The expense problem (which is overstated in the article) would just shift from premiums to taxes if there was "universal healthcare" in America. Besides that, a large part of the expenses comes from subsidizing drugs that get sold abroad for low prices. It's easy to whine about "dumb Americans" when your own country is subsidized by them
What it amounts to is a Covid era subsidy expiring. The article title makes it seem like ACA health insurance is going up 5x but in reality the expectation is 75%, this particular case must be an outlier. The person in the article even laughs it off since she turns 65 soon and will then switch to Medicare.
> Maybe there are millions in America that only keep their jobs for the health benefits rather than starting a 1-2 person business.
I'm not 100% sure about upcoming changes, seems similar from what I can see, but ACA gives an option for this. No job = very low income = you'll qualify for hugely reduced premiums
Is there any republican justification for this, other than, by the time people notice it will be too late / we will try to blame it on the other party? Are they expecting the states to step up and pay instead?
FWIW this is about a pandemic era subsidy expiring. It sucks that a seemingly “temporary” subsidy was holding things together for folks
> The credit was a pandemic-era relief measure that has contributed to record enrollment in the insurance sold through the Affordable Care Act marketplaces.
We need to stop paying doctors millions of dollars. That’s the only way it’s going to come down. Half a million, whatever they get paid is making it so people have to do without decent insurance. That’s the biggest variable I see in the US vs other countries (not to mention bogus drug pricing, but there are controls hopefully being implemented for that.
The article is surprisingly unclear about this, but the enhanced subsidies that are expiring apply to households making over 4x the Federal poverty level ($62,600 for a single person or $128,600 for a family of 4). Subsidies for those making less remain intact.
They are going to kill ACA, all of it is timed to kick in after the elections next year. They cannot really kill it because its a law, so they make it unaffordable and essentially be useless and unused
I own an Agency and write a ton of individual ACA along with Group and Medicare.
Final pricing hasn't even been released yet. I'll betcha that her premium won't be anywhere near 2800, theres no information about how shes quoted what she did such as age, zip code, carrier and income. This article is rage bait.
Here's a better source of information regarding how and why premiums are going up.
US healthcare is such a pain -- very high premiums, high deductibles, tons of paperwork, no price transparency.
My wife is from mexico, so while her visiting familly there I've had some opportunity to interact with and observe their system.
It seems better!
There are public hospitals which are open to all. The quality and wait times are reasonble, not fantastic. There is very little paperwork. (You don't have to jump through hoops like signing up for Medicaid or something.)
Alongside that, you can buy private insurance and go to private hospitals, which, in my (admittedly limited) experience, are very good -- efficient and reasonably priced. I would _guess_ because of less regulation and because they have to provide value above and beyond the free healthcare that's available?
In the US we seem to have created sort of the opposite incentive structure -- public healthcare is only available to a limited set of people, and everyone else is more or less forced into the private healthcare system (or "private", since it seems heavily intertwined w/ govt -- e.g., standard govt websites to pick a povider, tax penalty (tho since lifted) if you aren't signed up).
Somehow there's always a mountain of paperwork and bills that dribble in over months, and you never know how much the final cost is going to be.
Another seemingly-insane feature of the US system is if I pay for a service w/o insurance, I'll be billed some crazy rate. With insurance, I'll copay some reasonable-ish rate, and the insurance company will also pay some reasonable rate, often at like a 90% discount to the "quoted" rate. It feels like I'm coerced into insurance because I can't out-of-pocket pay the actual real reasonable rates.
Another annoyance is it also doesn't seem possible to buy insurance that just covers accidents, which I would personally do if I could...
> In the US we seem to have created sort of the opposite incentive structure -- public healthcare is only available to a limited set of people, and everyone else is more or less forced into the private healthcare system (or "private", since it seems heavily intertwined w/ govt -- e.g., standard govt websites to pick a povider, tax penalty (tho since lifted) if you aren't signed up).
There is no “we”. The rich and influential people that run the US _designed_ the system this way on purpose. To extract as much money from citizens. We didn’t reach this point by accident. Is there a presidential party or candidate that’s running on “tear the whole stupid system down and rebuild it to be simple and affordable”? Little baby steps like obama care don’t count in my opinion. No reasonable person would design a healthcare system where a hospital charges $500 for dispensing ibuprofen for example. Or a system where it’s impossible to predict how much you’ll pay as a patient. And they call it a “marketplace” lol. That’s lunacy.
If you know someone running on that as their campaign, please let me know. I’d be happy to vote for them. I’ll even donate to their campaign!
> Another annoyance is it also doesn't seem possible to buy insurance that just covers accidents, which I would personally do if I could...
That sounds like an interesting concept. Travel insurance is sort of like that, but not the same thing obviously.
>> There are public hospitals which are open to all.
No way they are open for all. Maybe emergency room is, but not whole hospital. If you have an unknown disease which is not an emergency (like some STD) - I highly doubt you can go strait to the hospital and get proper treatment.
What I'm talking about is a citizen usually cannot come without months of waiting in a queue for a scheduled appointment with a reference from a family doctor unless into the emergency care.
There used to be a popular meme claiming that anything private tends to get cheaper over time, while anything regulated or run by the government keeps getting more expensive. But is that really true for all goods? If it is, then why do so many countries choose to adopt universal healthcare systems with tightly regulated insurance?
Maybe the more relevant question is: why is healthcare so expensive in the United States? It can’t just be because the U.S. is more advanced or developed. After all, one of the hallmarks of an advanced country should be making essential services affordable, if not cheaper.
All the people saying "Government is inefficient". Come on, do you think the CEOs who only work for quarterly returns are going to provide great healthcare? No, they are going to use every opportunity and propaganda to keep ripping you off.
I am trying to do the before/after for a single Adult earning $25,000 per year. It looks to be a 4% difference. I am not sure how you go from ~$500 to $2800 using this calculator. Short of starting to cover more people like children, etc.
I have an ACA plan and am going to take a giant hit when the tax subsidies end.
At the same time, I wonder if it might be not such a bad thing.
Yes, I and millions will suffer higher premium costs.
Yes, many people will drop insurance or take bad plans.
Yes many more people will die because of this.
But ultimately, prices for health care must come down. If we continue to route infinite tax dollars towards the price setters (hospitals and doctors) then why would they change?
The only way they would reduce prices is if less people will pay. The only way that happens is if there is some pain, somewhere.
I don’t want people to suffer, but we have been headed in the wrong direction for so long… something needs to shake things up.
And ultimately, if this means some MAGA voters question their vote because they cannot get health care due to this change, then extra good.
But then again, it’ll still be Obama’s fault somehow.
Just in time for the midterm elections? Seems like the Dems have this handed to them on a silver platter, but they're so bad at winning elections, it probably still won't matter.
Single payer would allow all outcomes to be evaluated in total per year, so we could see better which things work and not, and what are the best return on spending. Big medicine doesn't want that, nor an FDA that has to consider budget implications of approvals. The ways single payer would help is by reducing friction in getting care, much less time with any approvals. And everyone would need less liability coverage if health costs are covered. That can lower automobile, business and other liability insurances. Everywhere else does it for less of a share of their own GDPs.
31 comments
[ 3.2 ms ] story [ 46.5 ms ] threadThe US system is so dumb not to mention inefficient.
Maybe there are millions in America that only keep their jobs for the health benefits rather than starting a 1-2 person business.
It just seems so silly.
I'm not 100% sure about upcoming changes, seems similar from what I can see, but ACA gives an option for this. No job = very low income = you'll qualify for hugely reduced premiums
If that's the case, then you've never looked into the complexity of Medicare.
Medicaid for all, and concierge services for those who want to pay exalted prices for exalted services -- that may make sense.
> The credit was a pandemic-era relief measure that has contributed to record enrollment in the insurance sold through the Affordable Care Act marketplaces.
Final pricing hasn't even been released yet. I'll betcha that her premium won't be anywhere near 2800, theres no information about how shes quoted what she did such as age, zip code, carrier and income. This article is rage bait.
Here's a better source of information regarding how and why premiums are going up.
https://acasignups.net/
Thanks for sharing the linky link.
My wife is from mexico, so while her visiting familly there I've had some opportunity to interact with and observe their system.
It seems better!
There are public hospitals which are open to all. The quality and wait times are reasonble, not fantastic. There is very little paperwork. (You don't have to jump through hoops like signing up for Medicaid or something.)
Alongside that, you can buy private insurance and go to private hospitals, which, in my (admittedly limited) experience, are very good -- efficient and reasonably priced. I would _guess_ because of less regulation and because they have to provide value above and beyond the free healthcare that's available?
In the US we seem to have created sort of the opposite incentive structure -- public healthcare is only available to a limited set of people, and everyone else is more or less forced into the private healthcare system (or "private", since it seems heavily intertwined w/ govt -- e.g., standard govt websites to pick a povider, tax penalty (tho since lifted) if you aren't signed up).
Somehow there's always a mountain of paperwork and bills that dribble in over months, and you never know how much the final cost is going to be.
Another seemingly-insane feature of the US system is if I pay for a service w/o insurance, I'll be billed some crazy rate. With insurance, I'll copay some reasonable-ish rate, and the insurance company will also pay some reasonable rate, often at like a 90% discount to the "quoted" rate. It feels like I'm coerced into insurance because I can't out-of-pocket pay the actual real reasonable rates.
Another annoyance is it also doesn't seem possible to buy insurance that just covers accidents, which I would personally do if I could...
There is no “we”. The rich and influential people that run the US _designed_ the system this way on purpose. To extract as much money from citizens. We didn’t reach this point by accident. Is there a presidential party or candidate that’s running on “tear the whole stupid system down and rebuild it to be simple and affordable”? Little baby steps like obama care don’t count in my opinion. No reasonable person would design a healthcare system where a hospital charges $500 for dispensing ibuprofen for example. Or a system where it’s impossible to predict how much you’ll pay as a patient. And they call it a “marketplace” lol. That’s lunacy.
If you know someone running on that as their campaign, please let me know. I’d be happy to vote for them. I’ll even donate to their campaign!
> Another annoyance is it also doesn't seem possible to buy insurance that just covers accidents, which I would personally do if I could...
That sounds like an interesting concept. Travel insurance is sort of like that, but not the same thing obviously.
No way they are open for all. Maybe emergency room is, but not whole hospital. If you have an unknown disease which is not an emergency (like some STD) - I highly doubt you can go strait to the hospital and get proper treatment.
Are there any hospitals anywhere that deny emergency treatment? I would be surprised.
Maybe the more relevant question is: why is healthcare so expensive in the United States? It can’t just be because the U.S. is more advanced or developed. After all, one of the hallmarks of an advanced country should be making essential services affordable, if not cheaper.
I am trying to do the before/after for a single Adult earning $25,000 per year. It looks to be a 4% difference. I am not sure how you go from ~$500 to $2800 using this calculator. Short of starting to cover more people like children, etc.
At the same time, I wonder if it might be not such a bad thing.
Yes, I and millions will suffer higher premium costs.
Yes, many people will drop insurance or take bad plans.
Yes many more people will die because of this.
But ultimately, prices for health care must come down. If we continue to route infinite tax dollars towards the price setters (hospitals and doctors) then why would they change?
The only way they would reduce prices is if less people will pay. The only way that happens is if there is some pain, somewhere.
I don’t want people to suffer, but we have been headed in the wrong direction for so long… something needs to shake things up.
And ultimately, if this means some MAGA voters question their vote because they cannot get health care due to this change, then extra good.
But then again, it’ll still be Obama’s fault somehow.