Originally Posted by radind

Cutting the cost of prescription drugs would help some, but major costs are for doctors and hospitals. In addition, some doctors are opting out of Medicare. We need a real system that works. It appears to me that the current 'system' is on the verge of breaking down. I don't see problem with paying more than the Canadian system, but we already pay enough in total for a good system. We just need an approach that works.

Take apart the current system, and look for inefficiencies and waste. Here's a very partial list - add as you wish:

1. Doctors in debt: why do we force medical students into massive debt, then turn them loose on patients?
   
   1. This could be solved by offereing free schooling for X nuber of years of service in the USW medical system, much as we do now for the miltary and pulic health docs.
   2. At the very least, heavily subsidize US students in US med schools.
   
   
2. Sky-high perescriptions: We should have a single contract for meds, and all drug stores and clinics dispense based on a common cost structure
3. Too much, and too little: In some ares we have to many high cost medical systems for the number of potential patients. In other areas, too few. This applies to emergency rooms, hosptial beds, MRI machines, and just about every other medical non-disposable.
   
   1. We could refuse to pay for procedures based on excessive use of these systems. (Hard to evaluate and manage. Effectiveness is ???)
   2. Alternately, we could have state or regional authorities in charge of how many of each are purchased, and where they reside. (Intrusive, but effective)
   
   
4. Compensation: This is a direct result of first item, but applies more broadly. Compensatoin is widely divergent, from miserly to uber-extravagant. Narrow the range - especially at the very top. This applies broadly to everyone from CNAs to celebrity surgeons.

Carry on from here.

Originally Posted by Marx & Lennon

Take apart the current system, and look for inefficiencies and waste. Here's a very partial list - add as you wish:

1. Doctors in debt: why do we force medical students into massive debt, then turn them loose on patients?
   
   1. This could be solved by offering free schooling for X number of years of service in the USW medical system, much as we do now for the miltary and pulic health docs.
   2. At the very least, heavily subsidize US students in US med schools.
   
   
2. Sky-high prescriptions: We should have a single contract for meds, and all drug stores and clinics dispense based on a common cost structure
3. Too much, and too little: In some ares we have to many high cost medical systems for the number of potential patients. In other areas, too few. This applies to emergency rooms, hospital beds, MRI machines, and just about every other medical non-disposable.
   
   1. We could refuse to pay for procedures based on excessive use of these systems. (Hard to evaluate and manage. Effectiveness is ???)
   2. Alternately, we could have state or regional authorities in charge of how many of each are purchased, and where they reside. (Intrusive, but effective)
   
   
4. Compensation: This is a direct result of first item, but applies more broadly. Compensation is widely divergent, from miserly to uber-extravagant. Narrow the range - especially at the very top. This applies broadly to everyone from CNAs to celebrity surgeons.

Carry on from here.

The one positive for American physicians is that they endure low income taxes by standards of the industrial world on their high incomes. So low income taxes should be drawing doctors from high-tax countries like Great Britain, Germany, and Sweden? Not so fast. The German educational system offers free education to any level, including professional schools, to anyone who has the demonstrated ability to put it to use. Germany has no shortage of physicians, but they seem to spend their time on medicine. American physicians either go through the hoops of entities from the federal government to a plethora of for-profit insurance companies that range from skin-flint misers to cost-plus gougers (of premium payers). American physicians typically must hire office staff to deal with bureaucracies that would gladly stiff a physician for services rendered. Just think of the old-fashioned doctor who was a model of efficiency whose office didn't need an office staff for billing and compliance. Of course we need some means of deterring medical fraud (such as blatant quackery, the prescription of narcotics to patients who complain about 'back pain' and never have the patient undergo an examination, double-billing for services rendered, payment requests for phantom prescriptions, drilling and filling of teeth that have no tooth decay).

Doctor Marcus Welby, MD is no more.

Pharmaceuticals? We operate on the assumption that high prices spur innovation in medical care. That is a political decision that reflects pathologies elsewhere. Think about it: the postal service does not pay MSLP for delivery vehicles so that it can promote innovation in the auto industry. It would be possible to promote prosperity to privileged industries by allowing monopolists to set exorbitant prices. But we would make ourselves less competitive. Rig the cost of tractor-trailers so that they cost 15 times as much as the market? We would have big disadvantages in selling anything American-made.

Showcase technologies? It would be cheaper to transport people from hospital to hospital by limo.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/...s-tax-penalty/

“I am especially interested to know what happens, if anything, when my 2013 federal tax return does not include the Obamacare form and when I refuse to comply with any request to produce one?” Gene asked in his e-mail. “Am I correct that if I do not provide the form, there is nothing the IRS can do to me? And if they can do something to me, what is it that they can do?”...

If an individual does not carry insurance coverage and does not have exemptions, that’s where a tax penalty could come into play. In 2014, the health law includes a $95 penalty for not carrying health insurance... In order to collect, the IRS will typically dock that amount from an individual’s tax return.

Gene has, however, already thought this issue through. He plans to adjust his “quarterly estimated payments to ensure I do not have a tax refund, which I understand to be the only source from which the IRS can extract any penalties that I refuse to pay voluntarily.”

This, Livingston said, is actually a strategy that might just work...

If there’s no tax refund, where else can the IRS get its $95? Typically, the IRS does have a number of steps by which to recoup unpaid taxes. It can garnish your wages, for example, or, in rare cases, seize property. But with the health mandate, the law’s drafters specifically barred the agency from any of those more aggressive tactics...

“In the case of any failure by a taxpayer to timely pay any penalty imposed by this section,” Section 1501 of the Affordable Care Act reads, “Such taxpayer shall not be subject to any criminal prosecution or penalty with respect to such failure.”

If a penalty does not come out of a refund, it does not fully disappear. Instead, it gets carried over to next year’s tax filings and held on the filer’s account. The Internal Revenue Service is also allowed to charge interest on any unpaid tax penalty... The rate currently hovers around 3 percent.

So the tax penalties accumulate, and the interest goes up and up. But even in an extreme example, where someone doesn’t pay the health law’s penalties for decades, the powers that the Internal Revenue Service has to collect the unpaid fines don’t change.

“The IRS remains very clearly limited in its ability to collect the penalty,” Livingston says, “And the accumulation over time does not change those legal limitations.”

Originally Posted by Marx & Lennon

... which was the least of the article. Are Canadian doctors leaving for the US? No. Are Candians unhappy with thier healthcare? No. Is Canadian healthcare cheaper? Yes.

-No, the article spent a lot of time applauding a supposedly "low" Canadian rate of medical tourism which is about the same as all Americans going anywhere.

My response covers the topic at hand, which was Canadians coming to the USA when they need real help.

But whatever. Take from it what you want to take from it. If providing you with the article has helped you in any way, good!

Originally Posted by The Wonkette

I belong to a Toastmasters Club where we meet for lunch or dinner, and intersperse dining and dinner-time conversation with regular Toastmasters fare (speeches and evaluations). One of the members is Canadian and at one meeting, she brought her elderly parents who was visiting her at the time. I happened to chat with the mother -- either I sat with her or we talked in the restroom; I can't quite remember.

I asked her about the Canadian single-payer system and how it worked. She acknowledged the waits for discretionary procedures, such as hip replacements. However, if you have a heart attack or cancer, the treatment is excellent. Indeed, she said that many would-be snowbirds are reluctant to winter in places like Florida or Arizona because of the health insurance issue and the fear of getting stuck with huge medical debt.

It was an interesting perspective. I'd appreciate it if Wayneh56 could comment on this...

The most important things to understand about how Canadians feel about our single payer healthcare system is that we love it. It is part of our national identity. Period. Full Stop. It is a conservative viewpoint as well to support single payer healthcare in Canada. It is not just liberals or progressives who support it. Our system is universally supported. That aspect of the system is often very difficult for American conservatives and reactionaries to understand.

We also know the system has some flaws and we are always working to improve the system. Again, that is hard for Americans, accustomed to things changing at a glacial pace, to understand as well. When we want to make changes and improvements in the system, they happen quickly and decisively. It is a system. We Canadians are used to systems, and we understand very well that no system on Earth is perfect. We don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good. As a result, we strive for continuous improvement. We are a country where changing and amending our Constitution is a national pastime, for example.

We have heard all of the usual criticisms, including the favourite "but so many Canadians go the USA", and "your waiting lists are rationing", so often that we can number them as Criticism Number 1 and Criticism Number 2 just to save time. The fact of the matter is we acknowledge our system challenges and work to improve them. We accept rationing by time, as it is the easiest flaw to repair. An increase in the number of doctors, available beds, and equipment cuts the wait times down. In America, the choice is to ration by price, ability to pay, and the whim of an insurance company bureaucrat. Pick your rationing method. No system is perfect. And we know that; so criticisms and cheap shots as to our system not being perfect don't even matter to us. We acknowledge them and work to fix those flaws.

If a Canadian chooses to go elsewhere, as many Americans do as well in the burgeoning healthcare tourism industry, it is usually for elective procedures. We don't whine about it. We wish them well, if they prefer to pay cash, rather than utilize the publicly funded Canadian system.

As a matter of interest, that standard and false canard of "a government bureaucrat deciding your fate" has nothing to do with the Canadian system. Our system is doctor-patient centric. The doctor and patient decide on treatments and on whether to go to specialists and advanced treatments. The sole role of the government is funding. They make no decisions in the treatments.

Added in edit for clarification:

Canadians also choose their own family doctors. We are not forced to use any doctor selected by someone else. That false canard is often used as well by those who don't understand the Canadian system. Any decisions as to the referral to specialists are made in consultation with between the doctor and patient. The family physician may recommend a specialist, but the patient has the option of preferring another specialist instead. The consultation continues between doctor and patient until a suitable specialist is chosen together.

Originally Posted by JDG 66

....Gene has, however, already thought this issue through....

What's going to be fun for Gene is when he shows up at the emergency room without insurance. If anyone thinks Gene or other idiots like Glick have thought this through, well, you're in for some surprises.

I'm curious as to how many who support Obamacare, are also working in some form to get a healthcare for all. As the following article explains, it's time to put the insurance industry's cartel out of business. And, past the time for political representatives to stop taking campaign contributions from these crooks.

"Three-quarters of 'medical debtors' had health insurance at the time they went bankrupt. If health insurance does not prevent us from going bankrupt when we are sick, is it even insurance?"

Underinsured in the Age of Obamacare

The Affordable Care Act does not make healthcare a right.

During the second presidential debate of 2008, Tom Brokaw asked Barack Obama and John McCain: “Is healthcare in America a privilege, a right or a responsibility?”

Obama, unlike McCain, did not hesitate to respond plainly that healthcare “should be a right for every American.” He proceeded to make healthcare reform a major goal of his presidency.


Sadly, though, whatever its merits (and they are substantial), the Affordable Care Act (ACA) will not create a right to healthcare in America. Nor will it lead to a system of universal healthcare. Not because it will leave millions uninsured—though it will do that—for if uninsurance were the law’s only flaw, with some combination of an expansion of subsidies and of Medicaid, the ACA could be transformed into a truly universal system. The law has a more fundamental flaw: It fails to reverse a peculiarly American trend toward what is euphemistically called “underinsurance.” We may have health insurance, in other words, but we cannot afford to become ill.


The ACA may actually exacerbate a practice that many of us face, in a limited and innocuous way, in our encounters with the healthcare system—a practice known as “cost-sharing.”

http://inthesetimes.com/article/1509..._of_obamacare/

I'm curious as to how many who support Obamacare, are also working in some form to get a healthcare for all. As the following article explains, it's time to put the insurance industry's cartel out of business. And, past the time for political representatives to stop taking campaign contributions from these crooks.

"Three-quarters of 'medical debtors' had health insurance at the time they went bankrupt. If health insurance does not prevent us from going bankrupt when we are sick, is it even insurance?"

Underinsured in the Age of Obamacare

The Affordable Care Act does not make healthcare a right.

During the second presidential debate of 2008, Tom Brokaw asked Barack Obama and John McCain: “Is healthcare in America a privilege, a right or a responsibility?”

Obama, unlike McCain, did not hesitate to respond plainly that healthcare “should be a right for every American.” He proceeded to make healthcare reform a major goal of his presidency.


Sadly, though, whatever its merits (and they are substantial), the Affordable Care Act (ACA) will not create a right to healthcare in America. Nor will it lead to a system of universal healthcare. Not because it will leave millions uninsured—though it will do that—for if uninsurance were the law’s only flaw, with some combination of an expansion of subsidies and of Medicaid, the ACA could be transformed into a truly universal system. The law has a more fundamental flaw: It fails to reverse a peculiarly American trend toward what is euphemistically called “underinsurance.” We may have health insurance, in other words, but we cannot afford to become ill.

The ACA may actually exacerbate a practice that many of us face, in a limited and innocuous way, in our encounters with the healthcare system—a practice known as “cost-sharing.”

As for the Massachusetts plan...........

As we peer into the future of healthcare in America, let’s look at how the system on which the ACA was modeled—Mitt Romney’s Massachusetts health plan—has fared. A 2012 report by the state’s Division of Health Care Finance and Policy found that Massachusetts employers increasingly choose insurance plans with fewer benefits, higher cost-sharing and lesser value. Between the years 2008 and 2010, the percentage of small group enrollees in the most risky, highest cost-sharing and seemingly least attractive plans (the bronze plans) increased from 2 percent to 27 percent, while those in the most comprehensive plans with less cost-sharing declined from 34 percent to 11 percent.


It may appear to make perfect sense for a healthy individual—or an employer—to favor low-premium, high-deductible plans. Why throw away thousands of dollars of much needed money every year for insurance premiums when using very little healthcare? Of course this is a gamble, but for those with significant competing expenses, choices have to be made.


The unfortunate reality, meanwhile, is that we all get sick, often when we least expect it. Insurance designed for the healthy is laughably absurd.

http://inthesetimes.com/article/1509..._of_obamacare/

Originally Posted by Deb C

..."Three-quarters of 'medical debtors' had health insurance at the time they went bankrupt. If health insurance does not prevent us from going bankrupt when we are sick, is it even insurance?"

Once again you've posted something that is completely absurd. One of the primary objectives of the ACA was to stop medical bankruptcy and I've posted a real-world example of how that will be done before -

http://www.fourthturning.com/forum/s...155#post470155

What Is The Out of Pocket Maximum You Will Pay Under the PPACA?

and then this crap -

Originally Posted by Deb C

As for the Massachusetts plan...........

Do you think the going from 2% to 27% in the Bronze plan might just possible be a result of people affording and getting insurance for the first time? And perhaps the drop in the number getting the high end insurance a result of less-coverage plans being better than they've ever been in the past and people deciding why pay for the higher cost plans? duh.

Posting this kind of half-truths and out right idiocy isn't going to help your cause. And once the ACA is up and actually working, you're going to look ridiculous to a lot of people that are currently listening to you.

Sure single payer or even a public option would be better, but if you don't bring reality to the table why would anyone believe you when you are talking the truth???

Consider this tough love.

Trans-Pacific Partnership undermines health system

Medical corporations seek tools to protect their profits despite harmful effects on public health. The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) is a deal that is being secretly negotiated by the White House, with the help of more than 600 corporate advisers and Pacific Rim nations, including Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore and Vietnam. While the TPP is being called a trade agreement, the US already has trade agreements covering 90 percent of the GDP of the countries involved in the talks. Instead, the TPP is a major power grab by large corporations. The text of the TPP includes 29 chapters, only five of which are about trade. The remaining chapters are focused on changes that multinational corporations have not been able to pass in Congress such as restrictions on internet privacy, increased patent protections, greater access to litigation and further financial deregulation. The impact on our health system:

From the information available, one thing is clear about the impacts of the TPP on health care: the intention of the TPP is to enhance and protect the profits of medical and pharmaceutical corporations without considering the harmful effects their policies will have on human health.


We know that the TPP will extend pharmaceutical and medical device patents and provide other tools to keep the prices of these necessities high. This will make medications and treatments unaffordable for millions of people and raise the costs of national health programmes. At its worst, the TPP will provide a pathway to infect the world's health systems with the deadly parasite of for-profit health corporations that plague the US.

http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opi...230432720.html

Originally Posted by Deb C

Trans-Pacific Partnership undermines health system

Medical corporations seek tools to protect their profits despite harmful effects on public health. The impact on our health system:

http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opi...230432720.html

Even allowing that your points are valid, we still need a mechanism for turing expesive research into usable products. It may be that the only research in the future will be funded by taxes, though I seriously doubt it. On the other hand, turing everyitng over to private entities leaves us in much the same state that the intelligence agencies find themselves today. Finding a good balance and ideentifying a viable though not rapacious funding regime is not tribvial, but it's pretty much mandatory.

Originally Posted by Marx & Lennon

Even allowing that your points are valid, we still need a mechanism for turing expesive research into usable products. It may be that the only research in the future will be funded by taxes, though I seriously doubt it. On the other hand, turing everyitng over to private entities leaves us in much the same state that the intelligence agencies find themselves today. Finding a good balance and ideentifying a viable though not rapacious funding regime is not tribvial, but it's pretty much mandatory.

Problem is that this deal puts more power into the hands of corporations. Just what we need, right?

From the article:

As medical corporations gain greater wealth and power, we can expect to see further abuses to the detriment of human health. The TPP takes global health in the wrong direction. The losers in this negotiation will be the patients if the profits of corporations are permitted to come before the health of people.

Originally Posted by Deb C

Problem is that this deal puts more power into the hands of corporations. Just what we need, right?

From the article:

It seems we've forgotten how to regulate. Frankly, it's baffling. Even the companies do better in a regulated environment. It prevents them from gouging us when times are good and killing each other through cut-throat competition when times are tight. The airlines should be begging to be regulated again. Public utilities too.

- as when the tide began to turn.

Here's the first ad preparing folks to sign-up this Fall -





The campaign will gradually increase throughout the summer.

Grab the popcorn and watch the increasing rate of haters' heads exploding.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/theapoth...34-80-percent/

For all the talk about rate shock—next year’s Obamacare-induced spike in health insurance prices—there are a few states where you’d think rate shock shouldn’t happen. In Maine, New Jersey, New York, Vermont, and Washington, insurance markets are already regulated in much the same way that Obamacare will... Despite these factors, it turns out that in Washington state, Obamacare will still increase the underlying cost of individually purchased health insurance by 34 to 80 percent, on average...

Originally Posted by playwrite

So you're not going to owned up to that "76(74)% of Californians" mistake and just hope to paper over it. I'm cool with that...

-He should be cool with those figures, since the figures came from an article he's been humping:

Originally Posted by JDG 66

-http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/...es-rate-shock/

According to HealthCare.gov, 14 percent of people who try to buy that plan are turned away outright. Another 12 percent are told they’ll have to pay more than $109...

14% + 12% = 26%.

100% - 26% = 74%...

Originally Posted by playwrite

What's going to be fun for Gene is when he shows up at the emergency room without insurance...

..the hospital still has to treat him.

Anyway, Obamacare thinks you can force people to get medical insurance when they don't want it.

We'll see.

Originally Posted by JDG 66

... percent, on average... blah, blah blah

Dude, you don't know that fractions (and that includes percentages, Jimmie) have denominators in them and you still think people want you to do the math for them???

Can we say, "pathetic?"

"The Obama Administration announced yesterday that the employer mandate requiring businesses to provide their workers with health insurance will be delayed by a year. What a coincidence, that will put it after the 2014 midterm elections. Many Democrats fear they will go down to defeat if it should be implemented before the elections, and have been pushing Obama to delay it. The "health care" industry sees it as a bonanza to provide multimillion dollar salaries to executives and billions in profits to investors by forcing healthy young people to buy crap health insurance (as opposed to a single payer system, which would be less expensive, provide better care, and be far more efficient)." LUV News

- with more mindless posting of propaganda --

Originally Posted by Deb C

"The Obama Administration announced yesterday that the employer mandate requiring businesses to provide their workers with health insurance will be delayed by a year. What a coincidence, that will put it after the 2014 midterm elections. Many Democrats fear they will go down to defeat if it should be implemented before the elections, and have been pushing Obama to delay it.

This part of the law is expected to impact less than 1 million people. It was not really supported by those on the Left that actually know something about the law -

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/...rss_ezra-klein

Obamacare’s employer mandate shouldn’t be delayed. It should be repealed.

- so okay, it's not one of the big parts of the law and it doesn't get much love, but at least its in the realm of rational possibilites that its delay may have been in whole or part politically motivated. I can give you that.

However, let's move on to the Far Left trying to do some sort of imitation of a t-baggin dance -

Originally Posted by Deb C

The "health care" industry sees it as a bonanza to provide multimillion dollar salaries to executives and billions in profits to investors by forcing healthy young people to buy crap health insurance (as opposed to a single payer system, which would be less expensive, provide better care, and be far more efficient)." LUV News

Putting aside all your imitation Glick tricks of color and font changes, just exactly how does this delay result in "a bonanza to provide mulitimillion dollar salaries to executives"???

This should be fun.

Originally Posted by Deb C

"The Obama Administration announced yesterday that the employer mandate requiring businesses to provide their workers with health insurance will be delayed by a year. What a coincidence, that will put it after the 2014 midterm elections. Many Democrats fear they will go down to defeat if it should be implemented before the elections, and have been pushing Obama to delay it. The "health care" industry sees it as a bonanza to provide multimillion dollar salaries to executives and billions in profits to investors by forcing healthy young people to buy crap health insurance (as opposed to a single payer system, which would be less expensive, provide better care, and be far more efficient)." LUV News

Politics dominates again as usual. Perhaps some State or coalition of States could try a single payer system as a pilot project. This could provide information to guide the national debate.

Originally Posted by radind

Politics dominates again as usual. Perhaps some State or coalition of States could try a single payer system as a pilot project. This could provide information to guide the national debate.

Vermont will offer a Public Option, which may get us there before you are on Medicare.

My sentiments exactly.

"Giving big business a year longer than individual citizens on the Affordable Care Act/Obamacare insurance mandates seems to show this administration's continued willingness to favor corporate interests over those of the average citizen," said Donna Smith, executive director of Health Care for All Colorado, which argues for a universal health coverage system going further than Obamacare.

. and it's only July!

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/17/he...d=myyahoo&_r=0

Health Plan Cost for New Yorkers Set to Fall 50%

Individuals buying health insurance on their own will see their premiums tumble next year in New York State as changes under the federal health care law take effect, state officials are to announce on Wednesday.

State insurance regulators say they have approved rates for 2014 that are at least 50 percent lower on average than those currently available in New York. Beginning in October, individuals in New York City who now pay $1,000 a month or more for coverage will be able to shop for health insurance for as little as $308 monthly. With federal subsidies, the cost will be even lower.

Supporters of the new health care law, the Affordable Care Act, credited the drop in rates to the online purchasing exchanges the law created, which they say are spurring competition among insurers that are anticipating an influx of new customers. The law requires that an exchange be started in every state.

“Health insurance has suddenly become affordable in New York,” said Elisabeth Benjamin, vice president for health initiatives with the Community Service Society of New York. “It’s not bargain-basement prices, but we’re going from Bergdorf’s to Filene’s here.”

“The extraordinary decline in New York’s insurance rates for individual consumers demonstrates the profound promise of the Affordable Care Act,” she added.

Administration officials, long confronted by Republicans and other critics of President Obama’s signature law, were quick to add New York to the list of states that appear to be successfully carrying out the law and setting up exchanges.

“We’re seeing in New York what we’ve seen in other states like California and Oregon — that competition and transparency in the marketplaces are leading to affordable and new choices for families,” said Joanne Peters, a spokeswoman for the Department of Health and Human Services.

The new premium rates do not affect a majority of New Yorkers, who receive insurance through their employers, only those who must purchase it on their own. Because the cost of individual coverage has soared, only 17,000 New Yorkers currently buy insurance on their own. About 2.6 million are uninsured in New York State.

State officials estimate as many as 615,000 individuals will buy health insurance on their own in the first few years the health law is in effect. In addition to lower premiums, about three-quarters of those people will be eligible for the subsidies available to lower-income individuals.

“New York’s health benefits exchange will offer the type of real competition that helps drive down health insurance costs for consumers and businesses,” said Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo.

The plans to be offered on the exchanges all meet certain basic requirements, as laid out in the law, but are in four categories from most generous to least: platinum, gold, silver and bronze. An individual with annual income of $17,000 will pay about $55 a month for a silver plan, state regulators said. A person with a $20,000 income will pay about $85 a month for a silver plan, while someone earning $25,000 will pay about $145 a month for a silver plan.

The least expensive plans, some offered by newcomers to the market, may not offer wide access to hospitals and doctors, experts said.

While the rates will fall over all, apples-to-apples comparisons are impossible from this year to next because all of the plans are essentially new insurance products.

The rates for small businesses, which are considerably lower than for individuals, will not fall as precipitously. But small businesses will be eligible for tax credits, and the exchanges will make it easier for them to select a plan. Roughly 15,000 plans are available today to small businesses, and choosing among them is particularly challenging.

“Where New York previously had a dizzying array of thousands upon thousands of plans, small businesses will now be able to truly comparison-shop for the best prices,” said Benjamin M. Lawsky, the state’s top financial regulator.

Officials at the state Department of Financial Services say they have approved 17 insurers to sell individual coverage through the New York exchange, including eight that are just entering the state’s commercial market. Many of these are insurers specializing in Medicaid plans that cater to low-income individuals.

Let's see, NY, CA and OR, just the ones mentioned have 1/5 of the US population, where things are looking pretty good for Obamacare.

What insurers are forcing people to pay is dropping by 50% and those moochers are getting better insurance than ever before??!!!! Debs, your corporate bootlickin Obama sure seem inept.

This summer, you might want to occasionally try a taste of crow ... might help you prepare for your big dish next year.

Now back to your drum circle and 'changing the world.'

Read between the lines in this article from the New York Times. This is only for people purchasing on their own. According to the law, all employers have to provide insurance. That means those people are not part of this article.


Read the whole piece - only seventeen thousand people in New York are affected. Another intentional misdirection.

From: The New York Times

Health Plan Cost for New Yorkers Set to Fall 50%


Individuals buying health insurance on their own will see their premiums tumble next year in New York State, and supporters of the health care overhaul credit the online purchasing exchanges the law created.

http://nyti.ms/15EsUGU

Originally Posted by Deb C

Read between the lines in this article from the New York Times. This is only for people purchasing on their own. According to the law, all employers have to provide insurance. That means those people are not part of this article.


Read the whole piece - only seventeen thousand people in New York are affected. Another intentional misdirection.

From: The New York Times

Health Plan Cost for New Yorkers Set to Fall 50%


Individuals buying health insurance on their own will see their premiums tumble next year in New York State, and supporters of the health care overhaul credit the online purchasing exchanges the law created.

http://nyti.ms/15EsUGU

No, what you are missing is that those other people are not impacted at all. They got their insurance already through their employers or the government - and most are happy with it.

Sorry to the Right that no death panels are coming to take grandma; and sorry to the fringe Left that no there is no windfall to insurers without any benefit to the people.

Now back to your drum circle; you're gonna have to pound harder!

Please - STOP referring to health insurance plans as "healthcare." They are no such thing!

"Healthcare" is what the clinic or emergency room or your very own primary care practitioner (or the village wisewoman) does.

These 'healthcare plans' are convoluted and baroque mechanisms to *pay for* such care, not to provide it.

And - by covering the smallest of expenses ("You paid $7.00 for this medication. Your insurance paid $5.29." Good grief, people, is that worth the cost of the paperwork?!?!?) and failing to cover the catastrophic cases for which insurance is really needed, they don't even function the way real insurance does!

But what they do, is distort the real price of the care, to the point where you need to hire an expert to tell you that you can save several thousand dollars by going to this medical center instead of that one, with the heaviest burden falling on the cash customer.

So - let's have a little rectification of names here?

Originally Posted by The Grey Badger

Please - STOP referring to health insurance plans as "healthcare." They are no such thing!

"Healthcare" is what the clinic or emergency room or your very own primary care practitioner (or the village wisewoman) does.

These 'healthcare plans' are convoluted and baroque mechanisms to *pay for* such care, not to provide it.

And - by covering the smallest of expenses ("You paid $7.00 for this medication. Your insurance paid $5.29." Good grief, people, is that worth the cost of the paperwork?!?!?) and failing to cover the catastrophic cases for which insurance is really needed, they don't even function the way real insurance does!

But what they do, is distort the real price of the care, to the point where you need to hire an expert to tell you that you can save several thousand dollars by going to this medical center instead of that one, with the heaviest burden falling on the cash customer.

So - let's have a little rectification of names here?

Amen, sister!