^^^^GREAT SUMMARY^^^^
Insurance companies are not in the business of losing money and insurance ONLY works if all large pools of people buy a similar plan at a similar price (think car insurance).
There is nothing in this plan that will control costs for people who actually need insurance.
The reason for cutting out things like chemotherapy, maternity care, emergency care and the like is simple, a plan like that would be a bare bones plan that because the risk of large costs is eliminated (a typical chemo cycle can cost 500k and up alone), so someone could get a plan like this potentially at the value of the voucher they are offering to replace subsidies. I can just see someone saying how expensive the plans were under the health exchange, buying one of these plans, not looking at the details, chortling on how cheap it was to show how bad Obamacare, then be faced with the reality when a trip to the ER ends up getting them a bill for several thousands of dollars. I wonder how soon they will find out that that words like ‘cheaper and better’ are in the eyes of the beholder.
To make insurance companies money, duh.
But that’s what I’ve got now, and I’m paying over $1,300 a month for three people for that privilege. Deductible per person is $6,000 - a lot of good that does me.
“Rather, this is a way to shift costs away from healthy people and onto the shoulders of sick people.”
In other words, nothing to do with providing adequate health insurance and everything to do with putting more money in the pockets of higher income people.
MaineLonghorn, how much is mental health coverage if you have no insurance for it? The GOP bill removes mental health coverage from Medicaid, and reportedly they are also going to remove mental health coverage from private insurance.
People need to be treated like adults. Not the government’s children. Adults know which type of policy they need and what they can afford. They know what kind of risks they want to take.
The whole point, which I think many forget, is to get people coverage when the worst happens. When the hospital bills run into the thousands, tens of thousands and up. Not to cover the things that can be paid out of pocket.
If these changes reduce the cost of policies, more people will insure themselves.
People need to be treated like adults and know how to drive safely and not to get into car accidents. All these govermnent-mandated safety features in modern cars… Can’t buy a car without them, even if I wanted to, so I have to pay through the nose - I, the safest driver on the planet!
If you need comprehensive coverage and none is available in the market, how are you supposed to buy it? Do adults somehow have the ability to buy something that is not for sale?
Unless “the worst” happens to be a mental health crisis, because you won’t be able to buy coverage for mental health.
I am delighted to see that our state legislature has a bill that is moving forward that will preserve ACÁ coverage for about 130,000 HI residents that could otherwise lose coverage due to federal legislation. It will be expensive for our state without the fed cost sharing, but it makes sense to me.
I hope this isn’t political.
Or heaven forbid you get pregnant or something when you weren’t meaning to and thus didn’t buy insurance for.
Or you’re a young invincible and suddenly, WHAM, you get hit with an autoimmune disease or cancer that costs $20k/month+ to treat and your plan doesn’t have prescription coverage.
Sigh
DH & I don’t need insurance for our current medical situation since we’re relatively healthy. We do need insurance for the possible medical situations we could have to deal with. It would be foolhardy and financially irresponsible to have insurance that didn’t cover cancer care, for example. But who knows how insurance will be priced if some form of this bill passes.
Why can’t we look at where the money goes? I got to spend some time with a specialist this weekend (took our kid son a college tour together) and got to learn about the greedy underbelly of medicine. He was explaining why we are starting to see “surgical centers” being build around our area. He explained a scenario where a wealthy uninsured person was paying out of pocked for a stent. Within the hospital the surgery would cost close to $120,000 because the hospital charged so much for use of it’s facilities. In a surgical center the same procedure was $30K. That’s why I want to SEE the prices before I agree to procedures and have an opportunity to shop around (within reason, obviously)! Another facility two hours away ADVERTISES they will do an MRI for $900. They invite you to price it out locally and make the drive to save money. I believe the free market unleashed would do a lot to reduce the cost of medicine. And for the record, I also agree with offering things like maternity care, etc an option. It was when we all had kids - wasn’t it? I remember having to pay an extra $100/month to have it. Maybe you could have a guaranteed insurabilty rider on health care policies to be able to add things like mental health care and maternity care when it’s necessary. The insurance companies can make bank on riders, too!
Maternity insurance riders pre-aca often could and did run into the thousands with 10k+ deductibles.
That you got a good price doesn’t mean it is so for most people.
The free market isn’t helping us out here, and it won’t. The GOP has to decide whether to require insurers to sell insurance to anyone who wants to buy it, at the same price for all (or for the same price for everyone of the same age). If insurers can deny people, then we’re back to the free market denying coverage to people who would cost them a lot of money. If the insurers can’t deny people, but there are no insurance mandates regulating what insures have to offer, then the free market dictates that insurers won’t sell insurance that only expensive sick people would buy.
I wonder what the insurance companies think about these new amendments to this bill, particularly those companies that are the only ones left in their markets. What is it? One-third of all counties have only one insurer? If they don’t like this new bill, those companies could pull out and those counties could have NO insurer. What then?
“The whole point, which I think many forget, is to get people coverage when the worst happens.”
Actually, before the worst happens or you’re SOL.
If you can’t afford routine healthcare and end up in ER for something now life threatening, extremely expensive, that won’t save anyone anything. ER shouldn’t be the fallback.
Not all of us can afford many services. Any poster who minimizes the cost of, eg, diagnostics, doesn’t know.
The insurance free market is one thing, transparency of provider pricing is another. Why would I pay $3000 for something I can get for $900. I only would if I was so far removed from the cost of medicine that I didn’t care. I haven’t been far removed from my cost of insurance or medicine for 13 years when we became self employed and responsible for our family. I began to question the necessity of procedures because I have to pay for them with my high deductible. Suddenly X-rays of toes and semi annual x rays of teeth on someone that hasn’t had a cavity in over a decade were optional. We have become active, educated participants in spending our health care dollars and it’s served us well. It also gave my husband the incentive to lose 60 pounds because he was rated higher than the rest of the family. He had a financial incentive to become more healthy!
The hospital isn’t charging 120k as a made up number. It reflects all those who rely on ER, as well as the rest of what they provide. The 30k center isn’t serving more than it wishes to. Heart attack, go elsewhere. It’s not a universal model for hospital services. It’s more assembly line. And you may still need follow up, rx, pt.
Plus, of course, if one can afford 30k out of pocket, they aren’t in the same boat, to begin with.