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Post 16 Apr 2016, 1:57 pm

bbauska
I am not going to give a number. I want to show that it would be more expensive than not paying everyone. (Basic Algebra- The cost of something added to the cost of another item is more than the original)

That is the cost of equality

You've got it wrong. Its inequality that ends up costing more...

Why is it that in nations with national health insurance, superior health care is delivered to everyone at half the cost of in the US then? (This is true both on a macro basis and a micro basis. The overall share of the US GDP spent on health care is 17%. 10% in UK.
On a comparative basis... A routine doctor’s office visit costs just $9 in Argentina, $11 in Spain, $16 in India, $23 in France, $30 in Canada, $40 in Germany, $45 in Chile, $64 in Switzerland and $89 in the United States.


http://www.healthnewsreview.org/2012/03 ... countries/
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Post 16 Apr 2016, 2:37 pm

danivon wrote:
bbauska wrote:No, I looked at them. I want people to see how much things would cost for "equality".
So what were the costs, in dollars per year?

:sigh: :sleep:
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Post 13 May 2016, 6:22 am

Who knew that the President could not just spend whatever pleases him?

Today federal judge Rosemary Collyer issued a decision in House of Representatives v. Burwell, the case brought by the House to challenge the legality of the Obama administration’s payments of Obamacare subsidies to insurers, despite the fact that Congress refused to appropriate money for such subsidies. Judge Collyer ruled the administration’s payments unconstitutional.


It's almost like this judge is suggesting there is a system of checks and balances, or that the Constitution means what it says. Of course, the spokesman for the President of the country formerly known as the United States of America disagrees.
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Post 23 Jun 2016, 10:47 am

So, has the cost curve been bent in the right direction?

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/won ... y-projects
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Post 23 Jun 2016, 10:51 am

All I know is my costs have gone up EVERY year for as long as i can remember and the largest jumps (yes plural) were after the passage of "Obamacare".
Despite promises of them not only being lower but MUCH lower, they continued to skyrocket, now you find a supposed year that is a bit less and we can "thank" Obamacare?

sorry, I don't see it quite so rosey!
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Post 23 Jun 2016, 12:16 pm

There is a difference between overall cost and cost to individuals in a particular form.

And the question is still not whether premiums have gone up (they have always been going up), but whether they would have gone up by more or less absent Obamacare.

And also, whether public spending (which you contribute towards through taxation) has been affected.
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Post 27 Jun 2016, 12:28 pm

danivon wrote:So, has the cost curve been bent in the right direction?

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/won ... y-projects


I'd prefer a more balanced group to do a study than the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation:

Now it's the liberal foundations that resent the conservatives, for having won a more obvious kind of influence through their willingness to play the game less genteelly. The big foundations seem to be responding by becoming more political themselves. The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation was closely associated with the development of the Clinton Administration's 1993 health-care-reform plan; the foundation supplied five members of the task force that promulgated the plan and paid for a series of town meetings where Hillary Clinton built support for its introduction.


In any event, we don't know yet:

California's health insurance exchange estimates that its Obamacare premiums may rise 8% on average next year, which would end two consecutive years of more modest 4% increases.
The projected rate increase in California, included in the exchange's proposed annual budget, comes amid growing nationwide concern about insurers seeking double-digit premium hikes in the health law's insurance marketplaces.
Any increases in California, a closely watched state in the health law rollout, are sure to draw intense scrutiny during a presidential election. Republicans are quick to seize on rate hikes as further proof that President Barack Obama's signature law isn't doing enough to hold down health care costs for the average consumer.
Insurers in California have submitted initial rates for 2017, but the final figures won't be known until July after state officials conduct private negotiations.


More:

The rates Americans pay for coverage through Obamacare are going up, as New York joins the list of states where insurers are seeking big increases in premiums under the program, adding risk for the law as the U.S. presidential election heats up.
New York’s health insurers are seeking to raise the amount that customers pay for individual Obamacare plans by an average of 17.3 percent for 2017. That’s alongside sharp increases in Florida, where insurers are looking for 17.7 percent more, and Washington State, where health plans are seeking a 13.5 percent increase from customers.
That sticker shock for Obamacare customers could spell trouble for the law and its supporters. Republicans have already criticized President Barack Obama’s signature domestic policy law for limiting consumers’ choices. They may increasingly point at the law’s costs to consumers, especially as the plans become less affordable for people who get small or no subsidies under the program.


We do know that even 4% is far outstripping the increase in wages.

If 17% is "bending the cost-curve down," we're in big, big trouble.
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Post 07 Mar 2017, 2:50 pm

So now that the GOP have released an attempt at a new health care bill to "replace" the ACA...
its interesting to see what happens.
"It’s an unbelievably complex subject, nobody knew that health care could be so complicated.”
President Donald J Trump.


Trump promises his Obamacare replacement plan will cover everybody, report says

http://www.cnn.com/2017/01/15/politics/trump-obamacare/

However it looks like this isn't going to happen. And that affordability will be a problem. And yet it seems that in the US there now seems to be a mindset among the majority that health care is entitled to all Americans... Now that's an enormous problem for the GOP plan....

Illustrated here....
"Americans have choices, and they've got to make a choice. So rather than getting that new iPhone that they just love and want to go spend hundreds of dollars on that, maybe they should invest in their own health care.
"They've got to make those decisions themselves," Chaffetz added
.

Rep. Larry Bucshon, R-Indiana, later said on "CNN Newsroom" that Chaffetz's comments were "unwarranted at this time."
"We don't want people to make choices in their life having to choose health care and leaving out other parts of their life that everyone else enjoys," Bucshon said.

When republicans are admitting that health care should be entitled to all Americans...you've achieved a break through. Obama's legacy is set...

By the way, people tweeted comparisons to the cost of their medical problems versus the cost of an iphone to Chaffetz. The cost of an iphone is inconsequential when compared to

A 2014 study examining the costs of surgery involving various types of cancer found average costs ranging from $14,161 to $56,587. The costs included admissions, readmissions, physician services and other costs (outpatient visits, hospice care, home health agencies or medical equipment).
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Post 07 Mar 2017, 6:57 pm

Meh, the ACA isn't good for the economy.

Surprisingly, Trump has been. The "Trump Bump" is real.
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Post 08 Mar 2017, 1:33 pm

My biggest problem is that Trump is tackling this issue a bit too fast. You need not like the guy but damn, he has been going full steam taking on pretty much every promise he made and I have to admire that! Obamacare is a train wreck, it was a bad idea that keeps getting worse and simply can not sustain itself. Change must be made.

Trump is taking on a HUGE problem too quickly and in doing so, it is sloppy to say the best. It does not meet with his promises of being more affordable to all people, it simply is not and it's just a different "version" of what we have now (that again, does not work).
Let Obamacare falter, work on a real replacement idea that can work and meets your plans, take your time getting it done RIGHT. Hell, even a single payer plan could actually be supported if we let Obamacare flounder. Myself, that is my goal either that or something damn near it.

Trump doing anything short of stupendous in replacing Obamacare is just going to look bad. The liberal media and liberal politicians will do nothing but find faults with it just like they found nothing but praise for the faulty Obamacare plan. Do it RIGHT or don't do it at all (yet anyways and this mess is anything but "right")
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Post 08 Mar 2017, 1:34 pm

U.S. Health Care Cost Increases at Lowest Rate in Nearly 20 years: Aon


http://www.insurancejournal.com/news/na ... 388800.htm

If slowing health care inflation isn't good, i don't know what is...

But Fate, the point of my post wasn't to support the topic specifically but to point to the collapsing attempts to repeal and replace the ACA....
Mostly this is fueled because the promises made about "repeal ad replace " "with something better" can't be met.
And because the majority of Americans now expect health care is a right and Americans should be entitled to access that is both affordable and high quality.

That's a huge mindset change since the ACA was introduced. Due to 6 years of experience of the ACA. Especially in those states that expanded medicare.
Do you think the new RYANCARE has a chance?
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Post 08 Mar 2017, 1:37 pm

...and if America did get to a single payer plan, it would in no way be any part of "Obama's Legacy" that's nothing but wishful thinking. Yes he may have wanted that but what he came up with was a crappy plan. His "legacy" is putting forward a terrible plan that liberals raved about but was unsustainable, had too many holes, and was simply broken when it was put into effect. THAT is his legacy.
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Post 08 Mar 2017, 1:41 pm

Tom
Do it RIGHT or don't do it at all


AH, so Tom illustrates my point. A "conservative who has expectations for something better".

But, Tom, what is right for you?

What should the finished product accomplish? How about each of the following?
- No turning back people because of pre-existing conditions?
- Affordable insurance for everyone?
- Standards for Comprehensive insurance that doesn't end after a limited pay out?
- Standards for Comprehensive coverage that don't come with exemptions that disqualify people unreasonably?
- Standards that don't have excessive co-payments?
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Post 08 Mar 2017, 1:45 pm

tom
His "legacy" is putting forward a terrible plan that liberals raved about but was unsustainable, had too many holes, and was simply broken when it was put into effect. THAT is his legacy
.

Well, history will judge. Usually the people who broke a barrier get credit. And the barrier the crappy ACA broke was the mind set that universality was desirable.

And the reason the ACA was crappy was because republicans and some democrats wanted to sustain the superfluous insurance industry. A sector that adds little of value but is responsible for about 25% of the total cost of health care. (Administrative overhead single payer systems greatly reduce and which help lower their national systems from the 17% of GDP to the 12% to 9% of all other western nations).

Should the replacement system eliminate unnecessary over heads too? In your estimation?
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Post 08 Mar 2017, 3:30 pm

rickyp wrote:
U.S. Health Care Cost Increases at Lowest Rate in Nearly 20 years: Aon


http://www.insurancejournal.com/news/na ... 388800.htm

If slowing health care inflation isn't good, i don't know what is...

But Fate, the point of my post wasn't to support the topic specifically but to point to the collapsing attempts to repeal and replace the ACA....
Mostly this is fueled because the promises made about "repeal ad replace " "with something better" can't be met.
And because the majority of Americans now expect health care is a right and Americans should be entitled to access that is both affordable and high quality.

That's a huge mindset change since the ACA was introduced. Due to 6 years of experience of the ACA. Especially in those states that expanded medicare.
Do you think the new RYANCARE has a chance?


Uh-huh.

The Affordable Care Act is getting a lot less affordable for many Americans. The landmark law, better known as Obamacare, has meant that 20 million previously uninsured people now have health coverage. Many of them have purchased insurance through state or federally run marketplaces. But insurance companies have been abandoning these marketplaces left and right because they say it's difficult to turn a profit, and the insurers that remain are asking for steep price increases all over the country.
In Michigan, for example, state officials just approved price hikes of 16.7%, on average, for individuals purchasing health insurance in 2017 through the state's Affordable Care Act exchange. Individual buyers can expect average increases of 20% in Colorado, meanwhile, and price hikes of 19% to 43% in Iowa next year.
Such price increases are actually on the low side compared with states like Minnesota and Oklahoma, where individual plans will shoot up 50% or more on November 1, which is when signups for 2017 coverage on marketplaces are opened. http://time.com/money/4535394/obamacare ... 17-states/