The one thing that indicates this might work...is that the happiest healthcare consumers today are the HSA high deductible (LOW premium) customers from plans that Obama Care has not yet cancelled. This is the one segment of health care that is working.
Oh I’m not saying that doesn’t work. It just won’t work on a large enough scale to be meaningful across the healthcare industry.
Working people largely struggle, always keep working and always looks for the best bang for their buck because they try to pay their bills. But they are working against two things: their own needs with limited resources in a largely uncontrolled market, and supplying tax money for the needs of others who don’t or won’t work.
What is going to happen, and is happening in fact is that the Medicaid rolls will swell tremendously. Just go to an emergency room for everything and forget the co-pays and out of pocket expenses. And even if enough do go the high D way, government is going to find a way to fine them because their plan doesn’t meet some OBAMA minimum. Why? Because not enough of high premium dollars aren’t going toward transfers to government for the Medicaid cost needs. They have all sides of this thing covered, and you can’t win because they want it to fail so calls go out for single-payer.
I'm in that group. I'm not sure I'm "happy"... but it is what it is. I started with a $5000 deductible. Raised it to $7500 the first year it renewed to avoid raising premium. Just last month raised it to $10k to avoid 40% premium increase. You know... we're healthy. It pays wellness stuff (we both go to dr for yearly checkup). Its just insurance against a catastrophic event. I'm 55 and wife is 62. Its $540 a month.
You know, if you don't have money you don't need insurance. Government will pick it up, or hospitals will write it off. Us, we have money. We have to insure it.
Combine it with a "Medical retainer agreement" on the low end for every day stuff ( see the link ) and you have a win-win that will make Obama's head spin, you get Catastrophic Insurance for big stuff and "healthcare" for the little things, that is a mindset change. The million dollar question is can you use HSA or FSA monies to pay for this Medical Retainer Agreement, also known as a "concierge service"...
http://www.michigancapitolconfidential.com/20924
From the article:
"Under medical retainer agreements, patients make monthly payments to a physician who in return agrees to provide a menu of routine services at no extra charge. Because no insurance company stands between patient and doctor, the hassles and expense of bureaucratic red tape are eliminated, which have resulted in dramatic cost reductions. Routine primary care services (and the bureaucracy required to reimburse them) are estimated to consume 40 cents out of every dollar spent on insurance policies, so lower premiums for a given amount of coverage are another potential benefit."
BTW the State Senator who made this happen Pat Colbeck is brilliant, a rocket scientist literally. Avik Roy (Formally? of Forbes, now advising Rick Perry) said Michigan is on the cutting edge of health-insurance issues, by extension I'd say it would include Senator Colbeck.
If you are healthy and have the financial resources, high deductible insurance is the way to go if you have to buy your own insurance. It doesn't make any sense to buy a gold plan if your healthy or not accident prone. The money would be better off going into a retirement account, college fund, an emergency fund, etc.
I think Newton's 3rd law comes into play here. For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. At this point we don't know what all the actions are and what the reactions will be...