Posted on 08/20/2010 9:20:43 PM PDT by Libloather
“I know it probably came from Rush’s cochlear implant, but this was one of the funnier misunderstood words in a while.”
That was hilarious. Rush didn’t quite latch on to the gist of what Stacey was calling about with his usual quickness, but it was still an amazing call.
On another side of the coin - just wait until the school districts pass on the increased costs of their plans via more property taxes.
I pay $500 (raised twice in two years) for an 80/20 policy with Aetna — just for myself. I take a couple of generic pills per month, really cheap pills, like the generic for Zocor for cholesterol, and I pay for those with my supermarket discount card because it’s cheaper than with the insurance! For name brand pills there’s a bit of a benefit to using insurance.
I have a $40 co-pay for every visit and after several thousand dollars is reached each year, the insurance kicks in. I only carry this in case of true emergency and for now am able to write the entire premium off on income tax each year.
I’ve thought of doing without insurance but hospital bills would kill me if illness/accident did not. I’m told that only if you are very broke should you go uninsured — and in truth the indigents get the best care — and are the ones who’ve caused closure of so many ERs. I worked for another major health insurer for years and all parties are guilty of greed — insurers, doctors, hospitals, big pharma, etc. There is enough blame to go around.
Yet, our old system was still much better than Obamacare. It’s all going to hit the fan soon — and it won’t be pretty.
Anyone know how all this affects the Veterans Affairs medical system?
“RATS told us all about this - right?”
No...how could they. They didn’t read it. Don’t forget, Nanzi Pewlosi said you had to first pass it to know what was in it.
I too worked for a health/life insurance company, and agree with you entirely. One thing that just infuriates me is the change in rules (around the time that health care costs started to escalate) that encouraged direct to consumer advertising.
That was a singular piece of stupidity that is heretofore unmatched. It creates a dual problem: every idiot on the planet is running to the Doc to get the latest drug for some ailment that they have self-diagnosed. And even more horrifying, the pharma companies have a financial interest in developing largely useless or redundant drugs that will appeal to the masses, while leaving the truly sick to suffer.
My personal award for "unbelievable arrogance in a healthcare setting" goes to the Iowa Hospital Association. For quite some time they were running these ridiculous ads on the radio congratulating themselves and bragging about XXX millions of dollars of "charity care" that they are providing. Yes, that's right, they were running ads BRAGGING about apparently overcharging their paying client base which consists of privately insured customers, and (largely) Medicare recipients.
I was forced to go the the emergency room last year for a couple of stitches, and I asked the billing department to itemize how much of my bill was earmarked for "charity care" so that I could be sure to deduct it on my taxes...that went over well...LOL!
Thats what my HC/I costs mostly because our pool is older.
Gawd, and these same people wanted to be able to buy medicare coverage. That’s gotta be 20-30 grand
Everyone at every level has to make a profit for it all to work. The problem is that it’s not a transparent market (as you alluded to).
“Commiecare” is a good name for that attempted power grab.
Her example was a diabetic, not a healthy individual. There are a lot of diabetics in the USA. They go to the doctor a lot.
All the dirty secrets of Obamacare will come out.
The thing that has been maddening about this preexisting condition issue is that it was almost always possible to get these conditions covered by insurance, it was just that there was often a waiting period (no different than under Obamacare) and it cost more for coverage than if there wasn’t a preexisting condition (no different than under Obamacare).
Of course, you can’t provide “insurance” for a pre-existing condition without a waiting period and higher premiums to address the KNOWN risk.
This is why my parents always said to have your baby covered by your insurance policy from the time of birth. Then if the baby was born or shortly thereafter developed a medical condition, it would not be preexisting to the coverage.
Sounds like you need to shop around some. Health insurance varies greatly state to state, but my wife and I have had an HSA through United with a $5700 combined deductible for nearly 10 years now. The insurance kicks in at 100% after the deductible has been met. I have a pre-existing heart condition that requires daily medication and regular monitoring by a Cardiologist, as well as infrequent trips to the ER when my arrhythmia acts up. Our cost is about $420/month for both of us. United has never not payed a claim. In fact, they seem to be very good at eliminating frivolous charges and holding hospitals, doctors and other medical services to their contractual obligations with the United Health Care network.
I heard this from a liberal a few days ago. The part about having to not have insurance for 6 months before one could qualify.
Her husband has some rare pre-existing and both are on COBRA now. According to their insurance broker...their monthly goes UP, yes...goes UP on this plan.
And he/she don’t qualify unless they have NO coverage for 6 months. It all seemed overly complicated as we talked about it. I didn’t understand some of what she was trying to explain, but I did get the jist of it.
1. It ain’t no free ride.
2. Her husband can/will die during the 6 month wait. (It is a serious pre-existing condition in which he has no immune system.)
3. She is taking to holding benefit dinners etc. to raise money for his medications.
She has also contacted Oprah.
If George Bush had tried to shove something this big down our throats, the MSM would have looked into it - and we'd know the downsides. As is, a dem did it, the MSM didn't look, and all the surprises will be horrors.
Cheers!
“Anyone know how all this affects the Veterans Affairs medical system?”
I don’t believe anything was done to change VA medical. I probably should look into that.
“People will feel they’re being choked financially, and neglected in terms of their health needs.”
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Wrong, dead wrong! They won’t “feel” it, they will DAMNED WELL KNOW IT!
RE: “I was forced to go the the emergency room last year for a couple of stitches, and I asked the billing department to itemize how much of my bill was earmarked for “charity care” so that I could be sure to deduct it on my taxes...that went over well...LOL!”
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I wish I’d known about that ‘charity care’ business when I was forced to pay a large out of pocket bill for ER services recently — also for a couple of X-rays and stitches from a fall while walking my crazy dog on a Friday evening. No choice but to go to ER as I knew I needed stitches. My lousy insurance covered barely half the bill.
Stacy on the Rush show ping.
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