Taking a break from negs' bold stance that health insurance is bad for people and so they shouldn't want it, lol the GOP's big health care hearing today did not go well:
http://thehill.com/policy/healthcare...o-care-punches

Step 1: Structure a survey on payment of premiums to produce misleading results
Step 2: Release that survey's results for political gain
Step 3: For some reason, forget that you did Step 1 and actually believe the survey
Step 4: Schedule a victory lap hearing about low rates of payment
Step 5: ????

There is a rather good and obvious reason why payment rates are so high:

The federal government is footing most of the bill.

Do you have data on that? I think that you're right, but I am having a hard time finding anything up to date. This article from Kaiser is interesting though. It only goes through the end of February. http://kff.org/health-reform/issue-b...able-care-act/

#GOPTEARS

You mean just payment data?

Honestly, nothing that's not already publicly published. But if a lot of people aren't paying, i am sure I would have heard about it by now.

I was just curious if you had seen data on how many people in the exchanges are receiving a subsidy and what % of overall premium is being subsidized by the federal government.

So I think I've mentioned that I've been volunteering at the local clinic for the working uninsured. I usually don't press signing up via exchanges, these people are there for healthcare, not to be persuaded for anything.

Today this lady who makes ~25,000 brought up how she wanted to sign up and how she qualified for subsidies, but was worried about the extremely high deductible. What would you say in that situation?

Well the thing I discovered signing up for a Kaiser high deductible plan is that office visits were $35 I think - almost the same price that I was paying in copay when I had lower deductible insurance. That might be what she's paying now but she'd be able to go to a real doctors office and not sit around waiting all day at a clinic.

Also the prices on everything else are the negotiated insurance rates, not the ridiculous sticker rates. At least with Kaiser.

Try to compare it to what, if anything, she's paying now? How much HC does she need in a year? Is she not getting care she otherwise would?

The high deductible is better than absolutely no coverage, and many things are covered before the deductible.

lol doctors, lol wsj for printing this fecal matter

http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/...?mg=reno64-wsj

Renodoc, did you move to California?

I empathize with her situation and that health care costs too much. That being said, health insurance protects you from bankruptcy so it is important to have. I'm not sure what else you can say beyond that.

This is a really poor way to go about things and demonstrates a fundamental misunderstanding of the woman's situation. People making 25k generally don't have some big set of savings they need to protect from bankruptcy.

If you make $25,000, avoiding bankruptcy isn't especially valuable. It is a legitimate point. Maybe sell her on the ability to reliably get in to see a doctor as opposed to having to go to the emergency room in the event something goes wrong?

True. You did a better job of explaining it than I did. I just went off the top of my head and that's what came out. Also true.

This is why I'm not in sales.

I mean, she still should want to avoid bankruptcy

Not for a 3k+ deductible, assuming no savings

Open enrollment ended like 5 weeks ago.

What.

http://theincidentaleconomist.com/wo...t-of-medicare/


Mother****ers as stupid as that guy should not be allowed to touch sharp objects.

Not paying anything now except the penalty for not having insurance. She seemed pretty fine, other than some semi-serious hypertension.

Certainly better than the dude who had a 14.0 (!!!) on his A1C test.

Fly... no ****.

Ikes, forgot about the many things covered before the deductible, will def mention next time I see her.

You mean like the FBI and secret service?

By the way stop quoting that bit about Medicare going bankrupt in 2026. It makes you seem like you literally just woke up from a thirty year nap. If you need me to explain to you, again, why parroting that particular line makes you come across exponentially worse, just let me know. That is without even getting into the ridiculousness of your 20%/80% nonsense.

Did you ever reveal where you get your information from? It seems unlikely you figure it out for yourself so you must be copying it from somewhere else. The problem is two-fold. You are copying from people who aren't that knowledgable and you also seem to be changing stuff around from how it was fed to you to make it even worse.

Do you want to take a legitimate stab as to why your allegation that Medicare will go bankrupt in 2026 is irrelevant? Just guess. It is a fairly important part of logic and debate to be able to look at the other side and at least glean something from it. This particular one is a slow pitch softball, so it should be easy for you to at least formulate an argument as to why that is not relevant.

You don't know any other experts.

I am not sure you know any doctors either, which is crazy for someone claiming to be in med school.

The perfectly healthy 50 year old who is subsidizing the 10 year old with leukemia might disagree.

Human beings, as a group, are massively predictable to a very precise level. So why would you avoid the reality of the average cost to treat older people as being more if the goal is to provide quality healthcare to everyone? Do these young people not expect to age?

If you really believe in a goal of providing a high level of healthcare to everyone while making it as affordable as possible to everyone involved than age bias is an absolute must.

You somehow think if young people were forced to deposit 15% of their gross income into a future health fund (which they could not access until they were 60 and only for healthcare) that you would some how have a better system.

Everyone knows older people are going to, on average, have higher health costs. We also know most people will one day be old. So it makes absolutely no sense in modifying pricing by age if your goal is to provide the highest possible healthcare, at the most affordable price. You are discussing this like you third grade teacher just wrote "Health care" on the board and you are hearing about it and talking about it for the first time.

Do you know how dumb a 20 something who says "Damn obamacare, I pay fifty dollars more a month now so I will pay five dollars a month less later. Screw them!"

It is a complete economic, financial and logical meltdown for someone to approach the issue that way.

Oh cute marksman, more nonsensical posts from you. See the rest of the conversation if you want to know why you're wrong