Cheddar Tom wrote:I pay $2 more per pay period than I did pre-ACA....haven't noticed a personal change otherwise.
Maybe it's a corporate thing, but I'm self employed and I got creamed by the ACA. Mine went up $40 a month just last year. Now granted the year after I sold my business was good because technically I didn't have income and I got free health care, but as soon as I got income again I was back to getting hammered.
The worst part is the plans offered. As I said if I wanted to keep my doctor I was really limited on plans. Maybe that's a rural America problem though?
Cheddar Tom wrote:I pay $2 more per pay period than I did pre-ACA....haven't noticed a personal change otherwise.
Maybe it's a corporate thing, but I'm self employed and I got creamed by the ACA. Mine went up $40 a month just last year. Now granted the year after I sold my business was good because technically I didn't have income and I got free health care, but as soon as I got income again I was back to getting hammered.
The worst part is the plans offered. As I said if I wanted to keep my doctor I was really limited on plans. Maybe that's a rural America problem though?
It certainly ended up being a giant give away to the insurance industry. It needs fixed.
I don't like the idea of government run health care because I don't trust it to be efficient or on the level but this current system of letting private insurance providers run things is probably even worse. There is no explanation that I will ever believe as to why health care has to be so expensive. None. I don't care how reasonable or accurate it is, I am going to be obstinate and refuse to believe it anyway.
Seriously though, health insurance companies are the devil.
tlombard wrote:I don't like the idea of government run health care because I don't trust it to be efficient or on the level but this current system of letting private insurance providers run things is probably even worse. There is no explanation that I will ever believe as to why health care has to be so expensive. None. I don't care how reasonable or accurate it is, I am going to be obstinate and refuse to believe it anyway.
Seriously though, health insurance companies are the devil.
All insurance companies are. It's a legal protection racket.
tlombard wrote:I don't like the idea of government run health care because I don't trust it to be efficient or on the level but this current system of letting private insurance providers run things is probably even worse. There is no explanation that I will ever believe as to why health care has to be so expensive. None. I don't care how reasonable or accurate it is, I am going to be obstinate and refuse to believe it anyway.
Seriously though, health insurance companies are the devil.
All insurance companies are. It's a legal protection racket.
IMADreamer wrote:The worst part is the plans offered. As I said if I wanted to keep my doctor I was really limited on plans. Maybe that's a rural America problem though?
Lack of choice in plans is particularly severe for rural areas, but there are now three states with only a single insurer.
tlombard wrote:I don't like the idea of government run health care because I don't trust it to be efficient or on the level but this current system of letting private insurance providers run things is probably even worse. There is no explanation that I will ever believe as to why health care has to be so expensive. None. I don't care how reasonable or accurate it is, I am going to be obstinate and refuse to believe it anyway.
Seriously though, health insurance companies are the devil.
I agree more with your first paragraph than your last statement.
I think the health care industry is the devil. Far worse than insurance companies.
Also notable, insurance companies can just bail whenever they're tired of raising premiums 20 percwnt a year--with, as far as I can tell, no penalty. If you or I (and I wouldn't, I need ACA because insurers don't like the look of my pancreas) want to opt out, at some point we will be penalized. Maybe this whole thing was designed to fall into the arms of socialized medicine.
MrSaigon wrote:Also notable, insurance companies can just bail whenever they're tired of raising premiums 20 percwnt a year--with, as far as I can tell, no penalty. If you or I (and I wouldn't, I need ACA because insurers don't like the look of my pancreas) want to opt out, at some point we will be penalized. Maybe this whole thing was designed to fall into the arms of socialized medicine.
In its 2012 ruling, the Supreme Court made the health law’s Medicaid expansion optional for states. The resulting variation in choices makes it much easier to compare what happened in different states and draw conclusions about what effects health insurance coverage might have for the finances and health of Americans.
The researchers gathered their results by conducting a large telephone survey of low-income residents of the three states. They asked the same questions three times: in 2013, before the law’s Medicaid expansion; at the end of 2014, after it had been in place for a year; and at the end of last year. Then they compared what happened over time, using Texas as a kind of control group to see how much of a difference the Medicaid expansions in the other two states made.
Their survey found people in Arkansas and Kentucky were nearly 5 percent more likely than their peers in Texas to say they were in excellent health in 2015. And that difference was bigger than it had been the year before.
No two states are exactly the same, of course. There are many differences between Texas, Arkansas and Kentucky, besides their decisions on this part of the Affordable Care Act. The authors cautioned that their results can’t prove that Medicaid expansion caused people to be healthier.
It might sound simple to measure whether people are healthier than they used to be, but it’s actually pretty tough. While tests can tell you whether someone has high cholesterol, say, or high blood pressure, a single test may not tell the whole story. It turns out, however, that if you ask people how healthy they are, they do a pretty good job of telling you. Extensive research shows that people who say they are in poor health really are much more likely to die than those who describe their health as good.
The survey also asked about other subjects. It found that people in the expansion states were more likely to have a doctor and to have a place to go for care. They said they were more likely to have their chronic disease treated, and that they were more likely to have received screening for high cholesterol or high blood sugar, markers for heart disease and diabetes.
On financial measures, the study was in line with some previous studies, finding that people in Kentucky and Arkansas were less likely to postpone care or avoid taking prescribed drugs because of the cost, and that they were less likely to be struggling with a medical bill.
