100% right on the money. Business stated offering fringe "benefits" as a result of FDR's wage/price controls in WWII. This was a way to keep and attract workers. Well, a freebie once given is never taken away. Then workers kept demanding more and more fringes. The reason is simple there is/was no tax on them. Great way to increase your income free of taxes.
I can remember going to a MD as a child and having to pay $10 for the visit, no copay, that's it, $10. Today the MD has to charge $125 because of regulations, paperwork and the other costs of this paperwork nightmare.
Get the government out of everything and back to the role it was intended for, not being a "sugar daddy" to everybody. rant off.

I remember a similar debate when car insurance was made mandatory. We were told that requiring everyone to get insurance would reduce the costs for everyone, but people were always very vague on the details. The costs never did go down.
If government has to use force to require people to do something, it is not in their best interest.

I’m facing the truth. I prefer single-payer to what has been put in place. We can’t go back. The system is going to crash. As much as I would love to see the government out of health care all together that is never going to happen.
Your right about business being partly to blame, but regulations were the reason that businesses started offering benefit packages. During the early part of the twentieth century when the government froze salaries during wartime, business began to offer fringe benefit packages to circumvent the freeze in order to continue to compete with other businesses for the brightest workers.
How do you suggest realistically we get the government out of our health care when every time a Democrat stands up and ask, “So you don’t like this plan; what is yours?” a Republican stands up and responds, “Oooooh, I’ve got a plan better than yours!”

There isn’t anyone in power brave enough to stand up and say, “The American people say--butt-out, period.”

How would you fix this problem?

Many people that had affordable insurance saw their policies cancelled. To get affordable healthcare would mean allowing the free market system to work. This administration will never let that happen.

"A few dollars a paycheck"... where'd you get that idea? And why are you okay with MORE taxation?
The ideas they are kicking around are probably... "hmm let's who has student loan debt that went to medical school..... THEY will work where we say and when and how.. they owe us." Heck all student loans regardless of medical schooling will be manhandled eventually... in my opinion anyway.

All government programs are bad. They are all based on force. It is theft! It will never be cost effective or efficient for the producers. But, I guarantee it will destroy the best health care system the world has thus far known. People who equate health insurance with health care are not thinking (or simply cannot think). If they ever make it to single payer, we will truly be in bad shape!

I would have preferred single-payer. Take a few dollars out of my paycheck every week rather than me coming up with a few hundred dollars a month for coverage that barely lifts be out of no man’s land (an area which there are no competent doctors).
There something to be said for health care in the UK. You can go anywhere in the European Union and you are covered completely. Some people in the UK also pay for private insurance so they have that assurance of not having to wait in case of emergency, but the people I have talked to that do have an extra policy can’t remember when the last time they actually used it. Single payer could have been debated, honestly.
Tearing down the system to force us into a situation where a single payer system is the only alternative is evil. It means years upon years of enduring a broken system that isn’t even affordable. The middle class is going to get nailed. This is a horrible abuse of power. But you are right, health insurance is not health care, and the next need we will be clamoring for is more doctors. They must have an idea of how they are going to approach that problem, and I’m scared of what are the ideas they are kicking around.

There are income thresholds based on family size that dictate any premium subsidy you may be eligible for. It is provided via the Advance Premium Tax Credit on your tax return. However, if you don't file taxes now, that won't really help you. This is a way to make all individuals file a tax return whether they have income or not and to thus track and control them even further.

Hahaha. I’m not going anywhere near a government link till this president is out of office.

That’s it! Now, somewhere buried in the Affordable Health Care Act there should be a disclaimer that states this credit has a end date. It is only to get the program off the ground. Every time I see a news report of people suffering from sticker shock, there is this need to make light of the higher premiums because of the premium subsidy.”See? It’s not so bad.”,they seem to be saying, But nobody is reading the fine print.

The details are here - https://www.healthcare.gov/will-i-qualif...

The fine will be collected from any refunds due you on your tax return. So if you plan your tax year to have no refund due you they (IRS) cannot collect the fine. However, those paying the fine are also responsible for ALL of the costs of any healthcare they actually use.

Instead of trying to unravel thousands of pages of health care law, I keep it simple. If it was a good idea it would sell itself and be optional. The fact it was made into law with penalties if you resist suggests something closer to theft. There is no escape; it is bad history repeating itself.

Not just vague but also dishonest. You make a great point. The people most likely to sign up for Obamacare need affordable insurance. If these subsidies go away that will financially hurt them in the long run.

Thanks.

So much about this law has changed Mimi and we now know that they flat out lied about keeping your own plan. What you heard earlier and what actually happens are two different things. I'm sorry I didn't pay more attention about the subsidy. This whole thing looked so bad to me I kind of tuned it out.

Yeah, me too. The point is: it is very important that people be aware when they are signing up if they think that a portion of the money they are shelling out a month that is designated to be returned to them in a tax credit --won’t be there in a couple years. I think we need to know this to budget accordingly, but they are so vague about everything.

Once an Amish...always an Amish! Hoorah!

If I needed a reason to not use the website, it would be the lack of any real security in regards to my vital information...health, or otherwise. An identity thief's wet dream!

I found this. Maybe it helps?
http://kff.org/interactive/subsidy-calcu...

You may be thinking about the 'fines'...they grow each year, but disappear after a set amount of time.

Why they do this, I don't know. And what happens when you run out of opting for the fine...I still don't know.

But my guess is that we don't want to find out!

No, I wasn’t referring to the fines, but since you mentioned them: Pfffft. I use to approach this law with a willful stubbornness stating I wasn’t going to sign up and I would pay the fine, but after seeing the absolute amateur roll out of this program, I’m not going to dignify it with any of my income. If they want their fine, they’ll have to come and get it. Like Reardon, I’m not going to just give it to them. Hell, I might be Amish for awhile. ;)

Um...my understanding is there are subsidies for those who make under fifty thousand dollars a year. Which is above the poverty-level, no? A tax credit, maybe? I used search engines too, and the information is not easily found. I know that I have heard Obama and other democrats promoting the use of these subsidies, stating that the out of pocket expense was much lower than realized once you applied the subsidy. I’m confused.

What I'm about to say comes from an entire 15 minutes of using search engines, so value the information accordingly :-)
It is my understanding that the law codifies various amounts of subsidy for those under 400% of the Federal Poverty Level (FPL). Since this is a movable yardstick, we can probably expect to see this number manipulated just as CPI is when the govt is calculating Social Security increases. I suspect you're discussing the Fed's 100% coverage of "new medicaid enrollees" for 2014-2016, which isn't exactly ACA, but is sort of related.