Posted by tecwrg on 7/22/2015 1:54:00 PM (view original):

Posted by bad_luck on 7/22/2015 1:37:00 PM (view original):
The main goal of obamacare was to provide access to insurance to people who didn't have access before.

It was also supposed to make healthcare more affordable to those who already had healthcare insurance.

How has that worked out?

Some people who already had insurance pay less. Some people who already had insurance pay a little more. Some people who already had insurance pay a lot more.

That would have been the case with or without obamacare.

And, again, the main goal was to provide access to those who didn't have it. Which the law has done successfully.

Posted by bad_luck on 7/22/2015 2:02:00 PM (view original):

Posted by tecwrg on 7/22/2015 1:54:00 PM (view original):

Posted by bad_luck on 7/22/2015 1:37:00 PM (view original):
The main goal of obamacare was to provide access to insurance to people who didn't have access before.

It was also supposed to make healthcare more affordable to those who already had healthcare insurance.

How has that worked out?

Some people who already had insurance pay less. Some people who already had insurance pay a little more. Some people who already had insurance pay a lot more.

That would have been the case with or without obamacare.

And, again, the main goal was to provide access to those who didn't have it. Which the law has done successfully.

And try telling the people who are paying a lot more, or even a little more, for healthcare insurance how Obamacare is a rousing success.

Posted by bad_luck on 7/22/2015 2:02:00 PM (view original):

Posted by tecwrg on 7/22/2015 1:54:00 PM (view original):

Posted by bad_luck on 7/22/2015 1:37:00 PM (view original):
The main goal of obamacare was to provide access to insurance to people who didn't have access before.

It was also supposed to make healthcare more affordable to those who already had healthcare insurance.

How has that worked out?

Some people who already had insurance pay less. Some people who already had insurance pay a little more. Some people who already had insurance pay a lot more.

That would have been the case with or without obamacare.

And, again, the main goal was to provide access to those who didn't have it. Which the law has done successfully.

Has it?  Have you actually looked at the available plans on the exchanges?

Virtually everything affordable has a $2500 deductible.  So that means, some low-income family gets cheap insurance.  They feel great.  They go to the doctor.  Then they find out that not only is the bill for a standard doctors visit a couple hundred bucks in the current healthcare market, but their new insurance is going to pay exactly $0 of it.  Then they wind up with a big bill on top of their moderate payments on the insurance that isn't helping them, and never go to the doctor again.  Until they get really sick, or really hurt, and wind up in the emergency room, where they have to skip out on their part of the bill but have coverage for everything over that deductible.

So really, what we've achieved is what, exactly?  In the past, the bill for the uninsured and underinsured was largely covered by people in urban areas, where the majority of uncovered ER visits occur.  Now, we've spread that cost out more evenly to share it with rural and suburban areas by effectively shifting it to the taxpaying public rather than just placing it on hospital patrons who can afford to pay.  I guess you could argue that this is an improvement.  But is it worth the hundreds of millions a year in new administrative costs we're shouldering to get it?

We sure as hell haven't opened up access to preventive care to people who didn't have it before.  Sure, they have prescription coverage.  But they can't afford to go to the doctor and have a scrip written, so what good does it do them?

Um, OK.

Dear people who pay more for health Insurance and are upset at Obama/obamacare for it,

Obamacare achieved its main goal of expanding access to healthcare. You also pay more for health insurance. This likely would have been the case even if obamacare had not become law, as average health insurance premiums have risen every year since 1999.

Sincerely,

Rational People

Posted by dahsdebater on 7/22/2015 2:40:00 PM (view original):

Posted by bad_luck on 7/22/2015 2:02:00 PM (view original):

Posted by tecwrg on 7/22/2015 1:54:00 PM (view original):

Posted by bad_luck on 7/22/2015 1:37:00 PM (view original):
The main goal of obamacare was to provide access to insurance to people who didn't have access before.

It was also supposed to make healthcare more affordable to those who already had healthcare insurance.

How has that worked out?

Some people who already had insurance pay less. Some people who already had insurance pay a little more. Some people who already had insurance pay a lot more.

That would have been the case with or without obamacare.

And, again, the main goal was to provide access to those who didn't have it. Which the law has done successfully.

Has it?  Have you actually looked at the available plans on the exchanges?

Virtually everything affordable has a $2500 deductible.  So that means, some low-income family gets cheap insurance.  They feel great.  They go to the doctor.  Then they find out that not only is the bill for a standard doctors visit a couple hundred bucks in the current healthcare market, but their new insurance is going to pay exactly $0 of it.  Then they wind up with a big bill on top of their moderate payments on the insurance that isn't helping them, and never go to the doctor again.  Until they get really sick, or really hurt, and wind up in the emergency room, where they have to skip out on their part of the bill but have coverage for everything over that deductible.

So really, what we've achieved is what, exactly?  In the past, the bill for the uninsured and underinsured was largely covered by people in urban areas, where the majority of uncovered ER visits occur.  Now, we've spread that cost out more evenly to share it with rural and suburban areas by effectively shifting it to the taxpaying public rather than just placing it on hospital patrons who can afford to pay.  I guess you could argue that this is an improvement.  But is it worth the hundreds of millions a year in new administrative costs we're shouldering to get it?

We sure as hell haven't opened up access to preventive care to people who didn't have it before.  Sure, they have prescription coverage.  But they can't afford to go to the doctor and have a scrip written, so what good does it do them?

Preventative care is covered and not subject to the deductible.

Ummmmm, sure.

My girlfriend just had a mole removed after her regular physician told her it looked potentially dangerous.  I would say that qualifies as preventative care, no?

All told, we paid over $1000 for that.

Standard well visits are not covered by most plans.  Gynecological visits are not covered.  Just because you cover screening procedures doesn't mean you get to legitimately say "preventative care is covered."  That's BS.  And they even cut that - look at what happened to the Federal recommendations for frequency of pap smears, mammograms, etc. in the leadup to the rollout of the ACA.  Find some actual physicians and ask them if they think biannual mammograms are actually sufficient.  For people with family history, it's absolutely not.  But it's cheaper to only pay for a mammogram every other year than every year, so there you go - if you want to actually follow your doctor's recommendations, you can pay for half of them out of pocket.

Obamacare hasn't been a success.   If that's what he's hanging his legacy on, Worst President Ever will apply. 

Posted by bad_luck on 7/22/2015 2:43:00 PM (view original):
Um, OK.

Dear people who pay more for health Insurance and are upset at Obama/obamacare for it,

Obamacare achieved its main goal of expanding access to healthcare. You also pay more for health insurance. This likely would have been the case even if obamacare had not become law, as average health insurance premiums have risen every year since 1999.

Sincerely,

Rational People

OK, I can we can just conveniently and completely ignore the fact that one of the other stated goals of Obamacare was to reduce the overall cost of healthcare for Americans.

But I guess that's not important.  It's only money.

Good job.

Liberals are supposed, by definition, to question things.  But liberals in America are totally drinking the Kool-Aid on the ACA without bothering to fact check.  You get fed statistics about access to coverage and point to them over and over and over, but the vast majority seem blissfully unaware in the massive gap between access to coverage and access to care with the low-cost plans, the reduced quality of many employer-provided plans made possible by the provisions of the ACA, and the overall reduction in quality of care nationwide that has been necessitated by the additional cut to reimbursement rates that has been necessary to make this thing even remotely in the neighborhood of fiscally solvent.  Find some people who are at least 50-60 and ask them these questions:

How long did you spend at a doctor's visit 30-40 years ago?
How long did you spend 10 years ago?
How long do you spend now?

Odds are that in spite of the fact that, as part of the natural aging process, more things are going to be wrong with most of those people as time goes by, they will still be spending less and less time at well visits.  Certainly the average numbers have shown that trend.  You just can't afford to spend 20-30 minutes with an insured patient anymore, because you're getting paid, in many cases, less than half of what you bill.  So you get them in and out in 5-10 minutes.  You think that improves preventative care?  Or do you think maybe, just maybe, giving patients more time to tell you about all the concerns they've had might make it more likely that you catch problems early?

Posted by bad_luck on 7/22/2015 2:43:00 PM (view original):
Um, OK.

Dear people who pay more for health Insurance and are upset at Obama/obamacare for it,

Obamacare achieved its main goal of expanding access to healthcare. You also pay more for health insurance. This likely would have been the case even if obamacare had not become law, as average health insurance premiums have risen every year since 1999.

Sincerely,

Rational People

My Mom is paying more for her personal insurance (with a $2500 deductible) than she was 5 years ago.  Five years ago the coverage was a small business plan covering 8-10 employees and their families, with no deductible, no cap, and $20/$100 copays.  You think that's a normal inflationary change, and would have happened without the ACA?

Posted by dahsdebater on 7/22/2015 2:52:00 PM (view original):
Ummmmm, sure.

My girlfriend just had a mole removed after her regular physician told her it looked potentially dangerous.  I would say that qualifies as preventative care, no?

All told, we paid over $1000 for that.

Standard well visits are not covered by most plans.  Gynecological visits are not covered.  Just because you cover screening procedures doesn't mean you get to legitimately say "preventative care is covered."  That's BS.  And they even cut that - look at what happened to the Federal recommendations for frequency of pap smears, mammograms, etc. in the leadup to the rollout of the ACA.  Find some actual physicians and ask them if they think biannual mammograms are actually sufficient.  For people with family history, it's absolutely not.  But it's cheaper to only pay for a mammogram every other year than every year, so there you go - if you want to actually follow your doctor's recommendations, you can pay for half of them out of pocket.

Obamacare also does nothing about the problem of excessive and unnecessary tests and procedures, and the unnecessary prescriptions of medicines.  These are the primary reasons why the cost of healthcare is out of control in the US.  "Fixing" health problems, real or imaginary, is the money maker in the healthcare industry.

Last fall, I woke up one morning with a pinched nerve in my upper back, just below my neck.  After two weeks or so, it had not loosened at all, so I went to my doctor.  I was 99.9% sure that it was indeed nothing more than a pinched nerve because I had all the symptoms down to a T.  When I talked to my doctor, he quickly concurred after a few questions and a quick examination.  But one of the things he asked me was when it bothered me the most.  I told him it was most severe when I was driving my car, and also when I was lying in my preferred falling asleep position in bed. 

All I really needed was a muscle relaxer, which he prescribed.  But also, "just to make sure there's nothing else going on" (huh?), he sent me to get X-rays of my neck and back.  He also gave me a script for Valium, I guess because he thought I was having problems sleeping (I wasn't, and gave him no indication that I was).

So what should have been a simple doctors visit ($20 co-pay) and a script for a muscle relaxer turned out to also include a trip to the local radiologist (another co-pay out of my pocket) and a second script (which I did not need).  Hidden from me is the costs billed to my insurance company for my doctor, the radiologist, and two prescriptions (minus my script co-pays).

I'm guessing that was many hundreds of unnecessary dollars then flowed through the system for a simple problem.

That's the problem that Obamacare doesn't fix.  Which, if you're going to "fix" healthcare in the US, is where you should be starting.

President Obama is not running for President in 2016. Please have a discussion about the 21 candidates that have entered the Presidential race.

Hopefully, a number of the 21 candidates that have entered the 2016 Presidential race will work towards repealing Obamacare.