Making Sense of the New Health Care Rules

[rogwar]

At least most folks that visit the OT have read it by now or will have access to the link even if it does get locked. I posted such because it's the first thing I have seen that gives a simple break down for what is coming in terms of health care and how it will affect us in the USA.

[Shuffler]

It will affect some not all it looks like as some states are moving to block it.

[Raptor]

Federal Government > State Government. Been that way since 1789.

[bj229r]

Is the discussing concept of Federalism violating the rule 14?

[fbWldcat]

This thread has lasted longer than I expected by about 8 hours and like 10 mINutes

[doleboy]

See Rule #4

[Chalenge]

Wont effect me. Keeping money for emergencies is better than pouring it into the hands of people preying upon your fears. If your not good with money you should have insurance of course but having cash will get you better service than any insurance plan.

[DREDIOCK]

Good post, if only people will control themselves.... I give it til the end of the day to be locked.

I'd be surprised if it isnt even with people controlling themselves. Cause there really is only 1 direction this thread can end up going

[Delirium]

Wont effect me. Keeping money for emergencies is better than pouring it into the hands of people preying upon your fears. If your not good with money you should have insurance of course but having cash will get you better service than any insurance plan.

If you have a heart attack right now you can easily afford the probably more than $50k out of pocket? That also means you also have enough cash on hand to cover yourself when you're out of work awaiting short term disability... oh wait, that's right, you don't have any insurance of any kind.

Unless you're in your early 20s, you are taking a huge risk in regards to your financial well being. I hope no one has to support you because you made some bad choices.

[DREDIOCK]

THAT being said.


A Change for Business Owners    Employers of 50 or more workers who don't offer insurance risk paying a penalty tax of $2,000 per full-time employee, excluding the first 30 employees.

Still looks like it may be cheaper to not offer insurance and pay the penalty. Unless someone knows where to get health insurance for less then 2K per year per employee

You will also see businesses working around this by breaking themselves up into smaller businesses.
Say you have a company making and selling widgets that currently employs 120 workers.
They will simply break themselves into 3 smaller companies. Say, manufacture, shipping, and sales. So long as each company employs less then 50 employees. They avoid the penalty

[Delirium]

They will simply break themselves into 3 smaller companies. Say, manufacture, shipping, and sales. So long as each company employs less then 50 employees. They avoid the penalty

They do this now to avoid the higher taxes.   

[DREDIOCK]

Wont effect me. Keeping money for emergencies is better than pouring it into the hands of people preying upon your fears. If your not good with money you should have insurance of course but having cash will get you better service than any insurance plan.

Delirium is right. Unless your a millionaire and sometimes even if you are. There are all sorts of things that can drain your bank account real fast

examples

One of the newly approved prostate cancer drug Provenge,  is expected to cost $93,000 per patient.

Here is an article writen by a cancer patient about the costs involved and a breakdown (Almost $30,000 a month)
"The annual cost of my cancer care is more than $300,000"
http://www.assertivepatient.com/2007/02/the_high_cost_o.html

The cost of treating the complications of diabetes averages $10,000 per patient per year
http://diabetes.webmd.com/news/20070410/diabetes-complications-cost-billions

A look at 1990 hospital discharge data from Santa Clara County in northern California reveals how inpatient costs drive up the total bill for cardiac care. While the average length of stay for all discharge categories was 4.6 days, patients with heart-related diagnoses were in the hospital an average of 5.5 days. The overall average dally charge was $1,804 per day, versus $2,833 per day for cardiac patients. Finally, heart patients' average cost per stay was $16,722
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0903/is_n12_v13/ai_17779001/

Kidney transplant
""The cost of kidney dialysis averages about $44,000 per year per patient, using 1993 figures. The average cost for the transplant patients in our study, including the transplant surgery and medical care for the first year following surgery was $89,939. After the first year, costs for the transplant patients averaged $16,043; mostly for medications to prevent rejection."
http://www.umm.edu/news/releases/kidcost.htm

I could go on and point out that some treatments can very quickly run into teh hundreds of thousands of dollars per patient after all is said and done.

Im not a fan of the new health care. But to assume that by being "good with your money" and you will be able to pay cash for any ailment that might befall you is naive if not outright moronic.

[AWwrgwy]

See Rule #4

[Delirium]

Delirium is right. Unless your a millionaire and sometimes even if you are. There are all sorts of things that can drain your bank account real fast

I know I am, I deal with this every day for a living. For example, I know of someone that had no health insurance but had money (and I'm talking big money) and thought he had health insurance.

He had a heart attack and was in the hospital for almost 2 days before surgery. He came out of surgery with a bypass on 3 vessels with good results but unfortunately had a stroke under anesthesia. As he was recovering from the stroke, he developed a staph infection and they had to hold him even longer as his leg (where they got the bypass material from) needed to be reopened. Since he was in the hospital so long, he developed a clot in his good leg (even with the blood thinners he was on) and had to stay a few more days.

He was only 48 and went through a tremendous amount of money in the almost 4 weeks he was in the hospital. No prior history of cardiac problems, no prior history of strokes, and no health insurance (he didn't pay the premium).

If your state can mandate you have to carry car insurance, I don't see why they can't mandate you to carry health insurance. Your health issues can affect the populace, not by crashing but by forcing the rest of us to pay for your health issues.

[Chalenge]

Delirium is right. Unless your a millionaire and sometimes even if you are. There are all sorts of things that can drain your bank account real fast

Like I said...

The current plan (live as of 2016) is to tax you $2250 for every year you do not have insurance. Buying the insurance is going to cost you a minimum (that year) of $6000 ($500/mo) and it will probably be more with a deductible of $1200-2250 and better plans will cost more and have a higher deductible. The longer you go without a problem the more money you spend. A heart attack could run $60000 true enough but probably more like $250000 in total plus lost earnings (if your working). So thats a minimum of ten years without a claim for the minimum a heart attack would cost.

My family has zero history of heart or cancer or other major issues (not even any diabetes). Probably if I have a problem it would be something like gall bladder or knee surgery which is much more affordable ($12000-30000). Health insurance companies also limit their life time pay out to $2000000-3000000 which means about the time you start to have heart problems the less likely you are to have insurance to cover the problem through to its final conclusion. Then there is the death tax which is another lovely piece of legislation.

Now... instead of that you should enter into your own savings plan from year one. If you were able to save that same $6000 over the course of twenty years you would have $180000 plus interest. Realistically no one does that but they should. In fact they should save 10% of their gross earnings over the course of forty years plus the money they would spend on health care (or matching funds until you get to that point which is smarter).

Its not the costs that you see them as reported by insurance companies though. You see there has been inflated costs in the system for decades. You can save a ton of money by contracting with doctors ahead of time... oh but wait this new health care law makes that a crime... guess USAA didnt put that in there.

Fortunately I have the money to pay for what ever comes up and better yet... this law wont float. Missouri struck it down and OK and AZ and FL will be next... and with my blessing!