My health insurance just got cancelled
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JoseCuervo
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JoseCuervo
Where do you think all your premiums are going?
You might want to read up on what bothers you.
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It's called competetion. . .you'd like the gov't to "level" the playing field by forcing your competitors to match your voluntary choice to cover 100%?
Everyone can have health insurance, and most everyone could before ACA, too. Plenty chose not to. Yea, some people in abject poverty couldn't. We can back and forth all day on who could or could not, but at the end of the day, ACA is a transfer payment, and those of us in the middle of the curve will carry the weight for a fatally flawed implementation.
The Feds are picking winners and losers, again, and effing it up, again.
denverpilot
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Wouldn't give them that much credit. They're just making sure everyone's a loser unless they have the deals that those who run for public office receive.
JoseCuervo
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Yep. I would like my competitors to have to follow the same laws I do, comply with the same regulations I do, obtain the same certifications and licenses I do, and pay the same taxes I do.
And I will lobby for the above.
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denverpilot
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Lobbying for everyone to be forced to your perception of fair standards is tyranny, not competition. Don't pretend you want to actually compete, anywhere other than in a politician's lap, anyway. If your product is truly better than the others, people will pay the higher price for your ideals.
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Bob Noel
Nah, I think it's more of the More-Government-Is-The-Answer syndrome.
BillTIZ
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Where is that bridge? New bridge south of Bangor?
It's not Obama, this has been in process for a long time. This is what happens when the capital market for medicine and insurance is one and the same. The best value for shareholders is to jack the price on the whole industry to bleed every last penny it can out of the consumer. It took putting a black man in office to get it through congress so now the IRS enforces it like a protection racket. ACA is as unconstitutional as it gets, so is is the War on Drugs.
Lindberg
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It seems that you have less room to complain than most. As an informed health-care consumer, you took your granddaughter to the ER even though you felt it wasn't necessary. You could have initially gone to an urgent care place, doc-in-a-box, or waited for an appointment with her regular physician. But you chose to go to the ER. Treatment is almost always more aggressive and more expensive in the ER.
Then you let them perform a whole bunch of tests that you objectively knew were unnecessary (this isn't hindsight, right? You knew they were unnecessary at the time?). You did not have to consent to any of those procedures or tests.
It's not someone else's fault. Consumers have a responsibility to control costs and not seek unnecessary services. That's why we have copays, coinsurance, and deductibles. Recently, "Emergency Rooms" have started popping up in every strip mall around here. They're taking advantage of the fact that insurance reimbursement rates are much higher at an ER regardless of the ultimate diagnosis. It's profitable enough that folks are spending millions of dollars to put these up like Starbucks.
denverpilot
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Same thing. He wants to use the company funds to purchase a politician (lobbying) and regulations that favor his business.
He's realized he can't compete, so he'd rather buy some new rules. It's a viable strategy. Just can't really call it "competition" in anything other than buying politicians.
JoseCuervo
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Yeah, wrong to follow the law.
Everybody should just make up whatever laws and regulations they want to follow.
#TeamAnarchy
JoseCuervo
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paflyer
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But you also support FORCING, UNDER PENALTY OF INCARCERATION, everyone having health insurance. How American of you.
BTW, you have no idea how much I pay in income tax.
RJM62
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Geek on the Hill
Absolutely. That part was my own fault.
On this I have to disagree. When a child is concerned, if a parent / guardian in any way challenges the hospital or staff, they will paint it as "child neglect" and call CPS, who invariably will take the hospital's side because, after all, the doctors would never recommend useless procedures just to pad the bill -- right?? So in the end all you do is delay and add more aggravation to the whole process by questioning their decisions.
Agreed again. The other things I like about the freestanding "Urgent Care Centers," as they're called here (probably for legal reasons) is that they're up-front about pricing, they clear everything they do with you before they do it, and they don't pretend to be anything other than profit-making businesses. It's much more businesslike.
Rich
denverpilot
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Right here...
There's no such thing as a level playing field, and you know it. If you're lobbying, you're tilting it.
Unless of course by "paying the same taxes I do", you're speaking of removing all tax incentives and moving to a completely flat tax, and by "same regulations" you mean to abolish any in your business that don't directly relate to safety.
I doubt that's what you actually want. Not to mention, since we know there is no such thing as a level playing field, we already know you won't get it. You'll get something tilted in your favor, the more you spend on your pet politician.
That's just modern crony capitalism and you're saying that you're ready to slap on a batting helmet and hit one out of the park.
If you know about someone breaking the law in your industry, by all means, turn 'em in. You're insinuating someone isn't with all these intrigue words that sound spiffy but mean nothing if you're not going to do your part and report them to law enforcement. Anarchy indeed.
Lawreston
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Hi, Bill:
It's the 10 or 12 year old replacement of the old Narrows Bridge in Bucksport. If you look in one of the shots you can see Fort Knox(the Maine version) down there. Bucksport is the municipality visible in one of the shots. There is an observatory at the top of the bridge.(Probably south-east of Bangor)
Later in flight: Bar Harbor(a LARGE file)(VERY LARGE, sorry); love that Carl Zeiss lens and healthy processor. Some nice private yachts at the docks down there.
HR
It's the 10 or 12 year old replacement of the old Narrows Bridge in Bucksport. If you look in one of the shots you can see Fort Knox(the Maine version) down there. Bucksport is the municipality visible in one of the shots. There is an observatory at the top of the bridge.(Probably south-east of Bangor)
Later in flight: Bar Harbor(a LARGE file)(VERY LARGE, sorry); love that Carl Zeiss lens and healthy processor. Some nice private yachts at the docks down there.
HR
wsuffa
Touchdown! Greaser!
It's not the bureaucracy, per-se. It's that there are some that can tailor the rules to enhance their business and there those that can get around the rules.
On a purely economic basis, it makes little sense for a healthy young person to spend $7000-$10,000 a year for "insurance" (really, a prepaid service contract) when they will use a couple of hundred dollars in actual costs. Invest that money and in 10 years you'll have enough to pay cash for that $100,000 operation.
Large companies know this, and some self-insure. If you can tailor your workforce in age and health (illegal to do overtly, but it's still done...) and put your facilities where costs are low, you can hold down your insurance costs substantially. The large company might buy reinsurance to cover unexpected costs, but a company of 50,000 or more employees might well find their cost of providing coverage to be 60-70% of buying insurance, even after paying an administrator. Wall Street encourages this behavior to increase profits.
Individuals and smaller companies don't have that option. So they might pay twice as much as a large company for similar coverage. It's based on the claims experience of the company's employees (or group of companies if you an find a broker that aggregates companies to get better policy pricing). For a while, the insurance companies would offer an initial rate, then jack it up for year 2 and beyond.
And individuals pay the most of all.
One key problem with the ACA is that it required individuals to obtain insurance, but it didn't mandate any medical professional participation. The result is that the insurance companies have severely limited their "in network" doctors, and many doctors don't participate. Example:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opin...c5fcfc-952b-11e5-a2d6-f57908580b1f_story.html
So, what you're doing is to engage in time-honored use of the political process to create a barrier to entry and keep competitors out. Nothing the taxi industry hasn't done with Uber, or the phone & cable companies haven't done with Net Neutrality/Netflix, etc. Ma Bell was a master at this. I know exactly how the game is played.
In other words, you'd rather raise costs for all and encourage inferior service in order to protect your business.
Are you also lobbying against the large companies that are able to self-insure and cut their costs?
Can I also assume that you support folks like Martin Shkreli and Valeant Pharma in the price hikes? Yes, he claims the drug was "losing money", but we really don't know the basis of that claim. After all, if you pay a high price for an asset and then allocate the price in the right way, you can justify ANY price increase. That price is spread over all insurance policy holders.
And the FDA drug approval process, intended to protect the public, is used to keep competitors out.
Likewise, many local jurisdictions now charge ambulance fees that were previously included in their fire and rescue services. The rationale was that it would cut their costs and push the costs onto insurance companies which would then pay (and allocate the costs to policy holders). So it's done.
The market is far from free and open competition. And the blame lays multiple places, from medical providers to drug makers to Wall Street to politicians to insurance companies to folks like you that lobby to increase barriers to entry on other folks. We don't even have the information we need to make financially rational decisions in most cases. Until the whole system collapses, I don't see much desire or incentive to change... at least not from the lobbyists and ideologues.
denverpilot
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That's why they never quite let it collapse. They'd lose power. Mortgage "crisis" and banking bailouts, automotive companies failing, AIG, you name it... they'll make sure to break all the rules they agreed to, in order to keep it going.
Ask anyone bright enough to see GM was going down, who smartly bought bonds to be as close to first in line for the liquidation sale that should have happened.
Nobody who pays even a modicum of attention actually believes the system isn't rigged anymore. Mismanagement and misregulation is just an opportunity to hand out guaranteed loans and push the reset button for those who knew exactly what they were doing, and removes their consequences.
The country would rather be ripped off by government debt to keep the farce going, rather than have the poor dears who run those failed entities jumping from buildings again. I guess they figure "no splat zone" signs won't work.
txflyer
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Fly it like you STOL it ♦
How much is the penalty if you just say 'shove it!' and go self insured?
I have thought about that.. Last year the penalty amounted to 3 days out of 365 days in my premium payment.. This year it goes up to 7 days...
Altho you can't call it "self insured"... They only want to hear "not insured"
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Dont generalize the situation with NY CPS to the situation at large. I get limited studies based on parent requests all the time. 1 view of the chest, declined CT studies etc. Unless there is genuine reason tobelieve that this is an abuse case, no provider will incur the additional hours of work a CPS referral creates.
Oh, I worked two years in childrens hospitals in NYC, many months of that with ER coverage. I worked in a weekly clinic with the hospitals child abuse specialist. The idea that someone would call CPS to pad the bill with additional imaging (which he doesnt get paid for anyway) is ludicrous.
That said, there is tremendous over-imaging of kids. All of it driven by a fear of missing something and getting sued. Worse in NY than other places.
txflyer
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Fly it like you STOL it ♦
This is an example of government stupidity because I could easily go self insured.
"cutting off your nose to spite your face" comes to mind.
I may still do it because as it stands right now our premiums add up to over $12K per year. The penalty would be much less because our household income does not reflect our true income which is Trust related. Not unless the guv counts Trust income which they should not in all fairness. Trust income is a moving target.
JoseCuervo
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JoseCuervo
You can make up whatever nonsense you want and try and twist my comments into whatever imaginary nonsense you need to make yourself feel better.
Or, you could learn to read, and, perhaps, learn to learn.
JoseCuervo
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Matthew
Touchdown! Greaser!
Not necessarily (for 2016):
>>>
You’ll pay whichever is higher.
Percentage of income
2.5% of household income
Maximum: Total yearly premium for the national average price of a Bronze plan sold through the Marketplace
Per person
$695 per adult
$347.50 per child under 18
Maximum: $2,085
<<<
Is it still the case that the penalty can only be collected through your tax refund?
And I like that the penalty/tax is called the "individual shared responsibility payment".
edit: I answered my question -
>>
What happens if I don't pay the fee?
The IRS will hold back the amount of the fee from any future tax refunds. There are no liens, levies, or criminal penalties for failing to pay the fee.
<<<
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This is incorrect. My penalty would be 5 figures.
Yes, it is tasked to the IRS and included right in the annual return.
txflyer
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Fly it like you STOL it ♦
Like the act itself, I see there is mass confusion what the penalties are.
This is where I go off the rails. This act to me seems to be arbitrary in that the premiums, penalties, and other amounts are being tailored to each specific individual while the law itself is to be a blanket for everyone to have coverage.
So the more succesful you are, the more you pay. That's typical. The day ACA went into effect, our premiums went from $450/month to $1024/month. What is that, about a 110% increase?
This is where I go off the rails. This act to me seems to be arbitrary in that the premiums, penalties, and other amounts are being tailored to each specific individual while the law itself is to be a blanket for everyone to have coverage.
So the more succesful you are, the more you pay. That's typical. The day ACA went into effect, our premiums went from $450/month to $1024/month. What is that, about a 110% increase?
JoseCuervo
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JoseCuervo
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txflyer
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Fly it like you STOL it ♦
Not at all Jose. We are both mid fifties, no health issues to date, no pre-existing conditions,...
It just went up.
To be exact, we were paying $450/month for a $10,000.00 deductible plan. I can afford a ten thousand dollar hit. Now we pay $1024/month for a $6000.00 deductible. I asked for a higher deductible to lower the premiums only to be told "what we offer is what you see on our website." We have blue cross blue shield.
The math is pretty simple:
2.5% of household income = penalty
or if you prefer you may use a calculator:
https://www.1040.com/tax-tools/health-care-you/aca-penalty-calculator
Remember,
You’ll pay whichever is higher.
Percentage of income
2.5% of household income
OR
Maximum: Total yearly premium for the national average price of a Bronze plan sold through the Marketplace
The idea is if your penalty would be anywhere near the cost of insurance, they hope you're going to do the financially smart thing and just buy the insurance.
JoseCuervo
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wsuffa
Touchdown! Greaser!
And you could learn to engage in discussion rather than trolling and being a shill.
*plonk*
paflyer
Final Approach
What's a "refund"?
paflyer
Final Approach
Are you in the insurance business?
I am thinking Jose is the web designer for Obamacare,, Pocketed the 5 BILLION..... and is laughing all the way to the bank...
