How would you feel about losing your company-provided health insurance for "medicare for all"?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Instead of the middle earner paying a fortune for Obamacare insurance and still having to "space out" treatments, while the low earner on free insurance gets whatever the doctor reommended, why not reverse it:

- People paying the full insurance amount without subsidies will have their insurance plan cover the treatment schedule recommended by their doctor.
- People being subsidized and getting free or practically free insurance will have their insurance plan cover "a treatment schedule" that is spaced out.

Now before the lefties race in saying "no fair.....why should poor people not get the recommended treatment schedule!" - remember, they are not paying for insurance. I'd switch it around and ask why aren't the lefties defending the middle class paying for insurance who are forced to space out their treatments? In order to "even things out," we need to rearrange the subsidy distribution: less free money for those earning $35,000 in order to give at least some relief to those earning $60,000.

LOL no we need to reduce the cost by eliminating the middlemen, not more subsidy, You sound like a commie with your subsidy talk. Our healthcare system is 18% of gdp. The rest of the developed world is at 9-11% of gdp. The extra cost is the insurance companies and drug manufacturers making themselves rich. This is almost a 10% drain on our economy and causes huge market inefficiencies. More subsidies just means more money for the bloated insurance companies and drug manufacturers.

I do not understand why anyone- employer or employee would want their work place providing health insurance. It’s not a core business of the majority of business, increases their cost, and is a headache to administer. It forces employees to make choices in their career that they would not make if healthcare was provide outside of your place of employment.

THIS! It should not be tied to employment AT ALL.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
THIS. Dems: do you care about these middle earners AT ALL!?!! Because these posts are completely correct. Middle earners can not afford health care while the lower class is getting it for FREE. And what do Dems say? Eh, no biggie. The poor now have BETTER health care access (by a lot) than those who are middle class. Do you not see this??

Getting the middle-class and the poor to fight each other while the wealthy laugh all the way to the bank. It's like that joke where there's a dozen cookies with a rich guy, a middle-class guy, and a poor guy sitting at the table. The wealthy guy takes eleven of them, then points to the last one and whispers to the middle-class guy, "I think he's trying to steal your cookie."

Obama stole 10 cookies from the middle class guy to give 3 to the poor guy and 7 to the rich one.

Hate to break it to you, but you never had 10 cookies. You had the illusion that one day, with enough hard work, you’d earn 10 cookies. But in reality, you always only ever had the one.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
THIS. Dems: do you care about these middle earners AT ALL!?!! Because these posts are completely correct. Middle earners can not afford health care while the lower class is getting it for FREE. And what do Dems say? Eh, no biggie. The poor now have BETTER health care access (by a lot) than those who are middle class. Do you not see this??

Getting the middle-class and the poor to fight each other while the wealthy laugh all the way to the bank. It's like that joke where there's a dozen cookies with a rich guy, a middle-class guy, and a poor guy sitting at the table. The wealthy guy takes eleven of them, then points to the last one and whispers to the middle-class guy, "I think he's trying to steal your cookie."

Obama stole 10 cookies from the middle class guy to give 3 to the poor guy and 7 to the rich one.

THIS!!!!!!!

You think the rich guy didn't already have those cookies before Obama came along? That was pretty much the whole point of the Reagan Revolution.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
THIS. Dems: do you care about these middle earners AT ALL!?!! Because these posts are completely correct. Middle earners can not afford health care while the lower class is getting it for FREE. And what do Dems say? Eh, no biggie. The poor now have BETTER health care access (by a lot) than those who are middle class. Do you not see this??

Getting the middle-class and the poor to fight each other while the wealthy laugh all the way to the bank. It's like that joke where there's a dozen cookies with a rich guy, a middle-class guy, and a poor guy sitting at the table. The wealthy guy takes eleven of them, then points to the last one and whispers to the middle-class guy, "I think he's trying to steal your cookie."

Obama stole 10 cookies from the middle class guy to give 3 to the poor guy and 7 to the rich one.

THIS!!!!!!!

You think the rich guy didn't already have those cookies before Obama came along? That was pretty much the whole point of the Reagan Revolution.

Look up the market capitalization of pharma/ insurance/ hospital companies after ACA was passed.

They got a ton of cookies...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
THIS. Dems: do you care about these middle earners AT ALL!?!! Because these posts are completely correct. Middle earners can not afford health care while the lower class is getting it for FREE. And what do Dems say? Eh, no biggie. The poor now have BETTER health care access (by a lot) than those who are middle class. Do you not see this??

Getting the middle-class and the poor to fight each other while the wealthy laugh all the way to the bank. It's like that joke where there's a dozen cookies with a rich guy, a middle-class guy, and a poor guy sitting at the table. The wealthy guy takes eleven of them, then points to the last one and whispers to the middle-class guy, "I think he's trying to steal your cookie."

Obama stole 10 cookies from the middle class guy to give 3 to the poor guy and 7 to the rich one.

THIS!!!!!!!

You think the rich guy didn't already have those cookies before Obama came along? That was pretty much the whole point of the Reagan Revolution.

He sure the heck didn’t. Rich guy had 1000 cookies, I had 10. No question there. Now my measly 10 cookies were taken from me- with 3 given the k poor guy, and th rich guy gets even 7 more. Do you really think people are this stupid??! YES rich guy has too much. Let’s address that, yes. But stealing what little the middle class has and distributing to the poor does NOT do that. They aren’t stupid.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
THIS. Dems: do you care about these middle earners AT ALL!?!! Because these posts are completely correct. Middle earners can not afford health care while the lower class is getting it for FREE. And what do Dems say? Eh, no biggie. The poor now have BETTER health care access (by a lot) than those who are middle class. Do you not see this??

Getting the middle-class and the poor to fight each other while the wealthy laugh all the way to the bank. It's like that joke where there's a dozen cookies with a rich guy, a middle-class guy, and a poor guy sitting at the table. The wealthy guy takes eleven of them, then points to the last one and whispers to the middle-class guy, "I think he's trying to steal your cookie."

Obama stole 10 cookies from the middle class guy to give 3 to the poor guy and 7 to the rich one.

THIS!!!!!!!

You think the rich guy didn't already have those cookies before Obama came along? That was pretty much the whole point of the Reagan Revolution.

He sure the heck didn’t. Rich guy had 1000 cookies, I had 10. No question there. Now my measly 10 cookies were taken from me- with 3 given the k poor guy, and th rich guy gets even 7 more. Do you really think people are this stupid??! YES rich guy has too much. Let’s address that, yes. But stealing what little the middle class has and distributing to the poor does NOT do that. They aren’t stupid.

Exactly

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Jeez can we take the politics out of this for one minute and actually have a conversation here

We need to do 2 things

1. Address the moral hazard problem. There needs to be penalties/consequences for poor health behavior poor diet, smoking, not exercising or rewards (lower premiums) for positive behavior
2. Bring back catastrophic plans

Most people are satisfied with their health insurance. Scrapping a system that over 100 million people are happy with makes absolutely no sense.

You seem to ignore the large gap in between. What then? People get sick even if they live healthy lives?

Catastrophic plans don't address things like getting mammograms, a lumpectomy (benign, which I've had). It doesn't address congenital issues like asthma.

The vast majority of people fall in the large gap you keep ignoring.

Not only do they get sick, they also get hit by buses, bitten by dogs, ride in airplanes with people carrying diseases, etc

Under Obamacare you pay for all that anyway because you have a deductible of at least 5k (unsubsidized)

That's the same as a catastrophic plan except you are paying 30 a month instead of 300

It'd even worse than that - try $800+. That's what you'll pay for the "bargain" bronze plan if you're over 60 - and you'll still have a $6k deductible.

Yup.

A scam.

Now imagine not having ANY insurance and how much you will end up paying if you get sick.

What?? We are talking about how a "bronze" catastrophic coversge plan costs $800 a month under Obamacare - when the market price would otherwise be $50. IOW, Obama caused the price of catastrophic plans to go up in cost 10x so other people who earn even slightly less get a major subsidy. We are not talking about going without insurance at all.

How is it fair for someone earning $50k in a DC suburb, just getting by, to have to pay $800 a month for a craoot bronze plan when someone living in Alabama earning $45k, and living comfortably, gets the same subsidized coverage for $100 a month?

Why are you lying about the prices?

For a 50 year old single person here are the monthly premium prices for a 2019 Bronze plans:

DC (no subsidy): $463 to $587 (6 options)
DC (with subsidy for income below $48K): $240 to $330 (6 options)

MD (no subsidy): $417 to $453 (3 options)
MD (with subsidy): $182 to $217 (3 options)

What’s VA prices?

Why do you accuse people who have information you don't a liar?

And why use a 50-year-old as an example? If you are over 60, you will pay more than $800 for an INDIVIDUAL (not family) for the cheapest bronze plan with the maximum deductible of about $7,000. If you go up to silver, the deductible drops to around $5,000 (which still means you'll probably still have to pay for all your medical care), but the premium is more than $1.000. As to above that, I didn't even look. I can barely afford the "bare-bones" $800 bronze plan.

And if the Rs get their way, older people would pay even more. That was part of their plan. So you people who complain about how Dems don't care about the middle class really should also be looking at Rs, too. They gave super rich people a bigger tax cut than you. They don't need such a large tax cut. The middle class needs more than just a tiny tax cut, but R don't care about you either.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We have to bring the costs down. And this starts at the top. No more overpaid execs. No more lobbyists. No more crooked drug companies (ie: Mylan and Purdue.) Period. Only then can we have a serious conversation about this because that is why it’s so damn expensive.

Yes. Yes. Yes.

+1.

It's because it "costs" tens of thousands of dollars to go to a hospital, even if it's for something common like giving birth to a child. The argument isn't public vs private, because both have their pros/cons but it won't matter what we end up with if we still have things like drug companies being able to make prices whatever they want, insurance companies claiming costs of care are higher, etc. I am not saying I have the answer to this problem but no matter what path we end up on, if they're going to charge you $600 for an epipen, then prices will continue to go up... whether it's Medicare or a private company.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We have to bring the costs down. And this starts at the top. No more overpaid execs. No more lobbyists. No more crooked drug companies (ie: Mylan and Purdue.) Period. Only then can we have a serious conversation about this because that is why it’s so damn expensive.

Yes. Yes. Yes.

+1.

It's because it "costs" tens of thousands of dollars to go to a hospital, even if it's for something common like giving birth to a child. The argument isn't public vs private, because both have their pros/cons but it won't matter what we end up with if we still have things like drug companies being able to make prices whatever they want, insurance companies claiming costs of care are higher, etc. I am not saying I have the answer to this problem but no matter what path we end up on, if they're going to charge you $600 for an epipen, then prices will continue to go up... whether it's Medicare or a private company.

ITA.. and I stated this up thread a few times, but I can't see Rs every agreeing to this. It would mean price regulation which they don't want to do. I don't see why not, though, since they do regulate utilities. Short of price regulations, the only way to get price down is to increase the bargaining power, and that means expanding medicare or medicaid.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We have to bring the costs down. And this starts at the top. No more overpaid execs. No more lobbyists. No more crooked drug companies (ie: Mylan and Purdue.) Period. Only then can we have a serious conversation about this because that is why it’s so damn expensive.

Yes. Yes. Yes.

+1.

It's because it "costs" tens of thousands of dollars to go to a hospital, even if it's for something common like giving birth to a child. The argument isn't public vs private, because both have their pros/cons but it won't matter what we end up with if we still have things like drug companies being able to make prices whatever they want, insurance companies claiming costs of care are higher, etc. I am not saying I have the answer to this problem but no matter what path we end up on, if they're going to charge you $600 for an epipen, then prices will continue to go up... whether it's Medicare or a private company.

ITA.. and I stated this up thread a few times, but I can't see Rs every agreeing to this. It would mean price regulation which they don't want to do. I don't see why not, though, since they do regulate utilities. Short of price regulations, the only way to get price down is to increase the bargaining power, and that means expanding medicare or medicaid.

yep

[Anonymous]

I'm not going to check the history on this, so please speak up if someone knows better. But, I was taught that the power companies routinely lied and exaggerated what was necessary to provide rural electricity. The feds started up the Tennessee Valley Authority and were able to provide power much more cheaply than the private sector was claiming. This brought prices down generally.

In my mind, a public option would be analogous to the TVA.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm not going to check the history on this, so please speak up if someone knows better. But, I was taught that the power companies routinely lied and exaggerated what was necessary to provide rural electricity. The feds started up the Tennessee Valley Authority and were able to provide power much more cheaply than the private sector was claiming. This brought prices down generally.

In my mind, a public option would be analogous to the TVA.

Yup.

One great example.

In one hundred years.

Let's now make a list of cases where aggressive federal intervention didn't turn out as well as expected...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm not going to check the history on this, so please speak up if someone knows better. But, I was taught that the power companies routinely lied and exaggerated what was necessary to provide rural electricity. The feds started up the Tennessee Valley Authority and were able to provide power much more cheaply than the private sector was claiming. This brought prices down generally.

In my mind, a public option would be analogous to the TVA.

Yup.

One great example.

In one hundred years.

Let's now make a list of cases where aggressive federal intervention didn't turn out as well as expected...

and so what is your solution to the out of control healthcare costs? Rs do NOTHING but WHINE and COMPLAIN, and don't put forward any viable solution to decrease costs. It's almost like they like that health care companies make a sh1t ton of money while screwing the middle class, kind of like how they like that the super rich got a huge tax cut, but not the middle class.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm not going to check the history on this, so please speak up if someone knows better. But, I was taught that the power companies routinely lied and exaggerated what was necessary to provide rural electricity. The feds started up the Tennessee Valley Authority and were able to provide power much more cheaply than the private sector was claiming. This brought prices down generally.

In my mind, a public option would be analogous to the TVA.

Yup.

One great example.

In one hundred years.

Let's now make a list of cases where aggressive federal intervention didn't turn out as well as expected...

Sigh. You are coming across really aggressively. If you had facts on your side, I don't think you would act this way.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Instead of the middle earner paying a fortune for Obamacare insurance and still having to "space out" treatments, while the low earner on free insurance gets whatever the doctor reommended, why not reverse it:

- People paying the full insurance amount without subsidies will have their insurance plan cover the treatment schedule recommended by their doctor.
- People being subsidized and getting free or practically free insurance will have their insurance plan cover "a treatment schedule" that is spaced out.

Now before the lefties race in saying "no fair.....why should poor people not get the recommended treatment schedule!" - remember, they are not paying for insurance. I'd switch it around and ask why aren't the lefties defending the middle class paying for insurance who are forced to space out their treatments? In order to "even things out," we need to rearrange the subsidy distribution: less free money for those earning $35,000 in order to give at least some relief to those earning $60,000.

LOL no we need to reduce the cost by eliminating the middlemen, not more subsidy, You sound like a commie with your subsidy talk. Our healthcare system is 18% of gdp. The rest of the developed world is at 9-11% of gdp. The extra cost is the insurance companies and drug manufacturers making themselves rich. This is almost a 10% drain on our economy and causes huge market inefficiencies. More subsidies just means more money for the bloated insurance companies and drug manufacturers.

I do not understand why anyone- employer or employee would want their work place providing health insurance. It’s not a core business of the majority of business, increases their cost, and is a headache to administer. It forces employees to make choices in their career that they would not make if healthcare was provide outside of your place of employment.

THIS! It should not be tied to employment AT ALL.

I'm not thrilled with employee based health insurance either but it is one place in health care where the free market works fairly effectively. Every year my company shops for insurers who can provide a low rate but still keep the employees satisfied.