Obamacare sucks

keeponrockin · October 2012

usamamasan1 wrote:

I think Obama sucks

And Obamacare

Emoticon

What're your thoughts on Romneycare?

pandora · October 2012

http://mittromneycentral.com/resources/romneycare/

many probably won't like nor trust the source but I found it a good read

Zoso · October 2012

Obamacare... and Romneycare is not that different. I'm not thrilled with Obamacare it's not exaxtly what I hoped for. I wanted a complete universial health care system in America. I think it addresses SOME of the issues but still leaves people open to employer's dropping their healthcare option leaving them high and dry. Why is health care dependent on your employer? That system has got to go.

chadwick · October 2012

keeponrockin wrote:

usamamasan1 wrote:

I think Obama sucks

And Obamacare

Emoticon

What're your thoughts on Romneycare?

good question, keeponrockin

Thirty Bills Unpaid · October 2012

usamamasan1 wrote:

I think Obama sucks

And Obamacare

Emoticon

Felt compelled to reply to this.

We know how you feel- you've made that very evident with your long stream of juvenile posts.

Instead of just listening to your Dad and his dinner table talk and then repeating it on this forum... why don't you spend a few moments, research the two candidates, and then formulate (create) your own opinion.

After doing this, you might still feel the same way, but here's the second thing: then borrow a thesaurus from your school before writing your next post. Look up a comparable word to 'sucks' and use it instead. That way you don't make every Romney supporter look like a (insert word here).

Not only would you come across as more credible (believable)... you'd be helping your cause so much more.

Dissidentman · October 2012

Not sure if it's due to Obamacare or not, but my company just moved to a Health Savings Account plan. I would say my premiums are about the same, however half of what I pay now goes into a savings account. I also have a 6k deductible for sick visits now, (used to be $20 copay) and no coverage for things that were covered before.

Needless to say, unless I have a broadsword protruding from my gut, I'm not going to see a Dr.

Cosmo · October 2012

Dissidentman wrote:

Not sure if it's due to Obamacare or not, but my company just moved to a Health Savings Account plan. I would say my premiums are about the same, however half of what I pay now goes into a savings account. I also have a 6k deductible for sick visits now, (used to be $20 copay) and no coverage for things that were covered before.

Needless to say, unless I have a broadsword protruding from my gut, I'm not going to see a Dr.

...
I hear what you're saying, but, the thing about insurance... in my opinion... it's for the big things.
Car Insurance for example... If I get in a minor fender bender, I'm not going to go to my insurance company to fix it. If I get in a major accident where my car is totalled and I'm laid up in a hospital bed for a week... i'll gladly pay the deductibles because having to pay for the whole thing will mean a big hit on my finances.
Same thing with Health Insurance. I'll gladly pay for the check-ups and trips to the doctor's office for a sprained ankle. I want them there in case the big things hit... cancer, heart disease, perforated intestine, broadsword plunged into my gut... things that are going to bankrupt me and leave in financial ruin.
That's why I have insurance... for the big things that might happen to me.

EdsonNascimento · October 2012

EdsonNascimento wrote:

keeponrockin wrote:

I'm sorry, what was your question?

EdsonNascimento wrote:

Ok. I won't ask you to answer my entire post. But, can you tell me about how it will "bend the cost curve?"

How about the above question?

Third time's the charm? It's been a week since I posted the cost question and nary an attempt to answer it. How did this pile of legislation "bend the cost curve" (it's original stated intent)?

Everyone focuses on pre-ex, etc. Nobody's against pre-ex coverage. We're all just wondering how we will pay for it. Giving out money is easy.

keeponrockin · October 2012

EdsonNascimento wrote:

EdsonNascimento wrote:

keeponrockin wrote:

I'm sorry, what was your question?

EdsonNascimento wrote:

Ok. I won't ask you to answer my entire post. But, can you tell me about how it will "bend the cost curve?"

How about the above question?

Third time's the charm? It's been a week since I posted the cost question and nary an attempt to answer it. How did this pile of legislation "bend the cost curve" (it's original stated intent)?

Everyone focuses on pre-ex, etc. Nobody's against pre-ex coverage. We're all just wondering how we will pay for it. Giving out money is easy.

I will research 'bending the cost curve' and have an answer for you! To be honest, I haven't heard much about it.

chadwick · October 2012

Thirty Bills Unpaid wrote:

usamamasan1 wrote:

I think Obama sucks

And Obamacare

Emoticon

Felt compelled to reply to this.

We know how you feel- you've made that very evident with your long stream of juvenile posts.

Instead of just listening to your Dad and his dinner table talk and then repeating it on this forum... why don't you spend a few moments, research the two candidates, and then formulate (create) your own opinion.

After doing this, you might still feel the same way, but here's the second thing: then borrow a thesaurus from your school before writing your next post. Look up a comparable word to 'sucks' and use it instead. That way you don't make every Romney supporter look like a (insert word here).

Not only would you come across as more credible (believable)... you'd be helping your cause so much more.

i agree with you bigtime, mr. thirty bills unpaid. sometimes you and i agree others times we may not. but i will tell ya you are always intelligent... at least from what i have read of yours. nice job and great advice to a dude whom seems to get a kick out of getting under the skins of others who may not support a crooked ass multimillionaire who changes his mind as often as the wind shifts directions

Cosmo · October 2012

EdsonNascimento wrote:

EdsonNascimento wrote:

keeponrockin wrote:

I'm sorry, what was your question?

EdsonNascimento wrote:

Ok. I won't ask you to answer my entire post. But, can you tell me about how it will "bend the cost curve?"

How about the above question?

Third time's the charm? It's been a week since I posted the cost question and nary an attempt to answer it. How did this pile of legislation "bend the cost curve" (it's original stated intent)?

Everyone focuses on pre-ex, etc. Nobody's against pre-ex coverage. We're all just wondering how we will pay for it. Giving out money is easy.

...
I have no idea what 'Bending the Cost Curve' means.
I know what 'Laying Off the Curve' means... but, I was never good with that... which is why I don't play baseball anymore.
That's why you didn't hear an answer from me.

whygohome · October 2012

EdsonNascimento wrote:

Third time's the charm? It's been a week since I posted the cost question and nary an attempt to answer it. How did this pile of legislation "bend the cost curve" (it's original stated intent)?

Everyone focuses on pre-ex, etc. Nobody's against pre-ex coverage. We're all just wondering how we will pay for it. Giving out money is easy.

Well, it is designed to expand the marketplace through an individual mandate and health insurance exchanges. These exchanges, implemented in MA (https://www.mahealthconnector.org/portal/site/connector) and Utah (http://www.avenueh.com/), are supposed to open up the marketplace to new consumers. A capitalist idea, the end goal is to increase the pool of those insured, which, should reduce costs for all insured. The more people pumping money into the system--the insured--the lower costs should be. If you eliminate the freeloaders, costs should come down.

Another important aspect of the bill is the requirement that insurance companies use 85% of premiums for CARE, and not executive pay or golf outings for doctors or marketing. A good idea, but we are dealing with insurance companies here and ego and profit-driven executives who see themselves as gods i the company of minions. This seems like another good way to bring costs down.

What is needed, and what was cut from the bill, is a public option. In my opinion, a public option would give individuals another option, and it will offer some type of competition with respect to private markets. More importantly, if implemented as I think it should be, it could get people off of the Medicaid rolls by asking them (forcing them) to use the public option--pay something, $50, $100 a month, instead of simply taking money from Medicaid. It might also be possible that seniors would see the public option as a better fit for them. But, who fought the public option? The insurance companies!!

The problem is the insurance companies themselves. Doctors and those providing hands-on care are the ones who deserve the monetary rewards in the healthcare system. Executive pay dwarfs doctor pay. Unfortunately, there is a lot of waste in this system. Ask any pharmaceutical sales rep or medical devices sales rep. Healthcare in the U.S. is a profit driven industry. Should it be? Should an actor, or baseball player, or Jersey Shore "celebrity" have better access to healthcare than a middle school teacher? What is our philosophical foundation with respect to health in this country?

To truly put a dent in healthcare spending we could:

1. Eliminate Medicare and Medicaid. With the growing inequality gap and the inability of CEOs to pay a living wage, this will surely end well for our seniors and those who will not have a very large nest egg for retirement.

2. We can repeal Obamacare and everyone can be on their own for health insurance. Let's see how that works.

****3. We can, as a nation, get healthy!!! Yeah right. it is asking too much for the average American to shun the drive-thru and get off the fucking couch and detach themselves form the spell of the boob-tube.

In the end, nothing will bend the cost curve in any significant way. Single-payer? We're too unhealthy of a country and the few will ruin it for the many. That is what being part of a society is: it is always the few ruining it for the majority. When we can take the time to eat well and exercise, then maybe single-payer would be the way to go. But, we as a nation, are too stupid and lazy.

I know I didn't answer your question as you would have hoped. To put it simply, the cost curve will not bend as long as insurance companies are involved and as long s we are as stupid and lazy a group of people as we are.

Thirty Bills Unpaid · October 2012

chadwick wrote:

Thirty Bills Unpaid wrote:

usamamasan1 wrote:

I think Obama sucks

And Obamacare

Emoticon

Felt compelled to reply to this.

We know how you feel- you've made that very evident with your long stream of juvenile posts.

Instead of just listening to your Dad and his dinner table talk and then repeating it on this forum... why don't you spend a few moments, research the two candidates, and then formulate (create) your own opinion.

After doing this, you might still feel the same way, but here's the second thing: then borrow a thesaurus from your school before writing your next post. Look up a comparable word to 'sucks' and use it instead. That way you don't make every Romney supporter look like a (insert word here).

Not only would you come across as more credible (believable)... you'd be helping your cause so much more.

i agree with you bigtime, mr. thirty bills unpaid. sometimes you and i agree others times we may not. but i will tell ya you are always intelligent... at least from what i have read of yours. nice job and great advice to a dude whom seems to get a kick out of getting under the skins of others who may not support a crooked ass multimillionaire who changes his mind as often as the wind shifts directions

Here's to you as well, sir!

For a consistent and well-played position on this forum I enjoy so much... I offer you a Wisers Society of Uncompromising Men 'slow clap'.

whygohome · October 2012

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/2 ... 08710.html

Interesting story. I was mostly struck by this:

Douglas Zehner is the senior vice president and chief financial officer at MedStar Washington Hospital Center in northwest Washington, where Boone was treated. He said Medstar gave $22.1 million worth of care to uninsured or underinsured patients and forgave $85.1 million in debt last year. But that charity isn't free. The only way the hospital can recoup its losses, Zehner said, is by negotiating with private insurance providers for higher prices, a process known as "cost-shifting."

"I have to price my services with insurance carriers because that’s the only group I'm even in the room talking to about how much they're going to pay me for my services," Zehner said. "So the way the cost-shifting works is you basically back into how much [money] you need to run that service [for all patients] and apply it to the expected number of people that are coming in that have insurance to get that service."

The fewer people who have insurance, the greater the burden on those who do have coverage. In order to cover the costs of treating the uninsured, premiums go up. The American Hospital Association estimated that U.S. hospitals performed $39.3 billion worth of uncompensated care in 2010, the most recent year for which numbers are available. That's 5.8 percent of total expenses.

This is a problem that Obama's health care law seeks to address and one that Romney himself has acknowledged in the past, before he began pursuing the Republican presidential nomination.

"Look, it doesn't make a lot of sense for us to have millions and millions of people who have no health insurance and yet who can go to the emergency room and get entirely free care for which they have no responsibility, particularly if they are people who have sufficient means to pay their own way," he said in 2010.

In 2007, he used even starker language: "When [uninsured people] show up at the hospital, they get care. They get free care paid for by you and me. If that's not a form of socialism, I don't know what is."

Boone, who considers himself relatively apolitical, said he "absolutely" looks forward to the full implementation of Obamacare. "I'm so excited that this is happening," he said.

Given his pre-existing condition, Boone said, the cost of purchasing individual health insurance was astronomical. If an insurer even made him an offer, he said, he was seeing quotes of $1,000 per month -- far beyond what he could afford. Under Obamacare, Boone should be able to find an affordable plan on the new health care "exchanges" being established in 2014.

It's not a done deal, however. Although it's unlikely that Congress will have the Republican majorities required to approve a full repeal, a Romney presidency would have ways to hobble the law's implementation, jeopardizing coverage for people like Boone.

EdsonNascimento · October 2012

whygohome wrote:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/27/mitt-romney-health-care_n_2008710.html

Interesting story. I was mostly struck by this:

Douglas Zehner is the senior vice president and chief financial officer at MedStar Washington Hospital Center in northwest Washington, where Boone was treated. He said Medstar gave $22.1 million worth of care to uninsured or underinsured patients and forgave $85.1 million in debt last year. But that charity isn't free. The only way the hospital can recoup its losses, Zehner said, is by negotiating with private insurance providers for higher prices, a process known as "cost-shifting."

"I have to price my services with insurance carriers because that’s the only group I'm even in the room talking to about how much they're going to pay me for my services," Zehner said. "So the way the cost-shifting works is you basically back into how much [money] you need to run that service [for all patients] and apply it to the expected number of people that are coming in that have insurance to get that service."

The fewer people who have insurance, the greater the burden on those who do have coverage. In order to cover the costs of treating the uninsured, premiums go up. The American Hospital Association estimated that U.S. hospitals performed $39.3 billion worth of uncompensated care in 2010, the most recent year for which numbers are available. That's 5.8 percent of total expenses.

This is a problem that Obama's health care law seeks to address and one that Romney himself has acknowledged in the past, before he began pursuing the Republican presidential nomination.

"Look, it doesn't make a lot of sense for us to have millions and millions of people who have no health insurance and yet who can go to the emergency room and get entirely free care for which they have no responsibility, particularly if they are people who have sufficient means to pay their own way," he said in 2010.

In 2007, he used even starker language: "When [uninsured people] show up at the hospital, they get care. They get free care paid for by you and me. If that's not a form of socialism, I don't know what is."

Boone, who considers himself relatively apolitical, said he "absolutely" looks forward to the full implementation of Obamacare. "I'm so excited that this is happening," he said.

Given his pre-existing condition, Boone said, the cost of purchasing individual health insurance was astronomical. If an insurer even made him an offer, he said, he was seeing quotes of $1,000 per month -- far beyond what he could afford. Under Obamacare, Boone should be able to find an affordable plan on the new health care "exchanges" being established in 2014.

It's not a done deal, however. Although it's unlikely that Congress will have the Republican majorities required to approve a full repeal, a Romney presidency would have ways to hobble the law's implementation, jeopardizing coverage for people like Boone.

So,what it's saying is, he de facto has coverage either way, it's just the mechanism by which the cost is covered. If you don't find a way to manage costs, it's just a shell game. And this law does nothing to effect that.

whygohome · October 2012

EdsonNascimento wrote:

So,what it's saying is, he de facto has coverage either way, it's just the mechanism by which the cost is covered. If you don't find a way to manage costs, it's just a shell game. And this law does nothing to effect that.

Which is essentially what I said in response to your question that you asked 3 times.
You can put a foundation in place, but in the end, in a privatized healthcare system, the insured will be at the mercy of the insurance companies, and the insurance companies will be the ones dictating cost. At the same time, we will still have Big Pharma to deal with--why the big fuss over medical marijuana? We will still have pharmaceutical sales reps who spend an obscene amount of money taking doctors golfing, out to lunch, etc., just to get their drugs in their offices. We will continue to have doctors who care more about testing patiens--that's where the $$ is--than treating patients.
The problem is PEOPLE. The problem is the lust for $$$$ over all else; the problem is an unhealthy, fast food, boob tube addicted portion of society. The problem is PEOPLE.

So it goes, so it goes, so it goes.

The Fixer · October 2012

whygohome wrote:

The Fixer wrote:

you're all over the place dude. let's make a concerted effort to stay on topic here. if you try really hard I'm confident you can do it

the excise tax mentioned in the OP is part of obamacare. hence the moving of labor overseas. but again, I'm sure it's not obama's fault. nothing ever is

The excise tax in an industry that makes obscene profits. Do you know anyone in the medical device sales or pharmaceutical sales industry? The amount of markup on these devices, and the amount of money wasted on taking doctors golfing, out to lunch, etc., is staggering. And, that is part of the reason for the high costs of healthcare.
So, if they want to bitch and whine over a 2.3% tax while people in this country have trouble paying their healthcare bills, or simply go bankrupt due to them, or get coerced into being tested--how doctors make a lot of money, instead of being treated, they can bitch and whine. The truth is that they are selfish and greedy and have one thing in mind: $$$$.

As for me being all over the place, it's called a joke. And this comment, "if you try really hard I'm confident you can do it" is one you would never make if we were having a face to face discussion. it's easy being a tough guy when you are on a band's message board. but, I don't expect much from someone from Philly, "tough guy" capital of the world. Go back to Broad Street.

yeah, I'm in med device sales. as I stated numerous times in this thread. try reading, it's good for you.

not all med device companies make profits...not even close. you'd be surprised at how poorly a lot of companies are run.

also, it's pharma reps who were big on taking docs out to lunches and golf outings. all of which is now against the law. they can't even give pens away anymore.

you're obviously up past your bedtime on this topic. study up and come back when you have a clue

The Fixer · October 2012

BinFrog wrote:

I am a left leaning independent with common sense and I'm guessing a lot more knowledge about the ACA and the healthcare industry than you. You're firing out empty rhetoric, catch phrases, and played out gimmicks. Try actually going out there and learning something for a change. You are just wrong here and out of your league.

OK, so according to you I'm out of my league. keep making blanket statements. you sound brilliant

you also say that obamacare has not led to job cuts. um, might want to check the news. you will be surprised to learn that domestic companies are in fact laying people off in lue of obamacare. that's what initiated my OP

The Fixer · October 2012

chadwick wrote:

for the first time in my life i have a primary health insurance and i even have a secondary insurance as well. all of this happened under obama. i am enjoying having my monthly and even weekly visits to the many doctors, clinics and multiple hospitals i see finally paid for.

fuck yes, obama!

you should be thanking those of us paying our taxes. we're the ones paying for you

you're welcome

The Fixer · October 2012

Cosmo wrote:

Does anyone know WHY employers provide Health Care Insurance?
...
It is because it is one of many benefits companies use to obtain and retain employees. Prior to the 1930s... companies didn't have to provide shit to it workers other than a wage. Through collective bargaining agreements, workers got benefits, such as sick days, vacation days, paid holidays, medical insurance, etc... along with their wages.
It has evolved into something that people expect to get automatically.

your last line is one of the biggest problems in this country...sense of entitlement. the man is supposed to give, give, give

Obamacare sucks

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