Anonymous wrote:People with money will always find a way to pay for service.

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!)

Obamacare devastated the insurance industry.

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!)

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!)

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.

Neither my DH nor myself could vote for Sanders or Warren or Harris on this alone.

And it's not just because of us. It's because abolishing private insurance would create such havoc in our healthcare system that would make life worse for EVERYONE.

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.

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.

Anonymous wrote:We also have great healthcare. But I’ve also been in the position of having none, and so I know what that’s like.

It’s an ethics question. You have to decide what your values are. Are you willing to put aside your own interests for the greater common good?

Most people in this country are not. And so here we are.

Such findings are part of an emerging mosaic of evidence that, nearly a decade after it became one of the most polarizing health-care laws in U.S. history, the ACA is making some Americans healthier — and less likely to die.

One 2017 study compared heart surgery patients in Michigan and Virginia, which had not yet expanded Medicaid at the time. It found that those who had cardiac bypasses or valve operations in Michigan had fewer complications afterward than similar people in Virginia, where more were uninsured.

One in three Michigan women said that, after joining Medicaid, they could more easily get birth control. And four in 10 people in Healthy Michigan with a chronic health condition — such as high blood pressure, a mood disorder or chronic lung disease — learned of it only after getting the coverage, according to survey results published this month.

Anonymous wrote:Don’t worry. Universal healthcare is not going to happen. Not any time soon. We’re not a progressive country.

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.

Anonymous wrote:What percentage of Americans currently have really great employee sponsored health care?

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.