Of course they do, people like free stuff. Now ask the same group if they would accept a 20% tax increase to make it happen. I'll bet you get a very different response.

Free stuff is good though, we need more free stuff.

Damn lucky-duckies and their free K-12 education.

I'm in that $100k ish family category and spend $800 per month, but it's a work insurance plan and the benefits are better than avg.

I'll tell you this - I remember being like 25 pre ACA and not qualifying for the vast majority of plans because i carried an ADHD diagnosis. Seeeeeeeriously?! Like 90% of plans wouldn't take me lol.

Time to get with the times and catch up with the rest of the world FFS. Single Payer FTW

I'm guessing your medication was more than the cost of the policy premium because of your age, which probably led to denial. Some companies would approve with an exclusion under the old system. There were certainly options available to improve the old system that included medical underwriting while still covering pre-ex too but nobody was too interested in doing that.

If your work wasn't subsidizing that plan and it cost you $1500/month, would you still buy it? Would you spend $1000/month for a plan with a $7k deductible?

Some serious Stockholm syndrome itt

I'm spending $280/mo after subsidy for a silver plan. Broad network too.

I'm sensing an ongoing theme here...

http://www.timesfreepress.com/news/b...-plans/365310/

So the rates have double in three years with no end in sight. Sounds sustainable.

IDK, $1500 is approaching my affordability threshold. That said, we've got a 3 month old that cost $3k+ to deliver even WITH insurance. Was a C section, $35k without insurance. We're planning to likely have a 2nd next year.

So i guess if the choice was $1500 / month and $200 payments for 18 months to cover delivery costs OR $0 / month and bankruptcy when served a $35,000 hospital bill I'd choose the former?

Either suck, $800 / month + $200 / month delivery payments for meh coverage is a heavy toll on its own TBH given our $80k - $100k income.

USA health care is so terrible lol

Back to single payer. The insurance companies are doing a horrible job controlling costs and are getting run over by healthcare providers. That is why they are "losing" money while charging higher premiums with bigger deductibles.

The private health insurance industry has completely failed us in the United Ststes. So we must move towards single payer. The private health insurance industry has proven they are incapable of providing adequate coverage for acceptable costs for everyone. Let's not dilly dally any longer. Some act like increasing deductibles and premiums are a failure of the ACA instead it is a failure of private health insurance.

LOL

"Back to single payer. The insurance companies are doing a horrible job controlling costs and are getting run over by healthcare providers."

Well, as a provider what I collect from any all and insurers is pretty much static for the last decade. Probably the biggest increase we've had is that we're now getting some payment from the medicaid/Obamacare pool that was previously no-pay. Which I'm happy about, as (like most people) I don't like to work for free. But if you can find me a market where the docs are brutalizing the Insurance companies, let me know....

MM MD

You can tell who's doesn't have the market clout by seeing who's merging and right now regional hospital systems are merging, not insurance companies.

This has been going on for years. The hospital's took control of the relationship years ago. That the stragglers are still merging doesn't change that. Hospitals have been merging AND buying up Doctors practices for the last ten plus years.

Healthcare providers, in total, absolutely have the upper hand.

Healthcare providers, in total, absolutely have the upper hand.[/QUOTE]

Are you saying hospitals/MCO's have the upper hand with the insurers? Or providers - doctors, PA's, NP's, nurses?

I think the first argument has some merit, and insofar as they act as employers of a lot of providers in a lot of markets that argument could be made. If you talking about individual docs/groups of docs it's a lot tougher sell.

I may be misunderstanding how you're framing the discussion.

MM MD

If this is true, what is the mechanism? Are they colluding with each other? Is there not enough competition between providers? Is there only one provider in certain markets?

The main thing is that insurance customers expect insurers to cover their doctor and get pissed when they don't. There is also limited competition in some markets.

It seems there is very little incentive for insurance companies to cut costs. So yeah, I agree the providers have the upper hand due to lack of group negotiating power, etc.

But I don't think it's just that the insurance companies are getting run over. It's that they are getting out of the way. Because of things like MLR, profit margins are relatively fixed.

So without real competition, why would an insurance company try to cut costs? X% of $1000 is less than X% of $2000. The higher costs go, the higher profits go. And yeah, put me down as someone who is quite sure there is collusion happening too.

Highmark BCBS now suing the US government for failure to pay risk corridor payments:

http://www.wsj.com/articles/insurer-...act-1463515485

lol cough cough

Re high deductibles, isn't that basically what Republicans are/were proposing as an alternative to the ACA? High deductible catastrophe coverages.

Yes. Although it's unclear how much higher they expected them to be than $6850 for individual and $13,700 for family.

Yes. Republican criticism of the ACA is mostly just a result of it being Democrat policy. Republicans almost universally support Medicare which much closer to socialized health care than ACA exchange policies.

The Republican thought leaders want to privatize Medicare. The olds love it though

Someone showed me their billing statement last week for a chemo treatment they received. They are on Medicare part B. The hospital charged $11,000. Medicare paid $1400, their out of pocket was 20% of $1400, $280. That was quite an eye opener. Hard for me to believe the real cost was $1400 and it is also hard for me to believe that a private insurance company could negotiate the cost down to $1400. I think I understand at least one factor in the rise in cost of private health care insurance.