"Obamacare"

[Mrs. Gooch]

Yes, I saw this on Facebook but it reminded me of the back and forth in this thread.

[K-S-U-Wildcats!]

Just had lunch with a guy whose dad is a doctor in France. Asked him what he thinks of the French healthcare system. He said it's ok, but his dad doesn't like it and is going to retire soon. Mainly the pay stinks.

He said that in France, the healthcare isn't really "free" - you're expected to pay, but people rarely do and the doctors get reimbursed by the state. He said this is causing "massive debt - approaching 1000 billion Euros." I laughed and said "in English, we call that a trillion - and don't worry, America's debt is 20 of those."

I didn't verify any of this - I just thought the 1000 billion thing was pretty funny. That's like one year under Obama.

[Dr Rick Daris]

Just had lunch with a guy whose dad is a doctor in France. Asked him what he thinks of the French healthcare system. He said it's ok, but his dad doesn't like it and is going to retire soon. Mainly the pay stinks.

He said that in France, the healthcare isn't really "free" - you're expected to pay, but people rarely do and the doctors get reimbursed by the state. He said this is causing "massive debt - approaching 1000 billion Euros." I laughed and said "in English, we call that a trillion - and don't worry, America's debt is 20 of those."

I didn't verify any of this - I just thought the 1000 billion thing was pretty funny. That's like one year under Obama.

well I thought the whole thing was funny 

[Mrs. Gooch]

So in France you just don't have to pay your bills?

[Cire]

I emailed that to my cousin's husband (literally from france).  He was rolling in the office.

My wife's cousin has been living in france for 2 years and is getting ready to have her 2nd child in france.

Also rolling in the office.

[kim carnes]

Grats to your wife's cousin.  How is that relevant to this thread?

[Cire]

They also took shots at me for being a rube kstater (they assumed a kstater said that about france :(  )

[Yard Dog]

Paging anyone to explain to us how this is better....why bring back the pre exisiting co ditions thing except for I Durance companies want it

I believe that the issue here is that healthy people who rarely if ever use their insurance were paying extreme amounts for insurance when previously they would pay very little (it is my understanding that the exchanges were relying on this money to help cover the extreme costs of those with pre-existing conditions). This directly effected the younger people of the country who were least likely to be able to pay the high premiums.

[Rage Against the McKee]

Paging anyone to explain to us how this is better....why bring back the pre exisiting co ditions thing except for I Durance companies want it

I believe that the issue here is that healthy people who rarely if ever use their insurance were paying extreme amounts for insurance when previously they would pay very little (it is my understanding that the exchanges were relying on this money to help cover the extreme costs of those with pre-existing conditions). This directly effected the younger people of the country who were least likely to be able to pay the high premiums.

Previously they were also paying an extreme amount for insurance, yard dog.

[Dr Rick Daris]

Paging anyone to explain to us how this is better....why bring back the pre exisiting co ditions thing except for I Durance companies want it

I believe that the issue here is that healthy people who rarely if ever use their insurance were paying extreme amounts for insurance when previously they would pay very little (it is my understanding that the exchanges were relying on this money to help cover the extreme costs of those with pre-existing conditions). This directly effected the younger people of the country who were least likely to be able to pay the high premiums.

children can now stay on their parents insurance until they are 26.  but yeah, the new rules stopped allowing insurance companies to sell junk/worthless insurance for low costs that would never actually really cover anything. the aca required insurance policies to have certain basic levels of coverage. so yes, a 27 year old might have to pay more for "insurance" than they did before, but they also received a much better product. this really is probably the best argument one could make against obamacare though. it made it harder for a 28 year old to roll the dice.

[K-S-U-Wildcats!]

Paging anyone to explain to us how this is better....why bring back the pre exisiting co ditions thing except for I Durance companies want it

I believe that the issue here is that healthy people who rarely if ever use their insurance were paying extreme amounts for insurance when previously they would pay very little (it is my understanding that the exchanges were relying on this money to help cover the extreme costs of those with pre-existing conditions). This directly effected the younger people of the country who were least likely to be able to pay the high premiums.

children can now stay on their parents insurance until they are 26.  but yeah, the new rules stopped allowing insurance companies to sell junk/worthless insurance for low costs that would never actually really cover anything. the aca required insurance policies to have certain basic levels of coverage. so yes, a 27 year old might have to pay more for "insurance" than they did before, but they also received a much better product. this really is probably the best argument one could make against obamacare though. it made it harder for a 28 year old to roll the dice.

So premiums went up for policies with higher deductibles, and people were supposed to be happy they were being forced to buy insurance coverage in excess of what they needed? Obamacare insurance policies suck except maaaybe if you get the full subsidy, and even then your deductibles are high.

[Fake Sugar Dick (WARNING, NOT THE REAL SUGAR DICK!)]

The fantasy unraveled

Nolan Finley | The Detroit News
10:49 p.m. ET May 13, 2017
Here’s a question that puzzles many Americans whenever the debate over health insurance reform erupts: All other major industrialized nations provide universal health care to their citizens, why can’t the United States?

The answer is, of course, we can. But like everything else, it ain’t free, despite what the socialists among us would have us believe.
The real question isn’t whether we can have national health care, it’s whether Americans really want to pay for it.
National health care countries pay for the benefits through tax rates that would be considered unbearable by most Americans.
In the U.S., 90 percent of earners pay a real tax rate—income and payroll taxes combined —of below 20.3 percent, according to the Peterson Foundation. The average real tax rate in the European Union is 45 percent.
In the states with the highest social spending, tax rates are highest. France, for example, has an average real tax rate of 57.5 percent; Belgium 56.9 percent; Germany 52.3 percent; and Sweden 47 percent.
While the U.S. has pursued a policy of relieving the tax burden on lower-income workers —nearly half of wage earners pay no federal income tax — Europe’s middle class gets no such break.
In Belgium, for example, Pew Research estimates a married couple, one working at the average wage and one at two-thirds of it, with two kids bears a total tax burden of 38.3 percent.

For a similar American family, the real rate is about half that, at 19.4 percent.
So the government pays for more of your living expenses, but leaves less of your money in your pockets.
Making the switch to that model would require a radical shift in our expectations.
The American dream has traditionally been defined by home ownership. We strive for our own home, on our own land.
Home ownership rates are high in Europe, but the housing stock is vastly different. Only one-third of Europeans live in a detached single family home. Forty percent of the housing in the European Union is two-family flats.
Per-capita living space in the EU is a lot less generous than in the United States, where the average person now has nearly 1,000 square feet to roam around in. In Europe, the average housing space occupied by each person is just over 400 square feet. Are we willing to get that cozy to never have another doctor’s bill arrive in the mail?

Similarly, if you’ve been to Europe or Asia, you’ve noticed the roads are filled with cute little matchbox cars. We like our big trucks and roomy SUVs here. And we can afford to drive them. That’s largely because the average fuel tax in the U.S. is 53 cents a gallon, compared to an average $2.62 cents in the other large, industrial nations.
This is America. We can have anything we want, including government-paid health care. But we can’t get it with a magic wand.
To have it, we must be willing to pay higher taxes, and perhaps live a little smaller. And forget about pretending we can stick the wealthy with the tab.
Europe has extraordinarily high tax rates on its wealthy residents, and yet still must hit the middle class with taxes that consume nearly half their earnings to pay for all those nice things us tax averse Americans envy.

http://www.detroitnews.com/story/opinion/columnists/nolan-finley/2017/05/13/finley-ready-pay-free-health-care/101658894/

No thanks

[Fake Sugar Dick (WARNING, NOT THE REAL SUGAR DICK!)]

Paging anyone to explain to us how this is better....why bring back the pre exisiting co ditions thing except for I Durance companies want it

I believe that the issue here is that healthy people who rarely if ever use their insurance were paying extreme amounts for insurance when previously they would pay very little (it is my understanding that the exchanges were relying on this money to help cover the extreme costs of those with pre-existing conditions). This directly effected the younger people of the country who were least likely to be able to pay the high premiums.

This is correct. The aca taxed young people (forced them to buy crap overpriced insurance under threat of penalty) so old sick people could have less expensive  health insurance they'd had 30 years to buy but chose not to.

Apparently the greatest generation felt it wasn't done raping its succesor generations.

[Fake Sugar Dick (WARNING, NOT THE REAL SUGAR DICK!)]

Paging anyone to explain to us how this is better....why bring back the pre exisiting co ditions thing except for I Durance companies want it

I believe that the issue here is that healthy people who rarely if ever use their insurance were paying extreme amounts for insurance when previously they would pay very little (it is my understanding that the exchanges were relying on this money to help cover the extreme costs of those with pre-existing conditions). This directly effected the younger people of the country who were least likely to be able to pay the high premiums.

children can now stay on their parents insurance until they are 26.  but yeah, the new rules stopped allowing insurance companies to sell junk/worthless insurance for low costs that would never actually really cover anything. the aca required insurance policies to have certain basic levels of coverage. so yes, a 27 year old might have to pay more for "insurance" than they did before, but they also received a much better product. this really is probably the best argument one could make against obamacare though. it made it harder for a 28 year old to roll the dice.

Lol, you must be Fake Sugar Dick (WARNING, NOT THE REAL SUGAR DICK!)

[K-S-U-Wildcats!]

The moonbeams in CA want single payer healthcare. It will only cost 400 billion dollars.

The price tag is in: It would cost $400 billion to remake California’s health insurance marketplace and create a publicly funded universal heath care system, according to a state financial analysis released Monday.

California would have to find an additional $200 billion per year, including in new tax revenues, to create a so-called “single-payer” system, the analysis by the Senate Appropriations Committee found. The estimate assumes the state would retain the existing $200 billion in local, state and federal funding it currently receives to offset the total $400 billion price tag.

The cost analysis is seen as the biggest hurdle to creating a universal system, proposed by Sens. Ricardo Lara, D-Bell Gardens, and Toni Atkins, D-San Diego.

It remains a long-shot bid. Steep projected costs have derailed efforts over the past two decades to establish such a health care system in California. The cost is higher than the $180 billion in proposed general fund and special fund spending for the budget year beginning July 1.

http://www.sacbee.com/news/politics-government/capitol-alert/article151960182.html

Guys this free medicine thing will totally work!

[SdK]

Id be curious how much more that would cost citizens than their current insurance premiums

[SdK]

A eff ton more. Goodness my scale was way off this morning

[Fake Sugar Dick (WARNING, NOT THE REAL SUGAR DICK!)]

BCBS is out of western missouri and eastern kansas.

#thanksobama

[Gooch]

Wait, you're telling me that insurance companies are pulling out because they aren't making money hand over fist now that they are being allowed too? weird.

[wetwillie]

Did the new republican healthcare bill allow competition across state lines like they have been preaching for a decade would reduce costs?

[Dugout DickStone]

Did the new republican healthcare bill allow competition across state lines like they have been preaching for a decade would reduce costs?

Of course it did

[chum1]

https://twitter.com/TopherSpiro/status/867864915595239424

[Fake Sugar Dick (WARNING, NOT THE REAL SUGAR DICK!)]

Wait, you're telling me that insurance companies are pulling out because they aren't making money hand over fist now that they are being allowed too? weird.

It's truly evil that they want lose hundreds of millions of dollars until they are no longer solvent, causing the rest of their subsribers to lose insurance, just so the democrats can claim to have accomplished something.

What's more puzzling is how you can lose money giving people something free.

[K-S-U-Wildcats!]

I gave up trying to read the House bill, and I haven't even attempted the Senate version. It is depressing to me that the GOP lacks the courage to ram through a full repeal and replacement of Obamacare, and is instead resorting to fixing some of its worst aspects.

But I am surprised and optimistic to see that Avik Roy, the policy expert who was 100% right about all the flaws with the original Obamacare, is actually pretty happy about the new Senate bill. I'd recommend everyone give this a read, as opposed to the dopey tweets from Dems claiming that the GOP wants to kill everyone (nice rhetoric, guys - keep feeding your hate to your base).

Roy's primary praise for this bill is that it fundamentally transforms Medicaid, which is the worst and most wasteful of all entitlement programs, and is one of the biggest drivers of our federal deficits. I'll take his word for it.

I'm chiefly disappointed that this bill still relies heavily on federal subsidies - like Obamacare - to make insurance more affordable, when we should be taking a free market approach to driving down cost. Unless we dramatically deregulate health insurance, and lessen the role of insurance in purchasing health care, prices will continue to rise.

[star seed 7]

Why do Republicans enjoy killing people so much?