WatchSeveral years in, it seems to me that the net effect of Obamacare so far has been to do nothing but raise premium costs dramatically.
The core idea of Obamacare is that everyone will be required by law to pay private health insurance companies unlimited premiums.
Sure, health insurers now have to spend 80% of the premiums on medical care, but that just means they have a compelling motive to raise both premiums and medical care payments, so that their 20% profit is 20% of a much bigger number.
Insurers can no longer deny coverage based on pre-existing conditions, but that also means that insurers will both pay out more on medical costs, and raise premiums again to get back to 20% of an even larger premium amount. Their not going to reduce their profits voluntarily.
Insurers have to keep children on their parents' plans to a later age, but yet again, that will raise their payments and therefore raise premiums even more.
So premiums will be too high to pay, and yet we will all be required by law to pay.
Am I misunderstanding something here?
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housingcasino4865 says
Is this for real? Or is it a joke?
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wthrfrk80 says
I took it as a joke, or otherwise its too ignorant a statement to warrant a reply
The science is out there, read the links I posted, is a good place to start. We eat primarily local, fresh, fruits and veggies, along with nuts and animal protiens/fats. I have many friends and family that have begun to follow this form of diet.
I avoid gluten and sugar like the plague. They are highly toxic to humans and evidently animals as well. Pretty much take everything the herd "knows" about health and diet and do the opposite. The FDA food pyramid is more of a crime against humanity then hitler, UBL, kony etc combined
Harvard should be attacked as a terrorist entity for all the disinformation they perpetuate, and the so called science they muck. I don't need any bullshit scam "health" "insurance", because I properly fuel my body, hence I don't get sick
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errc says
That's a little extreme too, don't you think?
I really don't know who to believe anymore regarding diet. I just know that certain foods make me feel like shit after eating them: like cookies, doughnuts, pizza, and most fast food.
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You might be gluten intolerant. I thought that was just a fad, but I did some experiments on myself, eating lots of gluten or no gluten for a week at a time each, and I'm pretty sure lots of gluten gives me the shits. Not eating gluten cures it.
It's possible to get your starches from rice, corn, potatoes, etc, but wheat is everywhere. Even knowing that something has gluten in it, I often eat it anyway. Totally worthwhile for certain desserts, pancakes, garlic bread, etc.
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I mainly just "feel like shit" i.e. "feel bad" after eating those foods. I don't really notice it affecting my literal shits (except for, of course, Taco Bell).
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One of the major problems I see is it does not create new doctors or nurses. So when the added work load hits those in the market it is not like they'll work faster to get to everyone.
Unless we start to reform the legal processes of licensing of doctors and nurses as well as how fast a drug clinical trial can be then we won't slow down health care costs.elliemae says
That is true. Very true but on the same argument it seems like we are treating people as if they are the banks again.
Socializing the losses (health care costs) but privatizing the gains (vices).
If someone smokes and we KNOW the costs are higher would it make more sense to get people to quit smoking before they get on medicare and medicade ? The same with every other addiction and obesity.
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You have to know "health" "insurance" is a scam, in that they discriminate against smokers vs non-smokers, with higher rates, yet sugar consumers pay the same as those of us that don't consume the toxic drug
Patrick, why do you feel the need to "get your starches"?
People that aren't outwardly effected by gluten and sugar (don't put on fat), are paying the price on the inside. "Skinny fat" people suffer from bad health conditions just as bad as fat people, they just don't show it on the outside. Its why you hear the story of the 46 y.o in perfect health dropping dead of a heart attack out of nowhere.
Read the link in post 43
Other good reading
Good calories/bad calories by taubes (and for those less interested in reading in depth 400+ pages) why we get fat and what to do about it by taubes
Dr mercola has a solid site on the interwebs
Mark sisson - marksdailyapple.com
If you're not sure who to trust or what to eat, try eliminating things from your diet one at a time. I'm 30 and feel infinitely better then I did thru my 20's after adjusting my diet to nix out sugar and gluten. I still cheat once in awhile with a bowl of ice cream or some pizza and soda on occasion, but now that I know how it feels otherwise, I pay the price for indulging. Inflammation sucks
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No doubt premium costs will 10x and profits will treble. People will end up with medical insurance eating about 1/3rd to half of their income, with $500,000 deductables. Lawyers will make out creating trusts for families that prevent hospitals from putting liens on people's homes when the insurance carriers cite small print to dump liabilities on their customers. Citi, Bank of America, Chase and Wells will promote 'humanitarian' medical cost loans programs that will turn into a new form of toxic credit with countless triggers for interest rate increases. Strategic suicide by bankrupted, hopeless medical patients will be a trend that will mint hundreds of self-help texts and reality TV shows.
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APOCALYPSEFUCK is Tony Manero says
We're already at almost 1/4 of income. Premiums now average $15,000 per family out of $64,200 median family income, which is 23%.
http://www.huduser.org/portal/datasets/il/il11/medians2011_sig.pdf for income
http://www.kff.org/insurance/092311nr.cfm for premiums
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Exactly. And even then the industry will claim they're only getting 25% of what they really need on the premium to be rational. They're just running a charity for us now.
Patrick says
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At this point I'd rather go to all "out of pocket" like it was a long ago, or full-bore socialized medicine. What we have now is a Frankenstein combination of the worst aspects of both.
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errc says
Don't know how old you are or what your ethnic background is, nor do I know your genetics. All I can say is that one serious accident and you're fucked financially; and there are very healthy people who eat raw food and walk everywhere who still come down with serious diseases.
I work with patients everyday who didn't smoke, weren't around smoke, and lived healthy, active lifestyles. They still come down with cancers, heart disease, kidney disease, etc. Remember that Euell Gibbons died from natural causes.
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amen, sorry but at least when it comes to healthcare; everyone for themselves just doesn't work.
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Maybe healthcare should be considered basic infrastructure. I think there's a case to be made for that. Especially since many diseases are contagious. In that case, "no man is an island."
But basic infrastructure isn't cheap. It will mean much higher taxes to pay for it. But it might be cheaper than private insurance given the Crony Capitalist "racket" it seems to have become.
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errc says
errc says
"I'm 30" says it all. It's good to be young, immortal, and know everything. Everyone gets one shot at it, enjoy it while it lasts.
You will get sick no matter what you eat. You can lower the probabilities of certain diseases with good diet and keeping in shape, but you will get sick and you will need health care as dictated by your genetics and plain old luck. Young children get terrible diseases like cancer. Do you really believe it is caused by a 2 or 3 year lifetime of bad diet?
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Net effect of Obamacare is more spending, mainly on things that don't improve health.
Bob2356: Young children do indeed get cancer, in fact twice as many get leukemia now as a decade ago. Not coincidentally, America does six times more C-T scans than a decade ago, each with the radiation of 1,000 X-rays. Plus, all those mammograms (breast X-rays) on women of child-bearing age. No other country does that. #1 risk factor for childhood leukemia is radiation. It can be cured, expensively, but side effects can be lifelong.
So-called "preventive care" is the opposite, just like packaged foods that make health claims tend to be the worst. The only exception is vaccines, which are taxed. Obamacare will increase the tax on vaccines, to increase pressure on you to buy mandatory insurance, which is required to cover every toxic pill advertised on TV.
The system works as designed, for the people who designed it. Just like a factory farm. Or Animal Farm. And, per a DC District Judge, Congress can penalize you for not buying insurance because your "mental activity" is an activity that Congress can regulate under the interstate commerce clause. (Judge Kessler literally wrote that. She also made more $ on her medical stock mutual fund during the period ObamaCare was debated and signed into law than from her salary during the same period.) The mental activity of deciding not to buy something will be a thought crime subject to penalty starting in 2014. Welcome to 1984, at long last.
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curious2 says
Where do you get your information? From the National Cancer Institute:
"Long-term trends in incidence for leukemias and brain tumors, the most common childhood cancers, show patterns that are somewhat different from the others. Incidence of childhood leukemias appeared to rise in the early 1980s, with rates increasing from 3.3 cases per 100,000 in 1975 to 4.6 cases per 100,000 in 1985. Rates in the succeeding years have shown no consistent upward or downward trend and have ranged from 3.7 to 4.9 cases per 100,000"
Be careful how you read your statistics. There was a big bunch of articles about this last year in the mainstream press, but as usual poorly reported. Children get 5 times as many ct scans as 15 years ago, not 10. This was from a study by the journal on radiology and only talked about IN THE EMERGENCY ROOM. Not all children in general. At leukemia rates of 3.3 to 4.6 per 100k correlating with emergency room visit ct scans is very tenuous. To deny children ct scans as a diagnostic tool based on this would be insane, ct used properly in the right situation is a lifesaver.
Everything is a compromise. Careful studies need to be done all the time as new technologies, medicines, and procedures emerge to quantify benefits vs risks. It's not all some gigantic conspiracy.
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bob2356 asks
Admittedly I do rely on the press because I cannot personally count every childhood leukemia on my own, but your quote from cancer.gov is based on data that are at least five years old:
http://www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/factsheet/Sites-Types/childhood
The article below, also from 2007, projected thousands of future cancers caused by the CT scans performed that year alone:
http://archinte.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/abstract/169/22/2071
Since then, CT scan rates have continued to increase.
Also, CT scans are certainly not the only form of radiation:
http://www.gaia-health.com/articles351/000396-xrays-double-cancer-children.shtml
Also your post includes incorrect assumptions and misquotes, with the result that you end up arguing with a straw man. I didn't say anything about how many CT scans children get, I said Americans get 6 times as many as a decade ago. Also, I didn't say CT scans were the only source of radiation; to the contrary, I listed mammography as another example. More broadly, I never posited a "gigantic conspiracy;" rather, over time, people and institutions tend to align their behavior with their incentives.
Recently a famous actress fell while skiing, and sadly died of a brain injury. She had also been a heavy smoker for many years, and smoking increases the risk of the intracranial bleeding that caused her early death. CT scan promoters took to the airwaves en masse to say that everyone who hits their head on something should immediately get a CT scan. In reality, such brain injuries can be fatal no matter what you do, and most knocks on the head do not produce that type of bleeding. Scanning every head bump would not be a great idea, unless you make $ on every scan. As you wrote, everything is a compromise, balancing benefits and risks.
A recent Canadian study found that people with less education accessed more healthcare, and yet still died sooner than people with more education:
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ezra-klein/2011/02/health_care_doesnt_keep_people.html
The authors concluded that current medical technology is not very good at keeping people alive. They didn't call medicine useless, just overrated. Many people want to believe medical technology is magic, miraculous, whatever, but as you noted it is a compromise balancing benefits and risks. In America, the financial incentives weigh especially heavily in the balance. http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2009/09/how-american-health-care-killed-my-father/7617/
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"So premiums will be too high to pay, and yet we will all be required by law to pay.'
'Am I misunderstanding something here?"
No, you have stated it very well. My Kaiser premiums are up to $804 per month now. That's for little ol' lonesome me. I have seven years to go before I qualify for Medicare. I never thought I would wish that I was older than I am. Will I be able to make it with health care coverage over the next seven years? That's totally unknown.
I can't get coverage elsewhere, because of a pre-existing condition. Kaiser has high-deductible plans that are cheaper; they make you apply as a newcomer, no acknowledgement of being a member for thirty+ years. They denied my application, saying that I don't qualify because of the pre-existing condition. They also included a note saying that if I DID switch plans, they might cancel on Dec. 31, 2013, at which point I would have to go on a "government-mandated" plan.
WTF is that?
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I as a senior, a nurse, a grandparent can see some benefits of Obama care however there are many parts of it that come leaking out that have been placed in the law that are not good that we continually are finding out. Eventually yes our premiums will probably sky rocket. My grandson has a pre-existing condition with a father who has PTSD from fighting for our freedom in Irag, that lost his job due to the effects of PTSD and now is also fighting to get VA benifits and or other insurance because now he has a had a preexisting condition, now another one. I am a senior planning to retire, insurance that covers everything needed is not cheap, and both my husband and I have preexisting problems. I see what Obama wanted to do and appreciate it but what I and others do not like about it is that it was done behind closed doors without our congress even seeing the whole bill. NO ONE does that unless there is something wrong 'dishonesty' what is He hiding? Now getting to the facts of life in the medical field many doctors are retiring due to this bill, good doctors too! Requirements for hospitals to get grants and medicare payments to run their hospitals safely and giving good hospital care is effecting the hospital nursing staff, the patients and Drs. No, we do not mind working hard but decreasing our staffing with a ratio of 6 pt a nurse and insurance requirements of discharge earlier than the patient being well enough is not good. Fighting infections and less medical errors is very good, but nurses are dropping out now too, and many nurses are already retirement age. We have seen many patients come back to the hospital within 3-7 days just due to the fact they were sent home due to recommendations and mandates rather than the doctors diagnosis and plan of care. Offering hospitals incentives to get grants are hurting our patient care. Nursing is a gift and a knowledge that is special and pts are our only objective is GOOD PATIENT CARE but with the staffing level ratios exceptional nursing care as each pt deserves and should get is now very hard and alot of time not an asset anymore with some hospitals only the dollar signs are looked at to obtain computers, renovation to please the obama care plan and systems so they can get the payback leaving the nurses - doctors and patients back in the distance. It must be stopped. I again agree some parts are good. but feel the plan should be stopped and redone slowly looking at each problem carefully and asking the American people what they want.
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I forgot to mention I have a sister who lives in Canada, while they get good healthcare usually but not always as some Drs here and there are butchers and are there for just the money The main problem with therr healthcare is the waiting time for that care. They have to wait for long periods to get anything done, including preventative medicine and tests AND even if it is an emergency heart problem.
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NURSE FROM BMT TX says
The idea was awesome, the execution wasn't the best. Not sure why they didn't do a "medicare" for all option.
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elliemae says
Pretty sure that Medicare for all (paying into it for coverage) was shot down in backroom deals by the insurance oligopoly because it was huge threat to their profits.
They understood that the government would actually be much more efficient than they are.
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NURSE FROM BMT TX says
Yes, Obamacare accelerates that loss, though the pattern had started earlier for other reasons. The best doctors tend to be the ones with the most experience of life in addition to medicine, so they tend to be older and thinking about semi-retirement. But, the economics of practice are all-or-nothing: malpractice insurance premiums are based on practice area, not claims history, so an excellent doctor pays as much as a butcher or poisoner; health insurance companies compel each medical practice to have a full-time billing coordinator, and "continuing medical education" (PhRMA infomercials) costs money unless the doctor prescribes profitably enough to get a drug company junket to Hawaii. A decade ago 70% of doctors either had their own independent offices or worked in a small group, today 70% are employees of large corporate practice groups or hospitals. By mandating and expanding the industry forces that drove this trend, Obamacare accelerates it.
Patrick says
They're also buying hospital corporations and practice groups, which enables them to shift profits from the insurance side to the hospital side while keeping them in the same parent corporation. They can overpay their in-network provider corporations, satisfying the 80% rule, then pull the profits from the provider side. The money goes to the executives not the doctors and nurses, who are merely staff. Also the 80% can include other expenses, e.g. the investigators who check if you left anything out of your application history so they can rescind your policy for "fraud." (You say you forgot about that headcold 10 years ago? Try making that argument over the telephone to a cube farmer while you're intubated in an ICU.)
Patrick says
True - in fact both Obama's promised "public option" and a proposal to begin Medicare eligibility at 50 were rejected at the behest of AHIP. (The public option was also opposed by the AHA.) Americans voted for reform in 2008, and good ideas abound, but financial interests hijacked the legislative process and unfortunately the executive chose to make the biggest deal possible rather than work incrementally for the public interest. The net effect ends up being more spending for mostly worse results; supporters point to isolated benefits, but overlook the problems and ignore the larger context.
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Patrick, most of Obamacare is yet to be phased in, particularly the mandate. Another feature that is coming is a cap on the yearly percentage increase in healthcare premiums. The insurance companies raised premiums significantly last year in anticipation of this cap. They spiked their revenue anticipating less revenue growth in the future. These are the reasons your premiums have increased without any increase in services.
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Wow, Dr. Gruber replied to my email about his comic book about Obamacare:
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Bear in mind, Gruber has collected huge fees to sell ObamaCare, based on his work related to RomneyCare:
http://emptywheel.firedoglake.com/2010/01/07/jonathan-grubers-rent-a-scholarship/
For more about Gruber and his comic book, you might want to read these:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/aroy/2011/11/16/gruber-romney-is-lying-romneycare-and-obamacare-are-the-same-fing-bill/
http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/2012/01/sins_of_omissio.html
Asking Gruber about ObamaCare is like asking a realtor what would happen if everyone were mandated to buy a house.
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wthrfrk80 says
You sir, summed up the entire debate and I am entirely in agreement with you.
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errc says
No, actually death is one of the ways you can have a student loan discharged. Someone just needs to get a copy of the Death Certificate to the lender. See here.
Apparently you could have your loans discharged in bankruptcy hearings still but only in very rare circumstances.
Discharges are possible for total and permanent disability, school closure before completion of your program, and some other reasons. Check the link above.
On this subject. To be fair, it would be nice to remember that this disasterous legislation was NOT what Obama or the majority of the Democrats wanted. If we remember the debate, we would be better off remembering how the Republicans completely stonewalled any attempt to reform health care. Olympia Snow was just about the only Republican who would actually compromise (even if only slightly) in order to create this disasterous legislation.
Obama ran against a mandate. Hillary ran on the prospect of a mandate. Obama was forced to accept legislative reality. That reality was that he was dealing with Republican and Conservative Democrat legislators who were unwilling to even come to the table to consider any reform of our broken health care system. The Republicans and the Conservative Democrats held the entire process hostage until this pig of a bill was created out of the scorched earth left behind by the Republicans and Conservative Democrats.
Our only hope is if Obama gets re-elected and there are enough reasonable legislators elected who are serious about creating a real health care reform bill that would actually benefit the citizens of this country.
I'm not holding my breath. The entire process that gave birth to this mutant monster taught us how much the Republicans and Conservative Democrats hate "the common folk" and how much they love the health insurance cartels who we dare call "insurers." And the entire process showed how easily it is to manipulate dumb white conservative voters who hate Obama (for reasons that they can't quite specify *wink*) who still "want our country back." (Back from whom? Eh? Racist much?)
If we get Rick Santorum, expect the continued march toward fascism that we have been on since at least 1980 to speed up dramatically. If we get Romney expect that the march will continue, but that it might only take a little longer to acheive the true totalitarian segregated state that is the vision of the conservative power elite for anyone who doesn't belong to the 1% who control everything. If we get Obama and another whacko conservative congress, expect that the march toward fascism will continue, but that it would be only slightly slower than under Romney.
If some miracle of conscious intelligent thought sweeps over the general American voter simultaneously accompanied by another miracle that the choices for legislative office holders actually have the interests of the common citizens at heart, then we might have a prayer at a chance of emerging from the dark ages of American Corporate Fascism. Only then might we see a true reform of our disasterous health care system that benefits everyone.
Again, I'm not holding my breath.
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Well, simcha. It's unamerican to defend the prez and pretend that he's not 100% responsible for everything that has occurred in the past 3 years.
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Uh, correction here: Obama never considered or brought forth the single-payer option that a majority of Americans would support. The efforts to include it in the debate were squashed by the administration.
The insurance, drug, and medical companies got what they wanted, and bankruptcy's number one cause is still medical expenses.
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monkframe says
Single payer would never have passed in the Senate and everyone knows it. Obama couldn't afford that level of embarrassment.
Latest hot rumor is the hard left wants the current bill killed just as badly as the hard right. Conservatives get their way for now and liberals preserve the issue for future elections (same as abortion) hoping to get another bite at the apple in 15-20 years when there's another Democrat in the White House. That's been the historical pattern since the end of World War II.
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Wacking Hut says
Most large companies are waiting to see what the Supreme Court does with it. That's also why there hasn't been a lot of hiring.
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Obama caves at a moment's notice. Political expediency rules the man. The people need a fighter in the White House, not a triangulator.
As I said, the current bill hands big business everything it wants: higher prices, no cost containment, and a small penalty for those who don't buy into the plan. If I were 20-something, I might pay the penalty and blow it off, who needs to be bled dry by bloodsucking corporations whose object is NOT to pay claims?
And the Supreme Court will be deciding by June whether even this plan is thrown aside.
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elliemae says
If you have an opportunity to visit Mexico, the full retail cash price there for the same or equivalent drugs is usually less than Americans' insurance copay. Also, they generally don't require prescriptions, which saves even more $. Federal law prohibits bringing back meds from Mexico, but people do it.
Another impending effect of Obamacare is to increase federal enforcement budgets to stop/arrest people "re-importing" meds for their own use. A major purpose of the legislation, from the perspective of the lobbies that financed it, is to force everyone to prepay overinflated American prices, in order to avoid price competition from other countries that are cheaper (i.e., every other country on earth). The cost curve was reaching a natural upper boundary, because more people (especially in California) were going to other countries (e.g. Mexico) for lower prices. Every cost is a revenue stream to the recipient, and to keep those revenues (costs) growing, the lobbies needed ObamaCare.
I'm sorry that they're killing you, but if it's any consolation, it's nothing personal. Just business.
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Typical, progressive denial.
You made your bed patrick, now lay in it.
But don't fret, we will get rid of Obamacare, and get things back to normal.
Just to help educate those with their heads in the sand.... when you get govt. involved in an industry, the cost to consumers goes up.
Examples:
-Housing
-Education
-Medical
Medical costs were much lower in the past, before Obamacare, medicare, medicaid.
Once govt. is involved prices soared.
So, ya, you got what you wanted, so be joyous.
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curious2 says
God Bless American Crony Capitalism!
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The worst thing about Obama/Romey-Care is that it prevented real reform.
The only way to fix the health care industry is to do the following:
1. Kill all rent-seeking health insurance companies.
2. Run a zero-net profit/loss nation-wide health insurance program. Such a program could offer different tiers or packages, but it should only do a few to keep things simple.
3. Have a single payer system with the same price for all people. Of course, each doctor could set their own price and adjust for cost-of-living, but each patient gets the same price.
4. Eliminate all administrative waste by having a single, national software system for maintaining all medical records that even small practices can access. This is a large one-time investment, but it is miniscule compared to the costs of the status quo. Of course, we need heavy Constitutional protection on the rights of people to access, correct, and restrict access to their records.
Any health care reform package that doesn't do all of the above is a bandaid at best.
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Dan, I can tell you what's gonna happen.
Both parties want to get rid of this: conservatives for obvious reasons and liberals because they despise how their own people in the House and Senate turned on them.
My prediction would be that SCOTUS shoots the mandate in the head, leaving the preexisting condition and allowance for adult children clauses in place. Conservatives will relax and liberals will lick their wounds, knowing the issue is preserved for fundraising in future races. That's what they do with abortion and gay rights. It's nothing but a game.
Fifteen or twenty years from now, something will happen that results in Democrats winning Congress and the White House back and they'll get another opportunity at sausage making.
This is how it works.
It's a center-right nation.
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curious2 says
You said twice as many children get leukemia as a decade ago and Americans get 6 times as many ct scans pretty much in the same sentence. I assumed you were tying that together somehow as well as obliquely referencing the recent reporting of the increase in children's ct scans in emergency rooms. So these were just two totally unrelated statements that had no bearing on each other? Sorry I misread, most people would have assumed they went together.
Both my article and your article both say that leukemia rates are pretty much stable within a fixed range since the mid 80's, so why is this a straw man? The statement that twice as many children get leukemia as a decade ago is simply not true.
As per the thousands of additional deaths from cat scans "study", so what? Without any reference to how many people are helped by cat scans it's totally irrelevant. Just taking the number of cat scans and projecting it out sounds like a senior medical school student doing scut work for some publish or perish professor to me. As opposed to a serious study with meaningful results.
Yes invasive radiation should be avoided whenever possible. Hell, sunlight should be avoided whenever possible. Yes there is more invasive radiation than is absolutely needed, although with the current malpractice climate everyone errs on the side of caution rather than having to stand up in court and explain why they didn't take a ct scan or xray. But overall the benefits far outweigh the risks of cat scans and xrays. If avoiding radiation means dying here and now to avoid a statistical increase in the possibility of cancer later I'll take my chances. You are free to make your own choice.