I'd like to see where you got this crazy bolded notion. I'm guessing what you really mean is premiums rose less than projections had predicted they'd rise to if the ACA never existed? Lol at overall premiums actually having a real decline since the ACA passed.

Premiums were rising fast pre-ACA and they're still rising fast since it went active.

I mean let's not pretend the ACA isn't an abject failure. It sucks. It's really really bad. Still much better than anything the Republicans would do.

Our health costs are absurd. My employer sponsored plan requires about 800/month in premiums while my employer contributes an additional 1000 a month on my behalf and I still have a 2500 dollar deductible per person witb an out of pocket max of 5000. Job puts 1500 into my HSA a year to help towards deductibles.

Between my wife and newborn going to the doctor as much as tney do im probably a lock to pay close to 15k a year on health insurance and we're all perfectly healthy.
Id probably be better off without health insurance at all. After just a few years of savings of premiums and deductibles id be able to pay any big medical bill out of pocket. I haven't needed to go to the doctor in years.

If I get some rare thing that requires like 250k procedure than oh well i die. Bad luck that's life.

the aca had nothing to do with your employer plan going up but nice try.

Yea I'm sure that's just coincidental. Are you going to answer my question? How is Trump going to take away steel workers health care?

If only there were some other system for health care.

Anyone know if there's a first world country out there that has a system with better outcomes for less cost?

But those people don't have the FREEDOM to not buy insurance they can't afford then **** off and die when they get sick

That is Paul Ryan's actual argument btw

Were your health care premiums steady 2004-2008?

It's really not that rare if you stop thinking of it as any one-time procedure and more like any condition that requires lengthy treatment.

Also, your math is weak. So you spend 15k for a family of three? You have 8k in premiums minus HSA match so your wife and kid rack up 7k of medical costs per year? Going non-insured would easily triple that expense so would cost more than you now put out, unless your wife agrees to start living off the land. Insane people in this country.

sorry I just figured you and the rest of your low life "steel workers" werent on employer health care. guess yall are lucky.

It's a pretty complex answer really. There are several ways you can lose employer-provided health insurance though. For one, premiums could rise to the point that your employer might no longer be able to afford it (this was a big worry even before ACA became a thing). Or premiums could go down, but since your employer no longer has a mandate to provide coverage to his employees he could simply choose not to. Yet another is that your employer could opt for a group plan that covers only catastrophic events so things like preventative care are not covered at all.

There are other things which might drive costs up to the point of unaffordability like adverse selection, here's a decent explanation of that phenomenon: https://elibrary.worldbank.org/doi/a...1813-9450-2574

You have one side saying, "COVER EVERYONE!" while the other wants to cover only those who can afford it (or, more cynically, "choose" to afford it) but as Wooderson and others have alluded, really neither side of this debate in Washington seems to know how to deal with rising healthcare costs. This is a non-partisan issue so maybe that's why? In any event, until costs are addressed this will continue to be a political hot-potato until we wise the **** up and just put everyone on Medicare and be done with it.

Neither the ACA nor the GOP's plan (whatever that happens to be today) deal with costs and each will likely lead to higher costs over time, just for different reasons. Simplistically, ACA puts more people on the insurance rolls, but unless supply increases along with the new demand then we should expect costs to increase. On the other hand, the GOP putting people back into the position they were in pre-ACA, which was, "Use the emergency room as your primary care physician," will lead to hospitals being forced to jack up prices on paying "customers" in order to cover their losses incurred by the poors.

Anyway it's complicated

Well they get campaign contributions not to deal with costs. Anytime someone's tried it's gotten squashed even by fellow democrats. They're good at making it look like they're trying but then squashing it without it getting any real coverage.

as a quick example--California can't get single payer passed through despite having the votes. One top dem always gets around to KO'ing it. It's on us the voters but we overwhelmingly re-elect and WAAF.

there are a lot of reasons other than just loldems that the california bill can't get passed. even the intercept had some good articles about it. josh barro had an article too i think. i'm very sympathetic to any arguments that there are plenty of dems are craven politicians who don't actually care about any of this stuff (claire mccaskill is my senator) but i don't think it necessarily applies here. the nurses union POS in california had the gall to say that she trusted trump to pass universal healthcare instead of the dems so these are the kind of people in this that are making the bad faith arguments

The best metaphor for the development of the AHCA and its revisions that I can come up with is a man ****ting in a leaky box and handing it to you while promising you're going to love it once it's yours, then having the gift rejected, then taking a visit to Chipotle and explosively ****ting in the box again, then bringing it back to you with a slightly less gleaming smile and promising you're really going to love the added flexibility and flavor of the second version, then having that rejected, then taking it home to mull it over while sucking down Steel Reserve 40 oz'ers, then just dropping a sloppy dump on top of the previous 2, which are now festering and drawing flies, and then delivering that leaking slaw to you with kind of a sad, morbid look on his face and the comment "now it's exactly what you always wanted, I'm sure of it."

U mean ACHA right?

"yes," AHCA, we both typo'd it

This has been especially egregious when it comes to prescription drugs. Pharma lines politicians' pockets, politicians refuse to support legislation to rein in prices, USA#1 citizens pay more than anyone else for prescription drugs, everybody wins!

This goes back to a time long before Obamacare. Remember when Dubya blocked imports from Canada because Canadian drugs are not safe as evidenced by the fact that Canada has a population of 0 because everyone there died after taking Canadian antibiotics? Those were sad times.

Senate Republicans included a provision that exempts members of Congress and their staff from part of their latest health care plan because of ****ing course they did

Also they want to use HHS and OMB to score the Cruz amendment rather than the non-partisan CBO.

http://thehill.com/policy/healthcare...cruz-amendment

We'd get a more accurate assessment if we asked Cruz's mom what she thinks about it.

Stay classy

It is hard to overstate how pathetic and disgraceful this bunch of Republican congressmen is. Their greed and cowardice and inaction at a pivotal moment in history basically guarantees the permanent retreat of Western liberalism. Sad!

Hey, lay off. They're very concerned. Troubled even.

When did victor become a terrible poster

U need a hug kid

Edit looks like he deleted it or mods got to it

Yikes indeed

Heller trying his best to straddle the fence.