumors.</p>
<p>Riprorin wants some numbers about how many more people will have healthcare after ACA enactment than before. The answer is, we don’t know yet and estimates are all over the map. Check back in March.</p>
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Yes, but the former employee no longer has the employer subsidy. So lets say a young person has $120 held from her paycheck every month to pay her share of a $600 premium – the employer pays the other 80%. On COBRA, she has to pay the full $600. At her age, she probably could have found a policy on the individual market for under $200 – but with the brain tumor, she has to pay the $600. And when COBRA runs out, no more insurance.</p>
<p>Under ACA, if she has employer provided coverage, she can still use COBRA, but the loss of employment is also an event that will let her buy from the exchange to get coverage almost immediately, and she’d pay the 27-year-old rate, not the employer’s premium cost.</p>
<p>Moderator’s Note:</p>
<p>Voting Records in California or any other State of CC members is considered political discussion and all future posts will result in TOS violations.</p>
<p>Let me rephrase this in the way I should have said it the first time (sorry, Poetgrl and Bay): </p>
<p>The insurance companies having to pay back premiums if they didn’t spend 85% of the premiums on health care is not to reward individual subscribers for not using care; that is supposed to be handled by the stick of copays rather than the carrot of refunds. </p>
<p>Rather, the refund is to claw back the premium overcharge. If the premiums were too high, then all subscribers were cheated, so all subscribers should get back the money they were overcharged. In a way, it’s unfair to insurance companies, because after all, the companies don’t get to send out an extra bill at the end of the year if they spend 120% of premium dollars. Forecasting the costs for a plan, especially this year, is difficult. </p>
<p>But insurance actuaries are supposed to know their business, and the refunds prevent insurance companies from colluding, and all charging hefty premiums. If they do, they’ll just have to pay the premiums back.</p>
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<p>Yes, this is true, but if the employer subsidy was small, then it isn’t a big difference. Just pointing that out to counter the description as “exhorbitant.”</p>
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<p>Roughly 48 million Americans are uninsured (about 15%). (Census Bureau)</p>
<p>The ACA is expected to insure an additional 30 million by 2022 or so. (CBO) A projection? Yes, of course, but the best one available.</p>
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<p>The two decades after World War II is the dividing line between a time when most people didn’t have health insurance and a time when most people do, due to the rise of employer-based insurance and then Medicare. Are you really suggesting that health care before WW2 or even before Medicare is essentially the same as that today?</p>
<p>Here is some information about finding financial assistance for those with brain tumors, for anyone interested. [Financial</a> & Insurance Resources](<a href=“http://www.braintumor.org/patients-family-friends/resources/financial-insurance.html]Financial”>http://www.braintumor.org/patients-family-friends/resources/financial-insurance.html)</p>
<p>“But I don’t know the details. Sorry.”</p>
<p>Thanks for sharing. I was just curious how the preexisting condition works for brain tumor survivors.</p>