Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The easiest way to explain most of the democrats plans, you can pay $1000/m for a private plan like the PP oy ui canpay $3000 more per year in taxes, but save the $1,000/mo.

So yes, your taxes go up, but you net out ahead.

That is what they will tell you.
But, that remains to be revealed. Free college, free daycare, eliminating student debt, and all the other "freebies" being promoted by the Democrats would totally wipe out any savings. And, cost a ton more in taxes.
Also, if you "net out ahead" but have health care that is not great it is not "net out ahead" in my book.

As it is, our country is being driven to economic ruin so some 1%ers can reap the benefits. [b]At least the dems want to invest in the average American through health, education and job training.

What benefit is the GOP plan giving to Americans?

This is an important phrase. I understand why some PR professional/political flack invented the phrase "free college," but I think it's terrible. We never say "free elementary school!" We say PUBLIC school, and understand intuitively why it makes sense to invest in making sure all kids can read and write and do math. We need to see college as an investment the states make in an educated workforce, just like it used to be. We need to RE-INVEST in Americans. Not freebies -- investments.

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.

Vote for your and your family interest first. If you are a democrat and really care about paying for someone's healthcare, just purchase a plan for a neighbor and pay for it.

Do you understand that that is literally not possible in our country?

You mean you can’t hand a neighbor a check for $700 and tell them to pay for their health care insurance?

If you honestly do not know the answer to this question, I politely suggest that you do real research into the state of health insurance in this country before commenting. "Just purchase a plan" for your uninsured next door neighbor for $700 indeed.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Depends on whether I get Canada's outcomes measures with that. Or Germany's, or New Zealand's.

This is an excellent point, one ignored by anybody advocating for any of this. Let's take Japan, as an example. They have health care for all. They also have a system where if you have cancer with a low percentage of success in curing, you get a kiss on the forehead and you go home to die. Dental care is another basket of insanity over there. And, yes, I know. I have lived there and work with Japanese companies all the time.

Of course, our system would never work that way. Only the best of palliative care, regardless of condition! That won't work, and is unsustainable. You want BASIC health care for all, that could only work if it is limited. Want something better, get yourself into a position to have health care provided as part of your compensation. Its not that hard, despite what everybody wants to say about how horrible america is, particularly now with millions of jobs unfilled, all of which provide health insurance, because people won't show up sober for more than a few days in a row.

That's actually a humane, good approach to hard-to-cure cancers.

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

Keep in mind what's going on here, because in spite of the crazy-high-sounding prices, it's actually a pretty good deal a lot of the time. At least, if you're middle-aged or older.

Under COBRA, you're just paying the full premium yourself. There's no COBRA penalty- you're just loosing the subsidy your employer previously provided. COBRA reflects the actual cost of your health insurance plan. People complain about the high costs of ACA marketplace plans, but I think that's because they're not thinking of the total premiums for their private group insurance plan. Often they're comparing the prices for older people, too, who can be charged more for the ACA plans, while employers usually just have a fixed premium for everyone.

Basically, health coverage is very expensive. A single player system might, perhaps optimistically, reduce some inefficiencies and cut 10-20% in overall costs. But it would still be very expensive.

I guess the moral of the story is that we're well past the point of no return when it comes to requiring massive subsidies (either from the government or employers) to pay for health coverage.

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.

Exactly.

The problem with US Dems is that they promise much yet they have no idea (or willingness) to actually deliver.

Obamacare did help some folks but made things worse for the majority of people. That would never fly in Europe.

Just for health coverage (medical and pharmacy), my company and I pay a combined 15K a year for myself and my child. This doesnt include co-pays or pharmacy costs. Copays are 25-35, most medications are 10/month, urgent care is $50, ER visit is $175. I dont get dental coverage because it is less expensive to put the total premium amount in the FSA and either use new patient promos to get regular cleanings/xrays or go to a dental school for cleanings. This may change when my kid has more teeth but since he is under 2 the pediatric dentist visit is just a check and exposure so it costs me 50-60/yr.

Basic vision is covered by my employer but I still pay 100% for contacts and glasses. My biannual exam still cost me $80 at Costco.

We have pretty good insurance but with the premium per paycheck and estimate medical costs I easily spend 4600 premiums, 500 co-pays (sick visits, wellness visits at PCP, PT, sons allergist, etc), buffer in one urgent care visit (50), hope there are no ER visits for the year, assume $50 in medications since we arent on prescribed regular medications (covering possible antibiotics/etc) but you can assume with regular prescriptions an annual cost of 120-240 for one to two people, dental OOP is 500, vision care and associated glasses/contacts/etc would average out to 800 every 2 years - if I were to get new glasses, which I dont.

I would MUCH rather pay 1000-2000- or even 5000 extra in taxes for EVERYONE to have healthcare. Its a known cost that can be budgeted. I have to budget for the knowns and the what-ifs every year when I calculate my FSA.

Also, companies could stop including health insurance in the total compensation package. They wouldn't need to spend time or resources negotiating every year.

As a fed with decent insurance, I'm nervous. But, as someone who has had to worry about getting coverage several times in my life, I think Medicare-for-All could do a lot of good.

The devil is in the details. I don't think Medicare-for-All will be cheaper or better for me- at least, not initially. But we're not on a sustainable path right now, and I've (hopefully) got a lot of years ahead of me. Moving to a single payer system looks inevitable, or at least almost certainly better than any other plausible outcome. So, I'd be OK ripping off the bandaid now, even if that means moving to something that's initially worse than what I have. But, there's a limit to how much worse I'd tolerate...

The thing is, I can't really tell how any proposals on health care would work. Bernie's Medicare for All plan seems like the most clear. It would certainly result in higher taxes for me, although not by that much when you offset them with insurance premiums. But, I really wonder how employers would deal with the huge cost shift into taxes, and I suspect a lot of them would end up taking advantage of this change to shift more of the cost burden on employees. I'm also skeptical that even his long list of proposed tax changes would be enough to pay for it. And then there's the obvious problem: that's it has zero chance of passing.

A public option, like Buttigieg has proposed, seems more politically tractable, but it's a lot less clear how that would work. It would almost certainly suffer from severe adverse selection compared to employer-sponsored group plans, so it would need to be subsidized in some way to keep the costs reasonable. If the subsidies are only based on income, then it's not going to work well for higher-income people. If the subsidies are across-the-board, then there will be never-ending debates over whether the public option if competing fairly with private insurance.

I used to think a public option was the way to go, but I just don't see how you design it fairly. And if it's not fair, it's not stable. I've never been able to figure out how other countries with universal healthcare based on private insurance handle this. I also don't think it would create a good situation to have most well-off people on private group insurance, with mainly the poor on the public option. That's how you end up with something crappy like Medicaid.

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.

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

I pay more than that for shitty, high deductible employer sponsored health insurance. And premiums were going up long before Obama care. I think insurance and drug companies should be non profit only.

Yes, I would be fine with if done right. My insurance pays for acupuncture, so that is awesome. But, no dental, which sucks. I also had to pay almost 2K for my portion of the hearing aid, that sucked, given that out insurance is over 30K per year.. Not even when I gave birth did we come close to our health insurance paying for services what we paid them. And they cheese out after deductible and make me pay at least 10% of the bill. It is one of the best insurance plans, apart from my FIL who works for the post office.
But, this would be a good thing for all, I am not a selfish idiot who wants babies to die so I can have acupuncture for just my copay.

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

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!)

Did you vote for Obama twice?

Then, YOU check YOUR well-deserved privilege.

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 point is - of course people with Cadillac plans are upset! My plan already sucks so I’m willing to try other options.

Every country that has socialized healthcare has private insurance as an alternative option. You're free to purchase that.

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.

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.

Who cares?! Insurance companies profit off removing your access to care.

And you feel the government will give you more access?