<p>“Also, have you looked into getting a job where you could go on an employer plan to keep your costs down?”</p>
<p>So a person has to be a wage slave to be able to afford healthcare… Lol.</p>
<p>[Illegal</a> Immigration Costs California $10.5 Billion Annually](<a href=“http://usgovinfo.about.com/od/immigrationnaturalizatio/a/caillegals.htm]Illegal”>Immigration Facts and Resources)</p>
<p>[Illegal</a> Immigration Healthcare Costs Affect YOU! | AAPS News of the Day Blog](<a href=“http://www.aapsonline.org/newsoftheday/001050]Illegal”>http://www.aapsonline.org/newsoftheday/001050)</p>
<p>[FAIR:</a> The Costs of Illegal Immigration to Californians: Executive Summary](<a href=“US Immigration Reform: Stop Illegal Immigration”>Infographic: Fiscal Burden of Illegal Immigration on Californians | Federation for American Immigration Reform)</p>
<p>[Rising</a> health care costs put focus on illegal immigrants - USATODAY.com](<a href=“http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2008-01-21-immigrant-healthcare_N.htm]Rising”>http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2008-01-21-immigrant-healthcare_N.htm)</p>
<p>Just a few…</p>
<p>Polarschribe-
I think hospitals would happily take credit card(s) for payment.</p>
<p>And Steve-- small pet peeve (shared by others who have posted about this). Its HIPAA, not HIPPA.</p>
<p>Ok back to your regularly scheduled arguing.</p>
<p>Steve, you are oblivious.</p>
<p>If I don’t have a job, how am I supposed to afford the premiums you think I should pay?</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>No, they don’t have to be a wage slave. That is the trade off of having your employer help pay for some of your medical insurance premiums though. That is why it is called a benefit. </p>
<p>Also, you have neglected to factor in the tax savings of being self-employed and being able to deduct all of these costs, something a “wage slave” cannot do…there are pros and cons to each side of this.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I don’t know too many working-class people who have credit cards with a $50,000 credit line.</p>
<p>polarscribe–there are state pools for insurance that are sliding scale pay also, if you have no income you are eligible for Medicaid, free coverage that is a really good plan…again, options.</p>
<p>Medicaid has asset limits that most working-class families exceed. It’s meant for the poorest of the poor.</p>
<p>Steve…in order for ilegal immigrants to have caused my health care premiums to go up 30% last year…</p>
<p>The cost of illegal immigrants had to go up by more than that amount…last year compared to the year before…</p>
<p>So…where are those numbers…</p>
<p>polarscribe–but if you are not working, don’t have a job, you are the poorest of the poor…</p>
<p>dstark–again, you need to look at the whole picture. The past couple years the rate increases, which have effected everyone, not just you, have been a direct result of health care reform, add to that the added cost of paying for undocumented workers, higher costs for medical research, heck, even increased utility rates for hospitals and you get the answer you are seeking. EVERYTHING has gone up in the past several years.</p>
<p>polarscribe,</p>
<p>Often people have several credit cards with limits that together can total quite a hefty line of credit.</p>
<p>" EVERYTHING has gone up in the past several years."</p>
<p>Insurance company profits and CEO benefits and earnings have increased the most.</p>
<p>How much has everything gone up last year? How much did health care costs go up last year?</p>
<p>I think you should check out what the Cato Institute says about the cost of illegal immigration…</p>
<p>I am going to help you a little Steve…froml your link …which is a guess…not a fact…</p>
<p>"*</p>
<p>Analysis of the latest Census data indicates that California’s illegal
immigrant population is costing the state’s taxpayers more than $10.5
billion per year for education, medical care and incarceration. Even if the estimated tax contributions of illegal immigrant workers are subtracted, net outlays still amount to nearly $9 billion per year. The annual fiscal burden from those three areas of state expenditures amounts to about $1,183 per household headed by a native-born resident."</p>
<p>How much of that $1,183 per household is explained by medical care…</p>
<p>It is something like 10%… right?</p>
<p>So we are down to a a cost per household of $118… Right?</p>
<p>But to come up with the additional cost of illegal immigrants two years
ago and last year…we need to know the percentage change do you want? 30%?</p>
<p>That is much higher than the actual increases in health care costs…but I will give you 30%.</p>
<p>Now we are talking $34 a year per household…</p>
<p>I will give you that only 50% of households are responsible for these costs…so I am am responsible for a $68 increase.</p>
<p>My premiums went up 3,000.</p>
<p>This year… Maybe 4,000. </p>
<p>Go ahead and explain how illegal immigrants are responsible.</p>
<p>And don’t give me this crap About 2014… Either…because my rates may go up 50% in 2 years…</p>
<p>And they went up at double digit rates for 10 years before the healthcare</p>
<p>program was ever passed.</p>
<p>Cato Institute? The extremely Right Wing Libertarian Think Tank?</p>
<p>[Profits</a> up at health insurers - Business - The Boston Globe](<a href=“Profits up at Mass. health insurers - The Boston Globe”>Profits up at Mass. health insurers - The Boston Globe)</p>
<p>Capitalizing on fewer people seeking medical care and submitting claims, the states four biggest commercial health insurers posted sharply higher earnings for 2011 while their executives collected more pay, according to reports released yesterday.</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/14/business/14health.html[/url]”>http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/14/business/14health.html</a></p>
<p>The nations major health insurers are barreling into a third year of record profits, enriched in recent months by a lingering recessionary mind-set among Americans who are postponing or*forgoing medical care.</p>
<p>[Insurance</a> profits soar after health care overhaul](<a href=“http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2012/01/05/BUUH1MLB31.DTL]Insurance”>http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2012/01/05/BUUH1MLB31.DTL)</p>
<p>Insurance companies spent millions of dollars trying to defeat the U.S. health care overhaul, saying it would raise costs and disrupt coverage. Instead, profit margins at the companies widened to levels not seen since before the recession, a Bloomberg Government study shows.</p>
<p>[Health</a> Insurers Post Record Profits - ABC News](<a href=“Health Insurers Post Record Profits - ABC News”>Health Insurers Post Record Profits - ABC News)</p>
<p>In the midst of a deep economic recession, America’s health insurance companies increased their profits by 56 percent in 2009, a year that saw 2.7 million people lose their private coverage.
The nation’s five largest for-profit insurers closed 2009 with a combined profit of $12.2 billion, according to a report by the advocacy group Health Care for American Now (HCAN).</p>
<p>Insurance companies are required, by law, to maintain a certain reserve to pay claims. This is the same for your auto insurance, homeowners insurance, and health insurance. Yes, insurance companies are increasing rates to build up their reserves for 2014 and beyond. If they did not do that, they would go bankrupt. Your insurance company isn’t any help if they aren’t in business.</p>
<p>dstark-again, look beyond YOUR own situation. Our rates actually went DOWN this year, not by much, but they are still down. Why did they go down, our company had a good claims year, low claims payouts…basically no one in our tiny company had any major, major health issues. I still urge you to shop around to other companies to see if you can get a better price…</p>
<p>Companies have negotiating power that individuals don’t.</p>
<p>Show me where illegal immigrants were the cause…like you said…</p>
<p>i am just using myself as an example…there are a lot of people in my boat.</p>
<p>I always look beyond my own situation…</p>
<p>[Ethan</a> Rome: The Truth About Health Insurance Company Profits: They’re Excessive](<a href=“HuffPost - Breaking News, U.S. and World News | HuffPost”>The Truth About Health Insurance Company Profits: They're Excessive | HuffPost Impact)</p>
<p>Last week the New York Times reported that the health insurance industry is enjoying record earnings while millions of Americans get less medical care. Wall Street investors are delighted with the industry’s profits, and to health insurance executives, that’s all that counts. Insurance CEOs want investors to buy their stock and keep share prices marching higher, and that’s exactly what has happened. To achieve excessive profits, insurers are happy to gouge consumers and small businesses, do little to rein in medical costs and spend billions of our premium dollars on lobbying, secret political activities, bloated executive pay and stock buybacks.</p>
<p>I have to agree with dstark on the cost increases. I’m an engineer and love working with numbers, so I DID look at each and every plan available in Maine for our two-person firm. Long story short, Anthem is the only game in town up here. Other companies are much more expensive. The premiums for the HSA plans were hundreds of dollar more per month. The tax savings don’t offset that difference.</p>
<p>I looked back at our books. Since 2003, our premiums have increased 88% and our hourly billing rate has gone up 22%. My husband WAS offered a job. The salary was a good bit lower than what we make working for ourselves, but we thought the health insurance benefit might make up some of the difference. But it didn’t. Our monthly premium would have been 87% of what we were paying on our own, and it was still a high deductible plan.</p>
<p>We are buying the cheapest plan available with the highest deductible possible. Since our sons have such high medical expenses, I also ran numbers on lower deductible plans. Again, Anthem knows what they’re doing. I think they’re relying on people’s poor mathematical skills! The rate per month more than offsets the advantage of a lower deductible. I calculated that we would need to hit $15,000 in medical expenses for one child in order for the lower deductible plan to make sense. Unbelievable.</p>