Big increase in healthcare premium next year

[nonameo]

What I want to know is where the love went for mental health and preventative care...

 

[Patranus]

You were mistaken the first time you made that claim, why do you think repeating it makes any difference?

It is already happening.

Try going out and getting a child only policy.

Oh wait, you can't.

Off to the government health care rolls for them.

Obamacare made many things implicitly illegal. What we are seeing right now is only the tip of the iceberg.

 

[preslove]

I haven't really looked at proposals for nationalized health care. How are proponents intending to pay for it? Increased corporate taxes to recoup the money they're already sending to insurance companies plus increased personal income taxes to recoup the money we're paying for employee premiums?

I don't know about you, but my employer spends thousands a year on my health care. I also have to pay deductibles. If I lived in Europe, the government would take much less than that in taxes to pay for better health care service and less out of pocket expense. So, our taxes would go up, but our employers could either pay us more (instead of the insurance companies) or hire more employees and put a dent in our unemployment figures.

The US spends more than double per capita for health care and we lag behind in quality of care across most metrics.

If you're interested in learning more about it, here is a very good & readable book on health care systems around the world: http://www.amazon.com/Healing-Americ.../dp/1594202346

It's written by a reporter with an old, chronic shoulder injury from when he was in the navy. He goes to doctors around the world and gets treatment and investigates how he would pay if he were a citizen. It's not technical and he's a good writer.

What I want to know is where the love went for mental health and preventative care...

Well, when you base your health care system on profit seeking entities, expensive stuff like mental health coverage go by the wayside.

Actually i nationalized single payer insurance, but between people buying individual insurance and companies pooling insurance, i prefer the latter.

The employer model was created as a way of avoiding a full national health system. Currently, it hides the true costs of our abysmal system from your average person. If we had to actually write the checks for our monthly premiums and see what we were really paying, we would have a national system ASAP.

 

[Patranus]

The US spends more than double per capita for health care and we lag behind in quality of care across most metrics.

Huh. Then why do people come here from all over the world for health care?

Hint: The "metrics" you are thinking of provided by the UN take into consideration the gap between the "rich" and the "poor". Such a metric would produce the negative result even if the "poor" was getting amazing health care while the "rich" was getting the best fucking health care to ever exist.

If "poor" get $10,000 worth of care and the "rich" get $100,000 worth of care the gap is great and produces a negative metric according to the UN. However, if the "poor" get $5,000 worth of care while the "rich" get $7,000 worth the care the gap isn't large and produces a positive metic.

Most of those metics are created as a simple means to attempt and redistribute wealth.

 

[Thump553]

Jumping back to the OP and ignoring all of Patranus' political diatribe, if you had been paying 100% of your health insurance cost you would realize that's a pretty normal annual increase for at least the last decade. Odds are your employer has been cushioning it in the past.

 

[preslove]

Huh. Then why do people come here from all over the world for health care?

Because we have the Mayo clinic. 99.9% of the US population don't go to those premium institutions. Also, plenty of Americans go "all over the world" to get treatment.

Hint: The "metrics" you are thinking of provided by the UN take into consideration the gap between the "rich" and the "poor". Such a metric would produce the negative result even if the "poor" was getting amazing health care while the "rich" was getting the best fucking health care to ever exist.

What about infant mortality, mr. wingnut? https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2091rank.html

CUBA has a better infant mortality rate than we do. That's pretty fucked up.

You don't know shit about health care metrics.

 

[bteeter]

My premiums went up around 65% from 2010 to 2011. That's in addition to increased deductibles. 🙁

EDIT: I should note that this is health/vision for 2 adults, plus STD and life insurance for my wife. If she signs up for the same stuff in 2011 that we have now in 2010, the increase in premium is around 65%, a little bit actually I think.

So basically you were paying $X and the employer passed on all the increased cost s and now your paying 165% * x?

Ya 65% sounds bad but if your getting husband and wife coverage were probably talking something like going from $100 to $165 a month out of pocket. Not terrible, considering the employer is probably contributing $400+ a month for their share of the benefits. If you consider the total cost that you and your employer are paying, the increase is more in line with 15% like everyone else.

(Yes, numbers pulled out of ass, I'd like to see the real numbers out of curiosity.)

 

[soulcougher73]

My premiums between health/dental/vision went up about $40. Nothing it didnt do before this so called "reform". It was always going up.

 

[shortylickens]

What I want to know is where the love went for mental health and preventative care...

If people prevented medical issues, how would those poor, starving insurance executives afford their yachts?