Government-Enforced Pre-Paid Medical Plans
The banning of catastrophic-only plans infuriates me the most. Those are the only plans that are actually financially sensible for a healthy individual to purchase. Everything else on the market is a perverse by-product of the employer-based insurance system.
Worst case scenario with a catastrophic-only plan is you end up with $10,000 in debt. That’s a debt load many times smaller than what the Federal government thinks students should take out to get a college degree. We’ll let you borrow $100,000 to get a sociology degree but, we think that $10,000 is an unconscionable amount to pay for medical expenses? So unconscionable that we have to FORCE YOU to buy a plan with more extensive coverage?
Of course, we all know the real reason for this. it’s meant to force healthy young people to subsidize healthcare for older sicker people. Just force them to pay more for insurance than they ought to, and force them to buy more extensive coverage than is rational.
Greg Swann:
May 23, 2013, 10:53 amMNHawk:
The government just outlawed actual insurance. That's what this whole charade was about.
Because insurance is like "dark folks" going camping...or something. The creep factor is high with that Greg fellow...
May 23, 2013, 11:02 amLarryGross:
The insurance exchanges do offer catastrophic plans... easy to verify..
http://reform.healthfoundation.org/glossary/catastrophic-plans
May 23, 2013, 11:31 amColoComment:
LG: Obamacare imposes restrictions on HSAs, both w/r/t the deductible limit and the 80/20 rule, such that they will not be anywhere near as attractive an option for either the insurer or the insured as they have been. See here, for example: http://www.advisorone.com/2012/07/27/hsas-losing-luster-under-obamacare
May 23, 2013, 11:51 amLarryGross:
yes.. agree...HSAs will take a hit but ObamaCare DOES offer catastrophic for folks 30 and under so they're not being "forced" to buy full coverage pre-paid insurance ....
I'm not defending ObamaCare - only pointing out that some things being said are just not totally the truth... healthcare.gov offers for many, if not most states - a hundred or more plans that do incude basic catastrophic...
only time will tell if it survives because most new laws need downstream adjustments to calibrate them better and that's not going to happen with this...it's pretty much locked into whatever it is right now.
May 23, 2013, 12:51 pmColoComment:
Agree.
May 23, 2013, 12:54 pmGreg Swann:
> The creep factor is high with that Greg fellow...
The ad hominem attacks simply serve to demonstrate that no one here can disprove what I have said, though many apparently desperately want to.
If you argue like Obama, the reason is very likely that you think like Obama. This is not my fault.
May 23, 2013, 1:14 pmMNHawk:
I think people have to understand what you said, before disproving anything. Other than some weird thing about "dark folks" not camping.
May 23, 2013, 1:24 pmMingoV:
Preventing us from buying catastrophic health care insurance guarantees that ObamaCare costs will skyrocket and that younger adults will get shafted. (They're already shafted by Medicare and Social Security, so let's make it worse!)
People will be angered by the high costs, bureaucracy, long waits, etc. of ObamaCare. Obama and his democrat cronies hope that the anger can be channeled into complete socialization of health care. (Yes, we screwed you with ObamaCare, but things will be much better with SocialistCare.)
May 23, 2013, 3:59 pmmesaeconoguy:
Interesting theory.
I have a different theory: you have zero clue about which you speak, and have strange thoughts, which you somehow feel compelled to make public.
So which branch of government do you work for, Greg?
May 23, 2013, 5:43 pmmesaeconoguy:
I am over 30.
Where is my plan, Lar?
May 23, 2013, 5:45 pmjon:
I can't speak for coyoteblog but I would think his profession is just making lemonade out of lemons. I would think that his preferred ideal would be to not have public lands to begin with. Your argument is really just a straw man.
May 23, 2013, 6:29 pmmesaeconoguy:
Still don't see it, Lar.
Where's my plan if I'm over 30, Lar?
May 24, 2013, 1:26 amLarryGross:
go to healthcare.gov guy and you tell me. Last time I looked, there were about a hundred plans some for less than 100-200 a month.
May 24, 2013, 2:08 ammesaeconoguy:
Wow is that site despicable and useless.
Here is the most useful “suggestion” when I enter my family’s info:
If you do not have job-based or other coverage, you may want to buy a policy from a private insurer.
No shit Sherlock.
Jesus, Larry, are you really that fucking stupid?
May 24, 2013, 9:37 amdc:
the problem is, Larry - you are treating healthcare.guv as your one stop source for healthcare "insurance" information.
Like MNHawk said, the only thing that actually fits the definition of "insurance," they are specifically outlawing.
May 24, 2013, 9:39 ammesaeconoguy:
This one’s awesome:
Finding Care You Can Afford
There may be local facilities that provide free or reduced-cost care, whether you're insured or not. What you pay depends on your income.
Lar, maybe if we ask criminals to go away nicely, they’ll comply.
God, are you fucking dumb.
May 24, 2013, 9:42 amGreg Swann:
Were he renting slaves -- or stolen cars -- you would have no trouble seeing the injustice. Since he is renting his slaves by proxy, somehow this is okay.
What makes it morally acceptable for Warren Meyer to prey upon the taxpayers?
In what way is he unlike all the other coercive rent-seeking crony-capitalists he quite appropriately denounces in this weblog?
Who else gets to live righteously at his neighbors' expense?
May 24, 2013, 9:48 amGreg Swann:
>>> The creep factor is high with that Greg fellow...
> I think people have to understand what you said, before disproving anything.
I deserve to be attacked because you don't know why I deserve to be attacked.
I believe you.
May 24, 2013, 9:53 amGreg Swann:
> you have zero clue about which you speak
My remarks here and on Facebook (if you care, you'll dig out the links yourself) constitute a clinic on types of rent-seeking behavior. This is why I have heard nothing but ad hominem attacks in response: Because the people who have addressed me can neither answer my arguments nor embrace them -- the existential expression of cognitive dissonance. In what way are you better able to cherish your life after having joined in this mob?
May 24, 2013, 9:59 amGreg Swann:
May 24, 2013, 10:29 amGreg Swann:
May 24, 2013, 10:30 amMatthew Slyfield:
Unions are starting to turn against Obama-care.
http://news.yahoo.com/unions-now-angry-health-care-overhaul-074904729.html;_ylt=AsN3e06AYZ9izEjXA927L_IJVux_;_ylu=X3oDMTJha2F2bXNxBG1pdANBVFQgMyBTdG9yeSBKdW1ib3Ryb24gSG9tZSBDYWNoZWQEcG9zAzEzBHNlYwNNZWRpYUF0dFdpZGdldHJvbkFzc2VtYmx5;_ylg=X3oDMTFkcW51ZGliBGludGwDdXMEbGFuZwNlbi11cwRwc3RhaWQDBHBzdGNhdANob21lBHB0A3BtaA--;_ylv=3
May 24, 2013, 11:08 amLarryGross:
the whole thing could go down, no question. what are you then left with?
healthcare.gov gives options. for some people they are not much better than what they already have. For others it's access to something they don't have access to now.
I don't know about you - but I know folks who have not got an increase in pay in years because every year the increase in insurance premiums sucks up any increase.
Before ObamaCare costs were doubling every decade and projected to double again in another decade to be at about 1/3 of our GDP...
If ObamaCare goes down, we're going back to that... probably.
May 24, 2013, 11:28 amLarryGross:
it goes on after that shithead to offer plans from the exchange. The point here is you were opposed from the git-go and remained opposed no matter what the facts are.
you give me your family info dumbass and I'll show you are a liar.
May 24, 2013, 11:30 amMatthew Slyfield:
There is absolutely nothing in ObamaCare to keep costs down or slow down increases. If ObamaCare doesn't go down, costs will probably triple in the next decade.
May 24, 2013, 11:36 amLarryGross:
there is - if people go to a regular doctor for care and not the ER - and downstream... if they get regular care, disease will be caught earlier and treated more cheaply than if it goes undetected then heroic care is given in late stages.
the problem we have is that more and more people are losing their health care and they are relying on ERs for their care...
but also.. our system - private and public - pays for services rendered - the more services rendered the more we pay -no matter the outcome.
May 24, 2013, 11:42 amMatthew Slyfield:
Insurance is not equal to health care. There is nothing in the law that will force people to go in for regular checkups if they don't want to. Poor people using emergency care for primary medical care is not the only issue in our health care system driving costs up. Another problem that drives up care costs is overuse by people who have been divorced from any sense of the real cost.
May 24, 2013, 12:39 pmLarryGross:
well I agree... but they're going to go if they have something that needs to be checked rather than not doing it because they have no insurance.
and I agree that ER use is not the only problem. All of us, that do have insurance, automatically pay for whatever service is provided -no matter what and that's what doctors do- they render as much service as the insurance companies will pay for - no matter whether it's needed or not or improves your health or not.
this was going on long before ObamaCare came along and I've yet to see either party truly try to address it - and you have to admit - all the other industrialized country DO address it in some fashion.
The one system that actually deals with it better is Singapore but they do have a 33% payroll tax as well as subsidized care for those that cannot afford it but they do require prices to be posted and empower people to "shop around", - OTOH - they have one of best life expectancies and infant death stats on the planet...
I'd be fine with something like Singapore has or something else - at least to be a competitor to ObamaCare but this is what happens when no one does anything - then something gets forced...
In 1993, the GOP said they supported an individual mandate. In 2006, they passed Medicare Part D. They had opportunities to do something but as seems to be the case, they cannot agree among themselves what to do (or not) on a wide variety of issues - to include health care.
May 24, 2013, 1:00 pmmesaeconoguy:
Oh, yeah, there’s an “exchange” (which doesn’t exist) run by government. That’s great, imbecile.
Damn right I was opposed to it, and so are the majority of the voting public. For a very good reason: IT SUCKS, AND WILL IMPLODE.
Just because you ignorant leftists felt compelled to fuck up healthcare for the rest of us doesn’t give you the right to destroy it on our behalf.
Go fuck with somebody else’s healthcare asshole. And shove your “what’s your plan?” bullshit up your ass, dimwit.
May 24, 2013, 4:29 pmLarryGross:
the insurance in the exchanges is not govt, it's private... and this proves you did not really look at it.
May 24, 2013, 4:33 pmmesaeconoguy:
You assembled some words together, but they don’t seem to mean anything.
I’m guessing you probably don’t work for the IRS, because you didn’t expressly threaten me.
You could be an Obama operative given your incoherence, but you didn’t mention my fair share, and try to steal from me.
I’m stumped.
May 24, 2013, 4:34 pmmesaeconoguy:
Bullshit.
The exchanges are government-run and mandated, and the few providers who participate do so under heavy regulatory scrutiny and guidelines.
They will eventually be driven out by government undercutting them, and strangling them via regulation. This is Econ 102.
You really are exceptionally stupid.
May 24, 2013, 4:36 pmLarryGross:
when you went to healthcare.gov - how many different privare plans did you see?
May 24, 2013, 4:51 pmmarque2:
It is designed to implode. The give rent is going to make the requirements so onerous on private insurance most will eventually back out and the government will come in with pure socialist medicine to save us. Just as they did with private student loans.
May 26, 2013, 10:35 ammarque2:
Yup that is the plan in a nutshell. Exactly what they did with student loans.
May 26, 2013, 10:37 amLarryGross:
we've been through this before. Anyone who actually takes the time to go to healthcare.gov will not find a single govt plan there... it's all private companies offering different plans... in many cases about 100 different plans offered from a dozen or more different private companies.
when you sign up for one of those plans - you do not send money to the govt, you send your money to the company you purchased the plan from.
The Brits have a national govt health care system. The insurance exchanges are more like Germany or Singapore's systems.
May 26, 2013, 10:41 ammarque2:
You are changing the subject and arguing something else. Like the student loan program which was once a partnership between private industry and government - which is now all government - healthcare will end up the same. Next year we will already see private companies drop out because they can't affordably provide all the mandated services.
You can lie about the goals of the program all you want but Obamacare is purposely designed to make insurance unaffordable for the people and the insurance companies and hospitals - so in 5 years time the government can "save" us from the failed system.
May 26, 2013, 10:49 amLarryGross:
I just don't buy your beliefs guy. Even Medicare is not "all govt" ... there are no govt doctors or clinics.. they're all private providers...
do you see people getting their health care form govt hospitals, clinics, doctors?
the only ones I see are the VA.... guy
there is no govt healthcare system... except for the VA.
May 26, 2013, 10:52 ammarque2:
Actually you are wrong about that as well. fully 50% of the population is covered under government medicine, and there are many government/government sponsored clinics. VA hospitals, Planned Parenthood, county health center, Government hospitals (frequently associated with government Universities).
In several states they have state health plans, where you go to state provided health care providers. Iowa is one of them.
So again, you are wrong wrong wrong and wrong, but living a leftist dream.
May 26, 2013, 11:48 amLarryGross:
Marque2 - MOST people DO NOT go to govt clinics for their health care.
Retired military do and some poor people go to charity clinics and others go to local community hospitals that are NOT govt hospitals
there are govt health facilities - yes - but these are not places where the average person goes to receive routine health care.
but NOW you're talking about STATE facilities - NOT ObamaCare or anything like it.
Medicare and MedicAid - BOTH - are virtually 100% private providers.
you're stretching a point here guy...there is no govt health care for the vast majority of people in this country - and never will be. The exchanges for ObamaCare are all private companies - not a govt clinic, hospital or doctor - anywhere.
May 26, 2013, 12:01 pmmarque2:
Except the categories are 18 and under 19 - 25 and 26 - 64 for age.
Yes I am sure there are special plans for those under 30
what a goof.
you know as you keep repeating to go to healthcare.gov, more of us are actually doing it and having a good laugh.
May 26, 2013, 6:38 pmmarque2:
Wow 29 years old individual insurance with 7500 out of pocket is $199 a month in CA no health conditions -
I can still get regular insurance with only $2000 max expense for $199, with controllable cholesterol problems.
You sure this healthcare.gov is offering fantastic deals?
Seems like with Obamacare they take your money and give you nothing except your annual physical, some standard tests and birth control. Whee! I suppose I am thinking of last years prices since everything went up some 20 - 30% this year due to the extra mandates. That is two years in a row for me with 20% plus increases, and when Obama was complaining, health insurance was going up a whopping 5% a year.
Oh wait there is insurance subsidized by California taxpayers that is a little less. Good to know I am subsidizing these kids at the state level. Still @ 175 a month for individual coverage it is a bit pricey.
Dude, if you want to bolster your case, you should stop referring to the page.
May 26, 2013, 6:45 pmLarryGross:
healtcare.gov is what it is, not perfect by a long shot - but it's NOT what you said that it was Govt healthcare and it's NOT many other things that you and others have said by just repeating propaganda from the right wing echo chamber.
last time I checked - it DID offer something for ALL age-groups and ALL single/family situations.
It's okay to be opposed to something - to have a principled position - based on facts but what you have is not that... you have a propaganda position based on lies - and you keep repeating them - so I post the web site that shows that what you are saying is simply not the truth.
Like I said, one can have a principled position of opposition... but that's not what you have. You'd adopted a position as someone who opposes something - not on facts but on ideology and the ideology does not care what are facts... lies and misrepresentations seem actually preferred.
I'm not a zealous supporter of ObamaCare or even this POTUS but I do totally resent the lies and misrepresentations that people trade in - in their opposition.
I'd take a Singapore type system just fine. I can point to several different ways to move forward on the healthcare issue - as opposed to be opposed to this method and in fact all other methods.. just opposition... nothing more...
so go have your good laugh guy.
May 27, 2013, 4:45 amGroot:
I used to think comment sections should be moderated lightly, but the creeps and trolls are really having a party around here. Liked the article though.
May 27, 2013, 3:54 pmmesaeconoguy:
“there is no govt healthcare system... except for the VA.”
That is likely your most ignorant statement to date.
Moronic ignorant leftists like you are looking for the big red flashing sign that says “Government Healthcare Here!” And that’s not there, yet. If you look in the back door of any clinic, especially those serving Medicare/Medicaid, you will see a line of government agents and regulators.
Government restrictions are already driving providers out of business, and that will get worse.
The outcome of Obamascare will be 1. Consolidated providers via hospitals, which may retain private names, but which will be de facto arms of government, and 2) elimination of smaller (and rural) truly independent clinics and doctors. They will cease to exist.
Everything will be government run, and/or outright government owned.
May 27, 2013, 4:45 pmmesaeconoguy:
Both Mediscare & Medicaid providers will be either forced out of business, or will be folded into quasi- or outright government ownership entities.
Again Econ 102.
Larry, you are such a moron, it is very difficult for me to understand how you operate a computer to spew your economically ignorant, meaningless and moronic bullshit.
May 27, 2013, 4:49 pmmesaeconoguy:
None, asshat.
There are zero catastrophic plans (the subject of this post) for anyone over 40.
Keeping your responses straight is very difficult for you functionally retarded leftists, but do try to respond to the proper thread, thanks.
May 27, 2013, 4:51 pmLarryGross:
what a load of manure!
re: " And that’s not there, yet. If you look in the back door of any clinic, especially those serving Medicare/Medicaid, you will see a line of government agents and regulators."
when you go to the doc - nimrod - they tell you what insurance they will take (or not).
Medicare is ONE of them as is MediAid. they use the same paperwork - they just plug in who the "payer" is....
it's obvious you don't know shit from shinola on this.
the "scare" in ObamaScare is YOU GUYS.. propaganda central, factless foolishness... just plain dumbass stuff.
the whacky birds are flying again!
May 27, 2013, 5:01 pmmesaeconoguy:
Dumbfuck, reimbursement rates are driving doctors away, including one of mine. They’ve shut down all new Mediscare patients, and are transitioning existing out. They’re talking about closing shop.
You don’t just “fill in the payor” shitforbrains – there’s a lot more to it than that if you’re a provider, and it’s completely unsurprising you’re ignorant of those details.
The situation is getting much, much worse.
Seriously, Larry, you are beyond stupid - you’re flat-out waste of space.
I do want you to stick around for a few more years, so you can see how bad this gets. Then when you need treatment most, I hope the state/Obamascare kills you, slowly and painfully. That would be an appropriate end to your pathetic existence.
May 27, 2013, 5:08 pm