No doubt. Grab a chair and a beer and sit on the porch.
----- Original Message ----- From: Bill Prince via Af To: [email protected] Sent: Thursday, October 09, 2014 6:27 PM Subject: Re: [AFMUG] ObamaCare Actually, it's the mega hospital bill that accumulates when you are on your death bed, and they spare no expense at keeping you alive despite the fact that you're going to die anyway. And probably in significant pain, with no hope of getting better. Last statistic I heard/read was 80% of your health care expenses occur in the last 3 months of life. Personally, I'd like to just sit out on the deck and enjoy the fresh air for the last days of my life. bp On 10/9/2014 3:22 PM, Travis Johnson via Af wrote: It's not the routine care and occasional small health issue, it's when the $500,000 heart attack happens. Or the $300,000 kidney failure. Or even the $100,000 surgery... that's really what insurance is for. They charge "full retail" when they have to bill insurance because it's such a pain to actually collect. I work with several medical billing offices. These are full time companies that do nothing but handle insurance billing for doctors, etc... it's THAT big of a job to actually collect from all these insurance companies (the same ones that are making billions in profits each year). Travis On 10/9/2014 3:45 PM, Glen Waldrop via Af wrote: The hospital, yes. The doctor's office, no. I was a cash patient going to a specialist. My insurance price is around $175, my cash price was $130. Same with my meds, I paid cash price at my pharmacy and one run would be $66. With insurance they bill full retail which is closer to double that and I pay a $20 co pay. The pharmacy makes more money with my insurance, but they still made a profit without. I'm good friends with my pharmacist. I ran the numbers, even dealing with Lyme disease I was spending around $2500 a year, including supplements that aren't covered by insurance. I'm paying around $4000 a year for my insurance and still paying a chunk of my doctor bill and my medications, still paying for my supplements. My total healthcare is more like $5000 to $6000 a year now. I spent less on healthcare by paying cash. The testing was nice to have covered by insurance, but I'd have still come out cheaper at the end of the year to pay cash for those than pay my insurance. I will say this, my wife had a miscarriage last month. Insurance came in handy on that bill, however, paying cash for the same service would have only made our healthcare equal what I'm paying for insurance every year. ----- Original Message ----- From: Adam Moffett via Af To: [email protected] Sent: Thursday, October 09, 2014 4:04 PM Subject: Re: [AFMUG] ObamaCare If you go into a Doctor's office and receive aspirin and a hug, you'll still get a $500 bill (or your insurance will). I'd love it if we could address whatever drives the costs up. Collin, socialized medicine or socialized anything doesn’t work. What happened to the idea that Capitalism built the greatest country and the greatest health care in the world. Why does everybody forget that and keep wanting to go back to the failed systems in Europe, Socialism, Communism. Costs go up because of attorney’s and the technology behind our health care. If you want cheap health care, get rid of MRI machines, genome cancer treatments, laser surgeries, AiDs drugs, Hepatitis drug research, etc… If all you want is an aspirin and a hug, you keep holding to the idea that socialized medicine is a great idea. Rory From: Af [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Bill Prince via Af Sent: Thursday, October 09, 2014 9:41 AM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [AFMUG] ObamaCare Amen brother Conlin. The way I see it, the biggest problem is that ObamaCare didn't go far enough. We really, really need to have a system that gets a handle on the costs. The cost to US citizens is more than double the cost to other developed countries. Just peruse this: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/03/26/charts-health-care-costs-americans_n_2957266.html bpOn 10/9/2014 5:12 AM, Paul Conlin via Af wrote: What did people expect? Insurance companies are the house. They always make money. By accepting pre-existing conditions everyone else’s premiums go up. By definition. The only way health insurance can work is if it is universal (code for mandatory). Can’t have people who can do math, like Chuck, opting out. Or healthy people saying no. Everyone in. Everyone pays. Spreads out the costs. ObamaCare was never about controlling costs. It was about increasing coverage. More coverage costs more. Why are people surprised at this? If you want to control costs you have to redesign the way money flows. Our system of providers and insurance companies is *designed* to maximize heath costs. It is a positive feedback loop. What is needed is a single payer system, like Canada, where one paying party can have maximum leverage to minimize costs and who has limited ability to raise taxes. It is a proper (negative) feedback system that has inheritably more control. Canada, for the record, is not privatized health care like the VHA. In fact it is the opposite. The Government of Canada purchases all its healthcare from private entities, like Medicare. A fact yet to be discovered by the media in the USA. It is hard to understand why the Republican’s hate ObamaCare since it was mostly their idea. Well, other than ObamaCare was championed by Obama and I guess that is enough reason. The basic concept to use the free market and let industry to its thing is normally what Republican’s want. Not to mention its inherent ability to make more money for insurance companies and private industry. Sure, they are upset that it is being used as a wealth distribution system that makes people with money pay more and people without pay less. Ok, so that is two reasons they hate it. The mistake made, was not implementing a single payer system simultaneously with universal coverage. The CBO calculated the saving from the former would pay for the later resulting in no increase in out-of-pocket costs. Then the other benefits of such a privatized system would start to kick in and the open market competition for services will drive costs down. With health care general health would improve and costs would go down even more. Unfortunately the Government is dysfunctional and has zero chance of overcoming the trillions of dollars companies are making off of the existing out of control health care system. And if they could pass the laws, would anyone trust our Government to run such a program? And there is the root problem. Obviously an over simplification but now back to my real job. PC Blaze Broadband From: Af [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Rory Conaway via Af Sent: Thursday, October 9, 2014 12:33 AM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [AFMUG] ObamaCare People with pre-existing conditions are one of the few groups benefitting from this. Rory From: Af [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Jeremy via Af Sent: Wednesday, October 08, 2014 7:32 PM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [AFMUG] ObamaCare We pay about the same as we did but our deductible is lower, our out of pocket max is lower, and they covered our pregnancy. We switched during the first trimester because we didn't have maternity coverage (no self-insured plans in our state had it), and Obamacare made pregnancy not count as a pre-existing condition. It saved us about $7,000-$8,000 this year. The craziest part is that we actually stayed with the same provider, Select Health (IHC). It was just the difference between them providing maternity and not providing maternity. We have been very happy with our Obamacare. On Wed, Oct 8, 2014 at 6:50 PM, Glen Waldrop via Af <[email protected]> wrote: Further the subsidies have been deemed unconstitutional, so they're forcing us to pay insurance with the promise of subsidies that they are now going to take away. Bait and switch. The whole thing has been a screwup from day one. It is actually cheaper for me to pay out of pocket than pay for this insurance, but the fines will get you either way. ----- Original Message ----- From: Rory Conaway via Af To: [email protected] Sent: Wednesday, October 08, 2014 7:03 PM Subject: Re: [AFMUG] ObamaCare And so did the quality and options of your care. I know that 2 of my doctors retired early and the other one doesn’t take Obamacare. Fortunately I don’t have to use it. Here is my question though, doesn’t the fact that the federal government wasted a couple billion dollars of your taxes on websites that don’t work, companies that are paying workers to do nothing, and companies that are friends with the First Lady with no bid process in place? Rory From: Af [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Sean Heskett via Af Sent: Wednesday, October 08, 2014 5:00 PM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [AFMUG] ObamaCare Please don't forget that this whole "obamacare" thing was "invented" by the American Heratage Foundation which is a republican think tank. And the republicans tried to squash "Hillarycare" with it in the 1990's. Be careful what you ask for because you just might get it. Also, so far in the states that set up their own exchanges medical costs and premiums have been going down...mine sure did :) 2cents Sean On Wednesday, October 8, 2014, Travis Johnson via Af <[email protected]> wrote: Hi... I'm not sure exactly how this ObamaCare thing was supposed to "save everyone money" and provider "better health care". We just received our group health insurance premium notice for the upcoming year, and our rates will go up by 10% starting 2015. On top of that, everyone is now paying a 3% ObamaCare tax on their personal income taxes. This doesn't really seem like much of a savings to me... :( Travis
