Affordable Care Act - Obamacare

Also, another reason is because it's basically a law, and it's *illegal* for them to pass a law, of which they themselves are exempt from...and they are, every politician and our 'president' are exempt...

a reply to: AboveBoard

It wasn't directed at you, so apologies if you thought it was.

There are others, both here and elsewhere, who are spouting nonsense pretty similar to my comment, and that's pretty gutting to me. For those who are able to have coverage now, I am actually happy they're able to. I know I've heard the horror stories that have come out for people who weren't able to afford it before.

But for the people who have it and are running other people down who have seen their premiums and deductibles and so on skyrocket, I hope their doctor sucks at giving shots and drawing blood

Again, apologies if you felt singled out. Definitely was not my intent.

a reply to: bucsarg

I don't have time to read all of the thread but would like to respond.

My husband had Insurance at around 250 a Month through work I think it was 5,000 deductible, the business got slow and they let the insurance go.

We had no insurance and he has high blood pressure. But when they forced us to buy Obamacare I was stunned to find the same coverage through them was around 900 a month the only difference is the state is covering most of it as we can't afford it.
SO what does this mean....healthcare cost went up by 4 times or so the insurance company is making a ton of money off of this, and IF we somehow mess up and our income does not stay the same we will owe the money over whatever months we had it and had the wrong tax income... so I worry about it all of the time.

Now on top of this, the deductible for our insurance is 10,000 SO it does us no good at all, if there were a devastating illness we could not come up with the deductible.

When it comes to insurance, the rules always seem to be different. We think that when we pay more, we should get more! But insurance has to take their cut off the top and the rates reflect their perceived risk of the population they insure. That's one issue - and insurance profits are not going to go down, that's for sure. They are very powerful in their lobbying.

The insurance company, not the ACA, sets their rates. The rates went up drastically, because they knew that the ACA would eventually implement price controls to keep them from raising rates, so they did it preemptively. So, a flaw in the ACA was to not make this change immediate and to allow the insurance companies to figure out their rates for a year. Naturally, they aimed high.

Also, in your work situation, companies often negotiate plans, and the risk assessment would have been different, as well. The employer often pays out to have insurance as a benefit, as well, so the entirety of the cost doesn't go to the employee. I don't know if that was the situation you had, though.

Between those two factors, the raise in premiums so insurance company profits would continue to soar, and the nature of employee plans, your costs were lower.

The good news is that you are able to purchase insurance at all, now that the company does not provide it. Before the ACA, you would have risked being denied entirely, or being denied any coverage for anything to do with high blood pressure. But the bad news is your deductible is too high for it to matter!

Char-lee, I hate that you are in this position! It is not fair. Again, it is up to Congress to fix issues in the law, and I do think this is fixable. Instead they bicker and have no solutions. Argh!! "Repeal" and going back to the nightmare of "how it was" is not acceptable, nor healthy, and just leaving it the way it is without making efforts to have this law work for the vast majority of Americans, is simply irresponsible.

a reply to: kruphix

Sure, just as soon as you thank the Democrats for a gross violation of the Constitution and demand exile for everyone that voted for the ACA. It is not a granted enumerated power, and ALL powers of the Federal Government are enumerated, to mandate individuals to purchase anything. Even the Second Amendment is pretty clear that you can own a gun if you want to do so, but are not required to purchase one. In fact, a firearm will be provided should Congress call forth the militia and you need one.

But while we are on a political rant, the people need stress the point to the government that when it comes to our incomes... You didn't work that!

a reply to: AboveBoard

Char-lee, I hate that you are in this position! It is not fair. Again, it is up to Congress to fix issues in the law, and I do think this is fixable. Instead they bicker and have no solutions. Argh!! "Repeal" and going back to the nightmare of "how it was" is not acceptable, nor healthy, and just leaving it the way it is without making efforts to have this law work for the vast majority of Americans, is simply irresponsible.

Thanks for this I agree with you and your explanation. For us now I guess the only way for things to work out is to have more money really lower the deductible or get by without the state subsidies from what I have heard it is much better plans in Oregon, just by word of mouth so unsure.
I have not been to a Dr in 10 years. My Mother has had several hundreds of thousands in health care recently done with Medicare, they fixed her heart valve and put lenses in her eyes all kinds of followup checks and tests.

a reply to: Blazemore2000

Really? No Rebulican has given a viable, cost effective, Government cost lowering plan? Really??

"In order to right the ship, we need to return the responsibility for good health care to the patient and the health care provider. One of the best ways to do this is through health savings accounts, which patients can control. Even if the federal government provided such an account for every American citizen that was increased by $2,000 each year, it would cost less than $700 billion a year and everyone would be covered.

Keep in mind the fact that more than 150 million Americans are employed and their $2,000 per year in most cases would be happily supplied by the employer if that was their only health care obligation. This would make employers much more likely to want to expand their businesses and hire more people, and it would decrease the government’s entitlement obligations by hundreds of billions of dollars per year.

At least a quarter of the $2,000 per year would be devoted to bridge insurance or catastrophic insurance, and all citizens would have the right to contribute to their health savings accounts from other sources without limit. It would also be possible for people to transfer funds between accounts within a family.

For example, if a husband needed care and was a thousand dollars short, his wife, son, daughter and father could make contributions from their accounts to cover the expense. This would essentially turn each family into its own private insurance company with no middleman.

It should also be possible for everyone to donate up to 5 percent of the value of their health savings accounts to anyone of their choosing in any given year. For example, if there was someone in their church or an associate at work in need and for some reason didn’t have adequate resources in his account, his fellow members and associates could band together and donate a portion of their accounts to cover the expense.

This would create a strong sense of community, which is a very good thing. Since one could pass his savings on to a family member or anyone of his choosing at the time of death, there would be no incentive to spend everything in the account before dying.

Over the course of a lifetime, it is likely that most people would have accumulated quite a significant amount in their health savings accounts, and it should be possible after reaching a certain dollar amount for people to withdraw a percentage of their savings for their personal use in any way they deem fit. For some elderly people, this could serve as a very nice retirement supplement.

As time passed, individuals and families would accumulate extremely large amounts of money, and the government obligation would become smaller. Instead of the government becoming a bigger part of each person’s life, it would diminish, reducing the need for ever-increasing revenue streams.

This is just the basic framework of an alternative system to Obamacare that involves thinking outside of the box. With additions from positive and creative individuals, it could provide universal coverage that is simple to understand and truly affordable."

Written by Dr. Ben S. Carson, a professor emeritus of neurosurgery at Johns Hopkins University.