Exploding health care premium

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We are retired and pay about $5350/mo for the 4. Up from $4900 last year but down from a few years ago when it was $5500. PPO and it sucks

Seriously? Well I think it’s completely crazy not to have health care… but there is an inflection point, and you are certainly at it.

Yes seriously. But we knew going into retirement that this was the cost if we wanted a ppo.

This is clearly an early retirement, with 2 dependents to still cover. It's a choice.

Yes, it is obviously a choice. But someone with enough to pay for an early retirement, spare the major medical costs, should not be stuck working until 65+ simply because they need healthcare. We should join the rest of the civilized world and have affordable healthcare. Healthcare at age 60 for just 2 adults should not cost $3-4K/month for a crappy plan with a $9K/$18K deductible.

This!! Healthcare situation had become an albatross around our economy's neck. It hurts us on so many levels, people don't often realize this. It keeps older people who could retire holding on to their jobs instead of passing them on to younger generation that needs to get promotions and raise their families. A lot of people over the age of 50 who had been working FT for 3 decades and feel they have enough to scale down (work part time or take some years off) cannot do this because of healthcare. It doesn't allow people to work part time, because you lose health insurance subsidy (if you don't work FT for a large employer or you receive some government poverty benefits). It makes it necessary for the employers to offer these plans and hire permanent Full time employees, when they much prefer to hire part time (for staff augmentation when busy) or contractors. It's what fuels proliferation of middle men contracting companies, many of which employ foreign workforce or outsource overseas. And this is the mechanism behind mass layoffs when keeping so many full time benefit receiving employees makes no sense.

The whole system where healthcare is tied to full time employment needs to be torn down yesterday. It throttles our economy and it hurts younger generation and older generation too, creating social tensions and division. I am baffled how we cannot come up with some sort of Medicare for all solution at least for catastrophic coverage and having private insurance act as a supplemental plan.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Wait…are you saying that Obama’s signature legislation, the Affordable Care Act, is actually not affordable and requires massive taxpayer funded subsidies to stay afloat!?! Who would have thought?!? The Great Divider Messiah could actually be wrong. Wow

Yeah, we did NOT get what Obama really wanted as the R in congress worked as hard as possible to ensure that. Had we gotten actual Universal Healthcare, pricing would have dropped as well, because costs would drop.

But the fact that I can go get a mammogram. The facility charges $900. If I have good insurance, the negotiated rate is $200, but if not it can range anywhere from $200 up to the $900. UHC would bring us the following:
Procedure X is $A in Region 1, $B in Region 2, $C in region 3, etc. Everyone gets the same negotiated rate for their area. If you have insurance it's filed with them, if not, then that's the cash rate if you pay that day. (but with UHC everyone would have insurance). Right now, the cash person has to negotiate and hope for a lower rate than $900. They should be entitled to $200 (or less since they are paying cash upfront and the company does not have to deal with billing insurance and waiting 3 months for payment).

Many of us just want High deductible insurance for true emergencies and Negotiated rates for everything else. I'd self insure if I could get that. And most years nothing would be paid for by insurance.

Yes, this is exactly what many people want, affordable catastrophic care plan, so that you don't get in debt 7 figures if you end up in a hospital or need a $$$ life saving treatment, and cash for everything else that should be affordable and offered at an "insurance discounted" rate like you pointed out, since this is all the provider is going to get anyway if that. Many providers prefer to charge cash up front and are willing to negotiate. But people get ripped off in the facilities that have to charge them premium to cover their shortfalls from treating uninsured patients or those who can't pay their bills. There is also a lot of fraud in insurance billing by the providers themselves who try to double dip or upcharge. There is fraud in medicare taking facilities too and everywhere where tax payer $$$ stream is involved.

Are there even any plans where your visits and scans/tests are 100% covered that aren't over-subsidized by the employer/government or requires poverty qualification like Medicaid? Every plan seems to carry a high deductible making all your routine care (if you are healthy) out of pocket.