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

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:To me, this is a huge thing that will deeply affect my family. We currently have great health insurance and pretty much immediate access to any specialist we need. Deductibles are minimal.

Most of the Democratic candidates' plans will mean worse healthcare access for us, and I assume many folks. I find this really frustrating! How is this considered a winning issue. I'm not going to vote against my own self-interest.

We have magical heath care. Every time I hand my insurance card over and then they check our benefits, the person always asks in a hushed voice: where do you work?? No copays, ever. No referrals. My children have truly tested our coverage (two different rare disorders and all the hospitalizations that come with them), and we truly have never had anything but 100% coverage via our insurance.

I would guess you only get health care this good if you work for a powerful union (which are dwindling in number) or in a high-powered, high-paid industry were you have oodles of other benefits too.

All this to say: you can take away my excellent health care and people like me will still have access to the private market to fill the gaps. But millions of people have inadequate coverage that still bankrupts them if they have the audacity to be sick. When my oldest child almost died, she was hospitalized and running test after expensive test to find out what’s wrong. I had the luxury of not having to stop then to ask the price. That’s the way it should be for necessary medical treatment.

We should be worried about the millions rather than the few unicorns.

Amen, sister!

I am almost as fed up with "I got mine, so the rest of you go F yourself" attitude as I am with my private health insurance. Let me break this down for you:

I'm 30 years old, trying to balance growing a career with the prospect of getting married/starting a family.
In the past five years I have had two jobs and three different health insurance plans, because of companies getting acquired and "integration" and "synergies."
I've had Cigna, Blue Cross, and UHC, never by my own choosing. None of these plans I chose for myself, they were chosen by my employer. A doctor I like one year can be out of network the next and I have to start all over again.
And last year, our PPO premiums DOUBLED, so I had no choice to go onto a silver plan with a higher deductible. This is such a regressive system, because healthcare premiums are a bigger chunk out of my paycheck than out of the paycheck of someone who makes more than me. Which means those who make less have to go for a riskier, high-deductible option.
God forbid I don't get pregnant, injured, or sick with a serious illness. I would go bankrupt within a month. When the rest of the civilized and developed world has some form of public health insurance, we're stuck with this regressive system that kicks the poor while they're down and punishes people for leaving their jobs or for getting sick or pregnant.

So you all can take your gold-plated private health insurance and shove it.

You think you will gain choices with single-payer?

I think you missed the point of PP ... she doesn't want more "choices," she wants predictable, affordable, and decent healthcare.

[Anonymous]

What we have now is a disaster on every level. There are very few people who are not hurt by the system we have now at some point.
We happen to have good insurance now, at a reasonable cost, and are socking money away in to an HSA. But we know we are lucky. We have not been able to pursue other career choices because of insurance.

Our country was built by small business owners but our insurance industry/medical industry is killing them off.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:To me, this is a huge thing that will deeply affect my family. We currently have great health insurance and pretty much immediate access to any specialist we need. Deductibles are minimal.

Most of the Democratic candidates' plans will mean worse healthcare access for us, and I assume many folks. I find this really frustrating! How is this considered a winning issue. I'm not going to vote against my own self-interest.

You are lucky. Despite having access to employer health insurance, the plan options have gotten shittier and shittier and more expensive. We had a plan like yours maybe 10 years ago. Now it’s not even a choice. It’s expensive PPO or slightly less but still expensive HDHP, both with massive deductibles.

Check your privilege (and we are white, well educated and well employed!)

Thank Obamacare for those exploding premiums and deductibles.

Unless you think Warren is a million times smarter and more capable than Obama, you know she's only going to make the bad even worse.

The ACA didn't "explode" the cost of employer-sponsored health care plans. Overall health care costs largely followed the trend line, perhaps with a small jump depending on what data you're looking at. But, around the same time, some employers decided to pass along a greater percentage of costs to the the employees through changes in premium contributions and higher deductibles/copayments/coinsurance.

What did explode was the individual market, which was, and still is, a mess. Under the ACA, health insurance actually needs to cover things, which destroyed how much of the individual market worked before that. No more denying coverage for pre-existing conditions. No more caps on how much they'll pay out before coverage is terminated. Tighter limits on how much you can charge old, sick people, which ultimately raises costs for everyone else.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think it’s cute that someone believes you can afford the entire private insurance premium of anyone for $700/month.

With Cobra when I lost a job 20 years ago, they handed me paperwork for $800+/month

Who are these people? My friend paid over 700 wit obama care. She was mad as she never used a Dr that year, and when she used it for her dd, she paid $500 deductible! She is from Europe and felt truly scammed, either you pay of you end up in jail! What an option in democracy, and I am for universal health care, but done right.

DP.. just before ACA hit, I had lost my job. Cobra was $3000/mo, family of four. It was a really good plan, but a you can see, even pre ACA, a really good plan was super expensive.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What we have now is a disaster on every level. There are very few people who are not hurt by the system we have now at some point.
We happen to have good insurance now, at a reasonable cost, and are socking money away in to an HSA. But we know we are lucky. We have not been able to pursue other career choices because of insurance.

Our country was built by small business owners but our insurance industry/medical industry is killing them off.

Yup.

Obama's legacy = unaffordable healthcare.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What we have now is a disaster on every level. There are very few people who are not hurt by the system we have now at some point.
We happen to have good insurance now, at a reasonable cost, and are socking money away in to an HSA. But we know we are lucky. We have not been able to pursue other career choices because of insurance.

Our country was built by small business owners but our insurance industry/medical industry is killing them off.

Yup.

Obama's legacy = unaffordable healthcare.

rewriting history there.

I had good insurance the costs started going up a high percentage year after year during the time Bush was in office. It was already happening before Obama became president. Every year the new plans would come out and HR would hold info sessions, and employees and retirees would come out of the meetings bewildered at the increases.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What we have now is a disaster on every level. There are very few people who are not hurt by the system we have now at some point.
We happen to have good insurance now, at a reasonable cost, and are socking money away in to an HSA. But we know we are lucky. We have not been able to pursue other career choices because of insurance.

Our country was built by small business owners but our insurance industry/medical industry is killing them off.

Yup.

Obama's legacy = unaffordable healthcare.

rewriting history there.

I had good insurance the costs started going up a high percentage year after year during the time Bush was in office. It was already happening before Obama became president. Every year the new plans would come out and HR would hold info sessions, and employees and retirees would come out of the meetings bewildered at the increases.

Correct. The costs were already skyrocketing. No doubt due to increased pay and perks for insurance and healthcare execs, drug reps, and indirectly, lobbyists. The whole system is so so corrupt and can never be fixed because those in power benefit from the current system.

[Anonymous]

Everybody is getting their panties in a twist about health insurance costs, but what we actually need is a national discussion about health care costs. Why is it so expensive to have any health care procedure done here, especially when compared to the rest of the world? We can moan about health insurance, but until health care costs are brought under control, nothing will change. Bring down health care costs, and people will not be going bankrupt. Insurance should be for "major stuff" like cancer treatment, surgery, etc. We should not be using it for checkups, flu shots, etc. However, we can't pay for these things out of pocket right now because they are priced too high.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Everybody is getting their panties in a twist about health insurance costs, but what we actually need is a national discussion about health care costs. Why is it so expensive to have any health care procedure done here, especially when compared to the rest of the world? We can moan about health insurance, but until health care costs are brought under control, nothing will change. Bring down health care costs, and people will not be going bankrupt. Insurance should be for "major stuff" like cancer treatment, surgery, etc. We should not be using it for checkups, flu shots, etc. However, we can't pay for these things out of pocket right now because they are priced too high.

+ a million.

Obamacare ignored this basic fact, creating an even less affordable healthcare system.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Everybody is getting their panties in a twist about health insurance costs, but what we actually need is a national discussion about health care costs. Why is it so expensive to have any health care procedure done here, especially when compared to the rest of the world? We can moan about health insurance, but until health care costs are brought under control, nothing will change. Bring down health care costs, and people will not be going bankrupt. Insurance should be for "major stuff" like cancer treatment, surgery, etc. We should not be using it for checkups, flu shots, etc. However, we can't pay for these things out of pocket right now because they are priced too high.

+ a million.

Obamacare ignored this basic fact, creating an even less affordable healthcare system.

+1. Yes! And no one ever wants to discuss this. Until this is addressed, all of these plans are just cost-shifting with different winners and losers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Everybody is getting their panties in a twist about health insurance costs, but what we actually need is a national discussion about health care costs. Why is it so expensive to have any health care procedure done here, especially when compared to the rest of the world? We can moan about health insurance, but until health care costs are brought under control, nothing will change. Bring down health care costs, and people will not be going bankrupt. Insurance should be for "major stuff" like cancer treatment, surgery, etc. We should not be using it for checkups, flu shots, etc. However, we can't pay for these things out of pocket right now because they are priced too high.

+ a million.

Obamacare ignored this basic fact, creating an even less affordable healthcare system.

+1. Yes! And no one ever wants to discuss this. Until this is addressed, all of these plans are just cost-shifting with different winners and losers.

+1!!!!! Unfortunately, our political system has degenerated to a point where this is not possible.

Pro tip -- lobbyists love this partisan circus which allows them to do their business in the dark

[Anonymous]

Let's not leave out the pharma fraud. My child has needed the same medication for a chronic illness for the last 10 years and the price fluctuations have been absolutely insane and unjustifiable. Literally $5 one month and $300 the next, with doctors constantly being forced to "try" a new medication in order for it to be covered, when the old one was working and the new one doesn't and has terrible side effects. They have to prove my child suffering the side effect that they knew would happen, before being allowed to go back the one that worked! It's child abuse.

[Anonymous]

I went from private to Medicare a few years ago and I haven’t had any problems with access to good medical care. Now I haven’t had any extreme medical needs so I just may be lucky. People with private insurance where the company pays almost all of the premiums and the deductibles are low are living in a fantasy world and will someday face a rude awakening. Even on Medicare my spouse and I play something like $1200-1300 a month combined for Medicare, a Medicare supplement and a drug plan - but no vision or dental.

[Anonymous]

If everything is given,. Why should I bother working?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Everybody is getting their panties in a twist about health insurance costs, but what we actually need is a national discussion about health care costs. Why is it so expensive to have any health care procedure done here, especially when compared to the rest of the world? We can moan about health insurance, but until health care costs are brought under control, nothing will change. Bring down health care costs, and people will not be going bankrupt. Insurance should be for "major stuff" like cancer treatment, surgery, etc. We should not be using it for checkups, flu shots, etc. However, we can't pay for these things out of pocket right now because they are priced too high.

+ a million.

Obamacare ignored this basic fact, creating an even less affordable healthcare system.

+1. Yes! And no one ever wants to discuss this. Until this is addressed, all of these plans are just cost-shifting with different winners and losers.

Correct. But the legislators, lobbyists, healthcare, insurance and pharma execs don’t want it fixed. And so it won’t be.