Blue Cross Blue Shield getting crushed by Obamacare

[SP33Demon]

You said this:



That is a false statement.

If you want to say young people in Canada have it better than young people in the US that's fine. That's also a debatable point, but it could possibly be correct. Saying that if you're young and healthy single payer is best is simply wrong, however. If you are young and healthy then the US's old system was the best.

Yes. In Canada for Out of Pocket costs vs current US premiums for young uns not on their parents' plan.

This is last time I'm addressing this, beating dead horses and all that.

 

[BoberFett]

This is very true and luckily I highly doubt we will ever see the US go to a complete and total single payer model like most countries we are trying to compare to. You will have your basic .gov "insurance" and if you so choose you can purchase higher quality "add on" or Cadillac plans from private insurers. Those with money will always get better coverage but everyone will get the basics.

Personally I think the above is a good idea in general but we would get something like that regardless. The rich have way to much influence and they aren't going to settle with getting the exact same medical service as the plebes.

I'd probably be OK with that. Could be a good model for a lot of difference services.

 

[Grooveriding]

Yes, I'm sure you'd "land here in a year". So what's stopping you? You'd make more here and pay less in taxes. Either you're slow or you're lying or you have no balls to tell your family you want to move. Take control, you may like it here depending on the place (e.g. don't move to Detroit MI!).

I doubt you think over much of what you type. This is like a child throwing schoolyard insults.

It's simple, I'd rather live here. Your text above highlights your dissonance bubble that misses the simplest explanation because your reality doesn't include it.

 

[SP33Demon]

I doubt you think over much of what you type. This is like a child throwing schoolyard insults.

It's simple, I'd rather live here. Your text above highlights your dissonance bubble that misses the simplest explanation because your reality doesn't include it.

So in your infinite and vastly higher intelligence, you retort to a perceived insult with another. Brilliant. You sure showed me! If my post insulted you, then maybe you should grow a thicker skin.

Your reason for staying there is you'd rather live there. That's interesting because many jailed felons also fear getting out of prison due to no job prospects. Except you have major job prospects and aren't making anything of it. A shame for you and the U.S. if you are as good as you claim to be. /shrug

 

[mpo]

No wonder my premiums went up so much this year. And mine is partly paid for by my employer. Ugh.

http://www.investors.com/politics/editorials/obamacare-now-has-blue-cross-singing-the-blues/



ACA is further eroding the middle class. Fuck obamacare, they need to neuter this legislation to where it's not killing us with double digit premium jumps. I'm not a human cash register, FFS. Anyone else with BCBS getting killed this year on premiums?

Most of the losses for BCBS of Michigan were due to the insurer settling an antitrust lawsuit.

Paul Mozak, Blue Cross’ vice president of finance, said financial losses in 2015 were primarily stimulated by settling long-standing lawsuits, required payments to subsidize Medigap supplemental Medicare policies for seniors and “a modest underwriting loss” in its commercial insurance business. The Medigap subsidies end this year.

Mozak said Blue Cross would have earned a small profit based on SAP and GAAP accounting rules without the litigation and Medigap payments. It paid out more than $200 million to subsidize Medigap policies and an additional $300 million for total litigation costs in 2015.

“The litigation was significant,” said Mozak, declining to specify individual settlements. “We are pleased to get that much behind us.”

Legal experts have speculated that the bulk of the $300 million in settlements were due to the antitrust lawsuit Aetna Inc. filed against the Blues several years ago over Blue Cross’ most-favored-nation contract schemes.

http://www.crainsdetroit.com/articl...d-of-michigan-reports-first-financial-loss-in

The Blues saw increased enrollment year-to-year and one subsidy program is ending.

 

[Victorian Gray]

good question but I believe that they hold more than any other country in the world. I will try to find out if I can.

around 8%

 

[Victorian Gray]

What percentage of total US public debt does China hold?

about 8%

 

[elitejp]

Thanks, please provide a link or a resource where I can learn more about this topic

On a side note currently how many pioneering medicines are currently being made in the USA compared to other countries?
or is there a substantial difference between the research and creating of drugs between a non universal healthcare country compared with a universal health care country?

 

[feralkid]

Agreed, but in "developed nation" Britain, they have to sit on waiting lists for their surgery and are more likely to die even when they get surgery.

Link

I'd rather have much higher quality of care than watered down BS for everyone that increases mortality rates.

That's pretty much meaningless in the real world.

So if one in fifty thousand die in the U.S. that means three in fifty thousand die in Britain.

The Horror!!!

 

[werepossum]

That's pretty much meaningless in the real world.

So if one in fifty thousand die in the U.S. that means three in fifty thousand die in Britain.

The Horror!!!

lol Ah, there's that proggie compassion. Other people are statistics to be crushed for my benefit.

 

[elitejp]

If your one of the 3 it is. Just saying.

Hey if the govt can do a better job then I'm for it. The problem is with their history I don't suspect it will get cheaper or better by any criteria except the fact that I am now insured.

 

[werepossum]

If your one of the 3 it is. Just saying.

Hey if the govt can do a better job then I'm for it. The problem is with there history I don't suspect it will get cheaper or better by any criteria except the fact that I am now insured.

I'm probably more suspect of government competency than your average bear, but health care is kind of an odd duck, to mix metaphors. For one thing, for most of us our choice of insurer (and often provider) is greatly constrained by economic reality. Most of our employers furnish health insurance, and it's not economically feasible to refuse it (and therefore get nothing in return) to buy our own. For another, health care has a fairly unique ability to have predictable future events that will make us forever unprofitable. With automobile insurance for example, one might cause an accident that will cost the insurer more than one will ever conceivably pay in. But with health insurance, especially individual policies, most of those costs will be in the future, so the insurer can cancel that policy and avoid most of the pay-out. If one is diagnosed with stage 4 cancer, the insurer almost certainly knows that future medical costs will outweigh any possible future payments. Therefore health insurance not only requires government enforcement to ensure that the insurer follows the letter of the contract, but also that the insurer doesn't cancel the contract for his own benefit.

 

[feralkid]

lol Ah, there's that proggie compassion. Other people are statistics to be crushed for my benefit.

What a lousy assumption/insult.

Everything in life has a cost/benefit ratio.

Sometimes you have to look at the numbers dispassionately if you are in the business of Medicine and/or insurance.

 

[Victorian Gray]

What a lousy assumption/insult.

Everything in life has a cost/benefit ratio.

Sometimes you have to look at the numbers dispassionately if you are in the business of Medicine and/or insurance.

But that takes work. Thinking is hard and propaganda is much easier to accept.

 

[K1052]

about 8%

omg we're screwed China owns us!



My question was rhetorical.

 

[Darwin333]

I'd probably be OK with that. Could be a good model for a lot of difference services.

I don't care who gets elected to the White House, there is no way in hell that the rich would get starved out of ANY legislation much less legislation that concerns their own healthcare. I would be immensely impressed if said rich fuckers don't actually write the legislation much less have absolutely no perks for themselves. That just isn't how our legislative process works these days.

 

[elitejp]

I heard when Obamacare was first coming out that congress members were not enrolling in it. I don't know if they have signed on now or not

 

[shortylickens]

I don't really think that's the case at all. Canada spent 1% of GDP on their military in 2014 and we spent 3.5% of GDP on it. While 2.5% of GDP is a lot of money in nominal terms, it's not like that 2.5% of GDP is what is preventing us from instituting a European style welfare state. It's a political choice on our part.

http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/MS.MIL.XPND.GD.ZS



Indefinitely, really. By the way, China has been a net seller of treasuries for awhile now and it's total supply of them has dropped by about 15%. So basically we aren't borrowing money from China anymore.

No, whats KEEPING us from being like europe is the AMA monopoly.

Also, percentage of GDP is meaningless. You need to look at the percentage of our BUDGET. We spend a crapload on the DoD, much more than any other country except maybe China. And I think China spends less because they don't have our main problem: Congressmen hooking up their idiot buddies with hideously inflated govt. contracts.

In china a million dollar project will sell for around 2 million thanks to government corruption. In America, corruption would turn it into a 7 million dollar contract with no oversight and high chance of failure that will later need to be re-budgeted an extra 3 million, and will fail again.

That might sound funny at first until you realize its going to kill America very slowly and painfully.

 

[fskimospy]

No, whats KEEPING us from being like europe is the AMA monopoly.

Also, percentage of GDP is meaningless. You need to look at the percentage of our BUDGET. We spend a crapload on the DoD, much more than any other country except maybe China. And I think China spends less because they don't have our main problem: Congressmen hooking up their idiot buddies with hideously inflated govt. contracts.

In china a million dollar project will sell for around 2 million thanks to government corruption. In America, corruption would turn it into a 7 million dollar contract with no oversight and high chance of failure that will later need to be re-budgeted an extra 3 million, and will fail again.

That might sound funny at first until you realize its going to kill America very slowly and painfully.

No, percentage of our budget is meaningless. Percentage of GDP is the only measure that matters when trying to determine what we as a country can or can't afford to do.

 

[brianmanahan]

i'm glad our company self-insures

 

[feralkid]

I heard when Obamacare was first coming out that congress members were not enrolling in it. I don't know if they have signed on now or not

No, they have their own program:

Members of Congress, as well as all other Federal Employees are allowed to purchase their health coverage through the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program.

 

[dank69]

No, they have their own program:

Members of Congress, as well as all other Federal Employees are allowed to purchase their health coverage through the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program.

No. Gullible people put up a stink that "Congress was creating this law that does not apply to them," fueled by right wing propaganda. The GOP then inserted language requiring Congress and their staff to purchase their insurance from the new exchanges. Being the complete imbeciles that they are, the GOP didn't realize that this subjected them to another condition of the ACA that if you are offered health insurance by your employer and you turn it down to buy insurance on the exchanges then you get no subsidies. Then when this part of the law went into effect, the GOP started crying crocodile tears that their staff were subjected to this horrible law that made them purchase insurance on the exchanges but they didn't qualify for subsidies.

Isn't the GOP great? Keystone Cops on pretty much every issue.

 

[dank69]

i'm glad our company self-insures

Our company used to self-insure specifically to get around state requirements that would have been more expensive for them.

 

[BoberFett]

What a lousy assumption/insult.

Everything in life has a cost/benefit ratio.

Sometimes you have to look at the numbers dispassionately if you are in the business of Medicine and/or insurance.

It's dispassionate examination cost/benefit ratios only if it's government run healthcare. If it's privately run healthcare, then it's just greed.

 

[cubby1223]

We spend a crapload on the DoD, much more than any other country except maybe China. And I think China spends less because they don't have our main problem: Congressmen hooking up their idiot buddies with hideously inflated govt. contracts.

The primary difference between China & U.S. defense spending: U.S. R&D is paid out to researchers and engineers who design new technologies and build the production facilities. China R&D is paid out to computer experts who find ways to steal U.S. R&D, a much cheaper route to obtaining the same end result.