Welcome to the realities of Obamacare
Posted by richrobinson 10 years, 9 months ago to The Gulch: General
My nephew is married and has one child. He works for Midas and they just had a meeting today to discuss their health care plan. The current plan cost him $45.00 a week and included all 3 with eye and dental and a $2,500.00 deductible. The new plan will be $84.00 a week, does not have eye and dental and carries a $5,000.00 deductible. I guess someone finally read the Affordable Care Act and found out what was in it.
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My wife's salary and my own do not clear $100,000 yet I think we keep getting thrown in to that "millionaires and billionaires" class.
Evidently, "Midas" is regarded as a single company, not each franchise as a <50 employee company. As such, the only hope that I can see for your nephew is to find a <50 employee company that will hire him for a similar job. That will at least give him a year or so grace. We may hope that, during that time, Obamacare will fail disastrously and we can go back to private health insurance.
Hope.
Jan
At least in the past, a private hospital was not required to treat someone who could not pay past the 'life and limb' point. If they found out that the individual was, for example, indigent, they could stabilize him and transfer him to a public hospital.
Private hospitals have been stupid about collecting what they are owed too: A friend of mine had a car crash into the side of his truck (the driver of the car had a heart attack). This shattered...his whole left side. Airlifting, stabilization, more airlifting, ICU,...all of this resulted in his living and being in good condition. When it came time to pay the bills, the hospital added on so high a rate of interest that the man would never have been able to pay off the bill...He could have paid the principle; he could have paid the principle and a small interest rate; he could never have paid enough per month to actually pay of what he owed at the interest rate the hospital charged. He tried to get them to lock his payments into a fixed sum, or charge a lower interest rate...but the hospital did not have that flexibility. So he had to declare bankruptcy and default on the whole amount.
This makes sense...how? (If I have a client who can not pay for the LIS they bought from us, I dicker with them to come to terms they can pay - we both win by this deal.)
Jan
You *never* see them bringing up you can either post a bond for the liability amount, or especially having an interest bearing deposit account and self-insure. They don't want you to know that - because it takes the money out of their pockets and puts it in yours. They'll give you so many "scare reasons" not to do that that only a suicidal mentally deficient would even *think* of doing such a thing...
Anyway, when they lobbied to make it LAW you HAD to purchase their "Product", it opened the flood gate. They've had plenty of practice learning how to make Government mandate their business never fails. So when it came to Health care... well... here ya go.
Interesting thing... We have property in Italy. I actually pay taxes there, and, not counting the VAT (what a ripoff that is - tax every producer for what they add, then the end user as well) the property taxes are negligible, and the business taxes (except the EU VAT - grrrr....) surprisingly manageable. Really. And their non-insurance-company-lobbied health system is covered for everyone. While like any good Tax Paying Italian, I have serious issues about their government and the abuses of power there (especially since they instituted the Euro - Bad mistake) the health care there - in rural Italy, middle of Bumf*** Nowhere - is second to none. Quality wise - I would *much* rather get sick or injured *there* than *here*. And then not pay the outrageous deductibles, premiums, and co-pays.
When AARP pushed for the ACA, and ran promos (and still do) about how this new law would help the elderly get care by providing them with a way to stay in their homes--the warning bells went off. What they really are saying is: your love one will not be able to get into a intensive care home because some social worker is going to get a fat commission check for keeping your aging parent from becoming a bigger drain on the insurance company. The DDS has been pulling this dirty trick for decades of not authorizing the care if a relative is anywhere in the picture. What grown child is going to let their parents sit on a bedpan for days because a visiting nurse is only authorized every other day? Of course there will be by default a relative in the picture. Of course the vicious circle is formed.
Sad thing is, it comes down to employer contributions, sometimes it's blamed on rising insurance costs, sometimes the employer cuts back how much the company pays.
I suspect the latter, I pay around $240 every 2 weeks for a Cadillac PPO with basically no out of pocket, no primary provider referral garbage, etc., adoption and in vitro coverage, etc., but my employer pays around $1000 on top of my contributions a month. Hasn't changed at all on ACA.
The humorous thing about ACA is that the 'little people' they proclaimed to be helping had simple but cheap plans that met their basic needs, are now disqualified, and the stuff that isn't affected are in high-revenue industries where it's not really an impact to the bottom line and always had huge plans.
Franchise stuff, like the fast food or the Midas locally-owned store like you mentioned are getting killed by this, and may even be forced out of business eventually as employees move to companies and industries with better employer-paid packages and the costs force the small guys out of business. In the end, prices to the customer definitely go up.
After all, when you "got your eyes on the prize" it doesn't matter how much is costs someone else or how bad it is for someone else, as long as you get your free entitlement that the dotgov mandates you, the producer, shell out.
That's who this whole thing played to - the moochers wanting something for nothing, and the insurance companies saw the opportunity for a huge payoff (and lobbied like crazy to keep it from happening, both in the hells of Congress and to the sheeple by selling them how "evil" socialized medicine was.)
But if it DID go the way of the EU, then the freeloading moochers would have had to pay for it as well - which means they don't get it for free, so that was unacceptable. And the Insurance companies would not be getting a huge bankroll from the increased premiums, the increased deductibles, and the whole actuary kimchee, so that was unacceptable.
You really have to ignore the big booming voice, the flames, and the giant stairs to find the guys behind the curtain to see who pushed the drive and pulled the strings to get this abhorrent travesty through... and why.
Then again, I may be jaded because my folks worked in the Insurance Industry, and I've seen how much they're willing to throw into the pot, and some of the tricks they use, for a huge payoff.
IMHO if they wanted to lower the cost of healthcare to the consumer the government would break up the cartels protecting the health industry. Hospitals would be seen as often as Karate clubs and Doctors offices would be as numerous as $9 haircutting chain stores. Additionally, insurance companies would compete across borders and be as numerous as used car dealers. By opening the gates for abundance the competition will drive price and quality.
Back to reality! There is far too much money and power in healthcare for our government to keep their fingers out of the pie.
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