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Health Care’s Bipartisan Problem: The Sick Are Expensive and Someone Has to Pay
The Wall Street Journal ^ | January 12, 2017 | Anna Wilde Mathews and Louise Radnofsky

Posted on 01/13/2017 12:00:44 PM PST by JeepersFreepers

The 2010 health law, also known as Obamacare, forced insurers to sell coverage to anyone, at the same price, regardless of their risk of incurring big claims. That provision was popular. Not so were rules requiring nearly everyone to have insurance, and higher premiums for healthy people to subsidize the costs of the sick.

If policyholders don’t pick up the tab, who will? Letting insurers refuse to sell to individuals with what the industry calls a “pre-existing condition”—in essence, forcing some of the sick to pay for themselves—is something both parties appear to have ruled out. Insurers could charge those patients more or taxpayers could pick up the extra costs, two ideas that are politically fraught.


Most U.S. health-care spending is for a small number of very expensive patients:


(Excerpt) Read more at wsj.com ...


TOPICS: Extended News; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: aca; cost; obamacare; repeal
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To: JeepersFreepers

As expensive as our government paying THOUSANDS of ‘ghost soldiers’ a yearly salary (Non existent afghan soldiers)? r as expensive as giving terrorist nations BILLIONS of dollars?


61 posted on 01/13/2017 1:41:47 PM PST by Bob434
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To: grania

Every policy should be like car insurance. You pay for all the routine maintenance and the policy pays for the big stuff.
The price for regular, routine medical care would become competitive and plummet.
If someone can’t afford the routine stuff charity, free clinics, etc would take care of it.


62 posted on 01/13/2017 1:45:31 PM PST by sheana
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To: kaila

I have a cousin whose daughter got pregnant and had a kid. He’s about 4 now. Ever since she got pg she’s had MediCal. She goes to the hospital for every ache and pain. She’s now preggo again.....with twins. That’s 4 added to the MediCal role in the last 5 years. She and her kid haven’t been cheap.


63 posted on 01/13/2017 1:53:59 PM PST by sheana
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To: vooch

No. We can be compassionate WITHOUT forced taxation.

The reason we dont is our population is programmed by corporations to spend and go into debt for frivolous junk. Nomatter how much money people have they are in debt for that branded car, the fancy looking empty house and instagram vacations slighly beyond their means. Of course they don’t have a dime to spend on poor when their social status depends on spending and showing off everything they earn.

Accumulating money and stuff is more valued by our culture than most anything else. Due to generations of programming.

Once that changes and the programming is stopped, we wont need taxation. People will give more than enough to charity once they collectively realize all that junk does not make you happy


64 posted on 01/13/2017 2:01:02 PM PST by varyouga
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To: JeepersFreepers

No adult person’s need should EVER be another adult person’s legal obligation. That’s just a form of slavery.


65 posted on 01/13/2017 2:19:53 PM PST by Trentamj
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To: grania

I think some doctors are already going to cash only. Someone here posted a link to a surgery center in Oklahoma I think, that posts prices and only takes cash.


66 posted on 01/13/2017 2:26:46 PM PST by gattaca (Republicans believe every day is July 4, democrats believe every day is April 15. Ronald Reagan)
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To: Opinionated Blowhard

The people getting sick now already did pay... their money was stolen from social security and replaced with “government bonds / IOUs”. Who buys those bonds? Foreign countries like China and South American nations who rape us on trade deals in return... also, Insurance companies buy those bonds in exchange for forcing everyone to buy insurance that we can’t use. See how they are all saying, “If we go down, you go down...”?

The game is almost up...they are trying to get rid of cash so they can enforce negative interest rates on a global scale... but that bubble might burst...then what?

WWW III / currency reset / things move quickly then.


67 posted on 01/13/2017 2:51:47 PM PST by willyd (I for one welcome our NSA overlords)
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To: JeepersFreepers

First and foremost, I think someone ought to stand up and clarify this “pre existing condition” terminology. Prior to obama, if you had a pre-existing condition like, asthma, insurance companies would still give you insurance. They just wouldn’t cover your asthma meds for one year. After that, everything was the same. Reason I know, I priced a catastrophic plan, Tonic Plan(I thing they called it), with a prescription supplement. They were as nice as could be and the premiums were under $200/ month and everything was good.

Now, if you show up needing open heart surgery with 6 months of in home rehab, I’m sure thats a different animal and who the hell knows how much that would cost. So, there’s no wonder why the insurance companies would balk at that. There’s too much room for fraud and being swindled.

However....before of that is even discussed, we need to talk about all the elephants in the room, that Coulter brings up ad nauseum(I agree with her), about the cost of healthcare for all the foreigners that are here: illegals, refugees, their kids, asylum seekers...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3gAYUfrF0Lw

I’d be really curious to see how flush with money we’d be if we could just tackle that problem.


68 posted on 01/13/2017 3:07:35 PM PST by qaz123
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To: varyouga
Or do you intend to do like the Nazis?

You understand, of course, that you just violated Godwin's Law.

I "don't intend" to do anything, or "kill" anyone.

I do intend to refuse assuming inappropriate responsibility for a no-win situation not of my making. I'm not enabling irrational behavior.

69 posted on 01/13/2017 5:46:50 PM PST by gogeo (But he's not a conserrrrrvative!)
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To: JeepersFreepers

It’s not 5% of patients - most of the 100% are not patients and have no intention of becoming so.


70 posted on 01/13/2017 5:51:47 PM PST by Jim Noble (Die Gedanken sind Frei)
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To: E. Pluribus Unum

“Responsible people pay for real insurance”

Does your car insurance pay for oil changes? Does your homeowners insurance pay for dishwasher detergent?


71 posted on 01/13/2017 5:56:34 PM PST by Jim Noble (Die Gedanken sind Frei)
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To: Jim Noble

You’re barking up the wrong tree, Dude.

Context.

You need to learn to check context before blathering.


72 posted on 01/13/2017 6:01:45 PM PST by E. Pluribus Unum (President Trump is coming, and the rule of law is coming with him.)
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To: gogeo

People dont disapear just because you decide you dont want to help.

So what will you do when sick people with nothing to lose start swamping every medical facility begging for treatment? When you’re really sick, you dont give a damn about laws or money.

Your only choice then will be to cage and/or kill these people for being sick and poor. It’s the inevitable outcome if you stop all assistance.


73 posted on 01/13/2017 6:52:11 PM PST by varyouga
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To: varyouga

So, instead the productive should be left to die? I can’t count how many stories I have heard or people who have said they will allow an illness to progress and allow themselves to die before they bankrupt their families.


74 posted on 01/13/2017 7:09:01 PM PST by riri (Obama's Amerika--Not a fun place.)
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To: lurk

Exactly. Many of these costs are to provide treatments that are not cures or even high probability of curing.


75 posted on 01/13/2017 7:10:51 PM PST by riri (Obama's Amerika--Not a fun place.)
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To: Pollster1

That’s why co-pays are too low. Some people are lonely and just want to visit the doctor.


76 posted on 01/13/2017 7:19:54 PM PST by Cobra64 (Common sense isn't common any more.)
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To: riri

“So, instead the productive should be left to die?”

No, nobody should be left to die but even the rich will die like flies if sick poor people are forced to wander the streets and die. It’s like closing public toilets to save money and then wondering why the poor are suddenly peeing all over your million dollar buildings. People don’t simply disappear in civilized society.

But hey, you can keep things efficient, cost effective and clean with jail cities and crematoriums. Those Germans used to be masters of efficiency!

“I can’t count how many stories I have heard or people who have said they will allow an illness to progress and allow themselves to die before they bankrupt their families.”

That’s noble but I but nobody should be forced to make that choice in a society as advanced as ours. We have the technology and knowledge to make healthcare universal, effective and efficient. We just don’t have the culture yet but we are about due for a lesson..


77 posted on 01/13/2017 10:07:35 PM PST by varyouga
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To: varyouga
Well, you're asking me what I'm going to do...Then you're telling me I have two choices. That's a result of dualistic thinking, which is how we got to where we are.

If you engage, they win. There's a whole lot more going on here than that, which you could see if you weren't engaged in "We're better than that!"

You're enabling destructive behavior. You're part of the problem. What I assume are good intentions on your part are making you blind.

78 posted on 01/14/2017 3:01:09 AM PST by gogeo (But he's not a conserrrrrvative!)
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To: gogeo

Ok. What is your alternate option if you were to institute it tomorrow?

Yes, by helping the weak, the dumb, the mentally ill you will get more of it. It is not efficient. It will weigh the productive down. I agree with all that 100%. IF we were machines, they would all be gone.

But we are not machines and know there is something inherently spiritually wrong with abandoning the weak. Even if we are programmed to accept it. I’m sure the Spartans who left smaller babies out to die did not feel completely good about it.

We now recognize that people and their culture are fully intertwined. Even to the point of alerting their DNA. We have generations of people who were culturally abandoned and their growing mental illness has been allowed to fester and inbreed within their group. A gigantic lower class with zero concept of anything we discuss on FR. A population someone practical would call “animals”.

What do you do with entire cities of people who are now so culturally removed? It’s easy to point fingers. But we have to do SOMETHING besides killing them. Our only civilized option, IMO, is to materially help them AND culturally reconnect them with society until they no longer need help.

If you don’t agree, what is your third option? Throw millions into the street and hope for the best?


79 posted on 01/14/2017 8:58:37 AM PST by varyouga
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To: varyouga
That’s noble but I but nobody should be forced to make that choice in a society as advanced as ours.

People are having it made for them every day with Obamacare.

How many people are skipping yearly screenings, tests, etc. because no one can even afford to go to the doctor any more? Many. And they can't even afford to think about the costs, if, god forbid, it requires more tests, more procedures, etc.

But sure the crazy guy on the street self medicating and addicted, gets picked up once a year, thrown into jail or rehab and gets a full medical screening. They'll catch his prostate cancer early and it will be treated 100% by the taxpayer. You know, the guy skipping his screening because he's got tuition and books to pay for for his kid or a mortgage to pay.

But, we can feel good about it how benevolent we are in the process.

80 posted on 01/14/2017 10:27:17 AM PST by riri (Obama's Amerika--Not a fun place.)
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