Health care premiums may not be affordable
By Alex Wayne and Alex Nussbaum, Bloomberg
Health insurance under Obamacare will cost individuals at least $2,988 a year on average, a price that Republican opponents may target as out-of-reach for many Americans who don’t qualify for U.S. subsidies.
While the $249 monthly payment is intended to be discounted through tax credits, less than half of people now buying insurance on their own may get that help. The release of the data by the Obama administration comes just six days before the Affordable Care Act’s insurance exchanges open for enrollment, and a day after Ted Cruz, a Texas Republican, took the floor of the U.S. Senate to oppose the law.
The affordability of the overhaul has polarized debate since the act passed in 2010. While the law’s cheapest plans offer more care than minimal policies available today, including guaranteed coverage for people with pre-existing conditions, their cost may persist as an issue even though it affects only a relatively small percentage of people.
The law’s long-term success “will depend on the changes that are made over the next couple of years to address the affordability issue,” said Brian Wright, an insurance analyst at Monness Crespi Hardt & Co. in New York. “If you have modifications that can help address those issues, then it will ultimately be successful. If not, then it’s an open question.”
NO ONE IS INTERESTED ? – – – I want to share what has happened to me during recent years. Three years ago I was injured and briefly was not in control of the situation. Someone, other than me, chose what health care I would receive. When the matter was concluded, the bill was a monster, about 20 times what should have been billed for services rendered. Then one and a half years later I was injured, and needed a couple of xrays. I was in control of the situation and obtained the xrays for about $65. The xray facility did not receive government aid. The $65 was the full bill. These cases are why I don’t want to relinquish control of my health care decisions to anyone. I think the health care providers want Obama Care, and that’s because this will be a big cash cow for them.
Hi Pizza-
I am distressed at your experience with injury etc, but there is something wrong with the picture you present. WHO was in charge of your health care decisions? Why were you subjected to care you obviously didn’t want?
My guess is you were probably in our local Barton Hospital.
Obama Care is an unfortunate name, but it does NOT have any provisions in it to decide when and what care you get if you are sick or injured. Like all insurance there may be limitations on payments for some procedures etc, but the decision on what care you get is indeed up to you or someone you have designated.
I have lived under no health insurance conditions, under employer paid coverage, under shared employee and employer paid coverage, and now under medicare. I have seen it all. The one which works the best is clearly single payer plans and medicare has been established as the one plan having the lowest administrative cost of all in the US. I remain deeply distressed that the Obama administration did not follow a single payer model for Obama care. The entire country could benefit like we seniors do not, but he buckled to the “for profit model” the republicans are so fond of.
It is insane in my opinion to have for profit insurance and hospitals in the most powerful country on earth.
Clearly having zero coverage is really dumb, especially for young people (who rarely get sick) but all too frequently pursue sports where they suffer severe injuries and often wind up on welfare and when they cannot cover the cost of the care. Remember ER rooms are forbidden to turn people away.
Before my wife became eligible for medicare, (a thin healthy woman who has been in the hospital only for birth of our children years ago), could not get insurance for less than $900 to $1000 per month, and this policy had an $8000. deductible. We paid it at great difficulty, because we just happen to own our house, and if there had been a serious health issue uninsured, we would have been required to sell our main asset in order to pay the medical bills. Medicaid would have been available only after we had spent our assets down to a very small number, and been reduced to renting instead of owning.
The most frequent reason for personal bankruptcy in the US is medical costs. This is an absolute travesty. Hospitals routinely collect the bills in any way they can. I can demonstrate one situation where a local facility sent a SLT resident to collections for under 10 bucks. I expect it costs more than 10 bucks just to get the papers filled out to do this.
Single payer coverage in a Federal program, ideally an extension of the medicare system is in my opinion what the answer is. It would eliminate the situation described.
Everyone should be required to pay into the system as medicare is designed.
If there was not such a profit driven motive in hospitals, the costs would drop.
By the way, our dear Barton hospital, chartered as a non-profit, is well known as the most expensive health care option in the area. But not the best health care option Their specialty is to push high end, high cost/low risk procedures like multiple scans on as many people as possible. Scans do not fix anything, just (maybe) identify it.
Barton recently actually published the results of a “new” study that showed a more than 50 percent (if I recall correctly),increase in patient safety. If the record of patient safety had gone up recently by double digits, you have to ask yourself what have they been doing and how many people have they killed or made worse in all the 50 years they have been in business. What did they do to finally get it right that they couldn’t have done before?