Thanks, Mr. President

1. 89

   wildernessposted 14 years ago

   for my new health care plan.  My wife and I have maintained her cobra insurance for the two of us for months since she was laid off, but it is coming to an end this year.
   
   When my own company had their open enrollment recently I enrolled with their health care plan although it is not nearly as good as the other one.  Unfortunately, the plan costs have gone up 80% over last year and the small company I work for can no longer afford to offer health insurance.  Neither I nor anyone else will have health insurance.
   
   For the first time in some 40 years we will be without any health insurance.  I guess the rest of the American People can pick up two more people visiting the emergency room for minor illnesses and injuries.  Of course, my heart and blood pressure medication will be a casualty; with one of us still employed and the other having taken a 20% pay cut just to maintain my job I can no longer afford it.  HP earnings have a ways to go to make up the losses
   
   At the same time, I don't think I'll be alone.  I've heard rumblings that an awful lot of companies are merely waiting for someone else to take the plunge first by canceling employee health care.  Everyone seems to be running scared with Obama care just over the horizon, including the insurance companies.  Rates appear to be skyrocketing for many people.  And didn't McDonalds just get a waiver or something?
   
   Thanks, Mr. President - your new health care plan is great for me!

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      sandra rinckposted 14 years agoin reply to this

      I am sorry for you the trouble you are going through but I did want to note that what you are experiencing is still the privatized increase in insurance rates. 
      
      The only correlation it has with Obama care, is that the insurance agencies are raising rates until Obama care actually goes into effect.
      
      Obama care has only started to cover children and no such 'mandatory' health insurance has been applied.  You are frustrated and in a situation and I understand how you can blame Obama for it.
      
      I believe your reasoning is, if Obama hadn't insisted on "universal health care" then your insurer wouldn't have bothered to raise their rates...even though the increased rates are a product of 'private insurers' weaseling whatever bit of money they can at your expense.
      
      I am sorry for it though.  I wish you the best and if you keep looking, I know you will get the help you need.

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      dutchman1951posted 14 years agoin reply to this

      best wishes Wilderness, it is tough enough buying cobra, much less a new polocy. I wish you well.

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      weholdthesetruthsposted 14 years agoin reply to this

      Don't blame Obama.   I doubt he has ever read the legislation, nor knows what's in it.   The man knows nothing about how any productive entity works - he's never been productive nor worked anyplace that was. 
      
      Blame Congress, and the mindless trolls who  think that Congress is capable of mucking around with our country and in your personal business, and in doing so, making things "better".    Who REALLY believes that creating more than 60 new federal entities, each able to write new rules and enforce conflicting rules upon you, your doctor, and the health care industry, is going to result in "less expensive, more responsive, and better personal care" ?   Nobody with even half a brain would think that.

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   Mighty Momposted 14 years ago

   Wilderness,
   I'm very sorry to read of your situation. You're right. You are absolutely not alone.
   However, many of us are way ahead of you in facing the harsh reality of astronomical health insurance costs. What you are describing is not new and is not the result of the new health care bill -- most of which has not even taken effect yet.
   If you are angry about your situation, I suggest you talk to your carrier. Perhaps they will be willing to work something out for you. Ha ha!
   Supposedly -- at least if I am to believe the emails I get every day, or the fliers that come in my mail -- Blue Cross and other providers offer afforable plans for EVERYONE. This apparently also applies to Kaiser Permanente. Even though they are "my" HMO and have been for almost 20 years, they continue to send me these solicitations regularly.
   Strangely, however, I have not been able to get accepted by Kaiser for any of these so-called reasonably priced plans. But I guess I should feel grateful to be able to continue my coverage on a COBRA conversion (at an outrageous cost per month). I won't even tell you what Kaiser wanted to charge for my teenaged son's COBRA coverage when his father died in 2009.
   And my self-employed husband has been rejected by every health plan he's applied to. He is not sick,thank God.
   None of this market manipulation is new. It's been going on for years.
   I'm truly sorry you are having to experience this.
   Maybe when the people who so vehemently cry "Oh no! We love our health care the way it is, don't touch it!" no longer have that luxury they will see the light.

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   wildernessposted 14 years ago

   Well, I don't know if it's new or not, I just know I've never had an 80% yearly price increase in anything in my life. 
   
   Yes, the carrier offered to put all the employees on their own plan instead of the companies.  The form letter indicated it would cost $1300 per month for my wife and I; actual prices would probably double or triple given our medical histories (if they would take us at all).  Insurance companies don't like 60 year old people with a recent heart attack history.  There is no affordable health insurance for us outside of a corporate plan and that has now been priced outside the capabilities of the small company I work for.

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      weholdthesetruthsposted 14 years agoin reply to this

      This is what happens when people screw with stuff they don't understand.
      
      INSURANCE is a risk-sharing mechanism, where risk is to be shared across a pool of people and the subscriber...where the subscriber chooses a level of risk they bear themselves and a level they choose someone else to share - for a price.   When you buy auto insurance, the "pool" is the size of the company, or a region the company has divided people into.   Thus, when you join or leave, the risk pool changes insignficantly, and if the company grows, the pool enlarges.  Thus, some harsh event, like a big ice storm that results in a bunch of losses has minimal impact and generally no change in premium amounts.   
      
      Unfortunately,  health insurance is not sold to individuals in massive pools, it's sold to EMPLOYERS, with each employer being its own risk pool, or sub-pool.    The Obama plan tried to change that from a tradition to a legally enforced situation.     Thus, it enforced the "small pool" mechanism even worse, and then, by changing the terms of insurance, by requiring "post facto" loss assumption, it worsened the deal even more.
      
      It would be like telling car insurance it had to sell you a policy AFTER you had a wreck, and still pay for the damages in your wreck.    This is a double whammy.    It enforced the small pool model at the same time it completely altered anyone's ability to manage the risk they are supposed to be paid to share.    It demanded that insurance companies assume all risk, but exist without the paid pool to bring in the money to cover the costs.   Of course rates are going up.    Even the stupidest of morons knew that.   
      
      The "must accept" simply raises the costs to the insurance company to "everyting everyone wants to have" and fails in any way to incentivize anyone to use it responsibly.    The only method of "cost control" in the obamacare plan is rationing.   Denying to children, the mentally retarded, the old, etc.    The government devises rules bassed on "we spend the money to cure taxpayers if the life extensiion is enough to bring in enough tax money to be 'worth it',  otherwise,  the government lets them die.   That's how every single payer system works. 
      
      Obamacare simply magnifies every fault in the system now, and fails to use any of the mechanisms that work.

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   fettyposted 14 years ago

   Please read my hub on healthcare ; it states the new changes that have just gone into effect for all Americans. We are self-employed and we pay over $1005. per month for a basic HMO plan. I have tried to lower the premium by paying higher co-pays but these have gotten ridiculous as well. I just don't understand the group of people in this country that are happy with their health care plans. When I was teaching I paid for my husbands coverage. I only worked a half day but I literally worked to pay for that coverage. I earned $500 every two weeks. Please stay informed about this new reform. If everyone participates the premiums have to go down. Obama has not written the legislation the House and the Senate have. I also am sorry you have to go through this . Look into USHealth Care. This maybe cheaper than the top companies and it it certainly safer to carry something over nothing. My husband is two years away from applying for Medicare. He can't wait. We are the working poor - we work for the insurance companies and the tax man.

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5. 77

   Shadesbreathposted 14 years ago

   My company has had 30%, 80%, and 80% increases the last three years running and we expect it will go up by over 100% in 2011. They've tried very hard to work around it with HSAs and all that, but the viscious, greedy fiends in health insurance AND in health care itself are working together (unwittingly?) with the moronic, utopian idiots on the left to create the perfect storm that is actually going to destroy health care for everyone. 
   
   We either need to STOP developing NEW medical technology until everyone can afford what we have now, or we need to STOP pretending like everyone deserves whatever it takes for however long it takes to save them no matter how old they are or how f-ed up their bodies are after X-number of years of abusive lifestyle (which doesn't even address treating everyone who sneaks across the border to get some medical action for free--which I'm not taking sides on, just pointing out: not addressed).
   
   Can't have both on a limited budget, but nobody wants to say it outloud.

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      wildernessposted 14 years agoin reply to this

      Shades, I have to agree with what you say, although I'm not convinced the health care (hospitals, doctors, nurses, etc.) carry much of the blame. 
      
      However, it is clear to me that the country cannot support what the politicians have promised.  We simply don't have the money to do it with.
      
      From the sound of your own company, you may well follow my own experience, either having no insurance or such a crappy plan it is nearly worthless.  A sad state of affairs.

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         Ralph Deedsposted 14 years agoin reply to this

         "For profit medicine" increasingly is driving health care cost increases. More and more doctors own hospitals and radiology and testing labs. When they do costs go up because they order more radiology and lab tests.
         
         The health reform bill has so far had nothing to do with this trend, either encouraging it or discouraging it. Few provisions of the reform have taken effect yet. The reform contains some cost control features but not nearly enough. Health costs were increasing at an unsustainable rate long before the Obama health reforms were passed.

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            Petra Vlahposted 14 years agoin reply to this

            I believe that to be true, Ralph.
            I am in great health, but a few months ago I experienced some shortness of breathe (should not be surprized since I smoke 2 packs a day).
            After a few very rutine tests done in the office (which came out perfect), the doctor concluded that it may be just an anxiety attac, however he ordered test totaling over 16 thousands dollars. All of the test came out perfect as well, but guess who is paying for it (I do have a great insurance, so I should not worry, but I do)

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            weholdthesetruthsposted 14 years agoin reply to this

            Ralph, you are wholly and utterly wrong.    You need to learn about the problems, not recite ideological tripe.

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      Reality Bytesposted 14 years agoin reply to this

      
      
      There are Progressives that would start a Eugenic and Euthanasia Department tomorrow if they were allowed to do so.
      
      Unfortunately for them Hitler gave these programs such a bad name!
      
      Good for us though.

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         Ralph Deedsposted 14 years agoin reply to this

         "here are Progressives that would start a Eugenic and Euthanasia Department tomorrow if they were allowed to do so."
         
         That's pure B.S.

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            Reality Bytesposted 14 years agoin reply to this

            
            
            http://www.hgalert.org/topics/geneticDi … genics.htm
            
            Genetics and eugenics
            What then of geneticists' claim that eugenics is merely an abuse of genetics, or an aberration? At one level, the answer to this question is already clear: genetics and eugenics are inseparably linked. Some form of eugenics is an inevitable consequence of the advance of the science of genetics, although the popularity of overt eugenics programmes will vary according to social and political circumstances.
            
            It is, however, important to note the truth in geneticists' argument that advances in the science of genetics have done much to discredit eugenics. Mainstream eugenics in the USA and Britain was based on the belief that abilities and personality traits were determined by single genes, as was 'feeblemindedness'. Socialist geneticists such as JBS Haldane and Hermann Muller succeeded by the 1930s in demonstrating the falseness of such ideas. However, this did not diminish their eugenic enthusiasm, but merely led to a more moderate reformulation, shorn of its more outrageous class and racial prejudice. Muller, later to receive the Nobel Prize for his discoveries in genetics, persisted into the 1950s in his eugenic efforts. Historians are still debating the degree to which scientists influenced the unpopularity of eugenics after the Second World War.
            
            For our understanding of the present, what is more important is the consequence of the discrediting of simplistic Mendelian eugenics in the 1920s and 30s. Amongst the funders of eugenics research in the US, such as the Rockefeller and Carnegie Foundations, dissatisfaction with eugenics was growing, while ideological commitment on the part of the trustees persisted. According to Kay1, this was at least part of the impetus behind the Rockefeller Foundation's strategic move into supporting the development of what became known as molecular biology: dissatisfied with the woolly science of the eugenicists, the Foundation decided that the cause of eugenics would be better served by applying mathematical and physical methods, in order to make biology into a 'hard' science. It has been molecular biology, which led, via Crick and Watson, to genetic engineering in the 1970s. Kay suggests that the Rockefeller Foundation's strategic investment finally paid off in the late 1980s and 90s, with the launch of the Human Genome Project.
            
            What this illustrates is the way that the history of eugenics is intertwined with that of eugenics. Problems in eugenics stimulated research in genetics, whilst developments in genetics informed the evolution of eugenics. This is a typical pattern in the development of any science and its practical application.
            
            Viewed in this perspective, the popular eugenics movement of the early twentieth century was a highly damaging false start for eugenics. An particular set of political circumstances propelled it prematurely into the light, with disastrous consequences for its reputation. After the Second World War, eugenics did not disappear: it merely went underground. In Britain, the Eugenics Society continues to exist, and only changed its name to the Galton Institute in the late 1980s. Key figures, such as Francis Crick and Victor McKusick, the doyen of medical genetics, have continued to make eugenic pronouncements, but most of the efforts of eugenics activists have shifted to the issue of Third World population control.
            
            Ho Hum!

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               Ralph Deedsposted 14 years agoin reply to this

               They aren't getting much traction. So, where are the "progressives" advocating eugenics and euthansia?

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                  Reality Bytesposted 14 years agoin reply to this

                  I do not think all Progressives support this kind of barbaric behaviour.
                  
                  
                  But Some do!  If only Hitler did not jump the gun and start his programs first, we would already be victims of these atrocities.
                  
                  I do have a hub on the Eugenics movement?

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   CMHypnoposted 14 years ago

   wilderness, this must be a very worrying time for you and your family, and for many other American families.  Over here in GB our NHS comes in for a lot of criticism, but too many Brits don't realise how lucky they are to be able to go to the doctor anytime they want to and to have any medicine and treatment they need for free or minimal prescription charges

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   kmackey32posted 14 years ago

   I also have no health insurance...

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      kmackey32posted 14 years agoin reply to this

      Maybe one day my boyfriend will marry me and give me some...

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8. 74

   Mighty Momposted 14 years ago

   kmackey,
   My boyfriend married me but was not able to give me any health insurance. Despite trying numerous times and numerous ways, we have been unable to get any for him.
   We are playing health care roulette and are very aware that sooner or later the bullet's gonna hit the chamber.

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      wildernessposted 14 years agoin reply to this

      You are right, MM, in that sooner or later the bullet will be in the chamber.  My family has been hit several times, including one year in which we had 4 hospitalizations for major surgery or illness.
      
      It is indeed a roulette game; my only hope is that we can at least get insurance for my wife and that I can make it to medicare age.  If it happens before that I guess we'll be bankrupt - many people are.

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      kmackey32posted 14 years agoin reply to this

      Oh MM, does your boyfriend have health Insurange through his job? I said that because mine does....

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   Mighty Momposted 14 years ago

   No, kmackey. My husband (we've been married for going on 7 years). He has always been self-employed with is own company, as long as I've known him. That is one of the downfalls of being self-employed -- you don't have an employer to provide benefits!
   
   I have really changed my thinking about the value of benefits. When you're looking for a job, salary is good to have, but make sure you check their health plan THOROUGHLY! Employer-provided health care is worth its weight in GOLD!

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    Evan G Rogersposted 14 years ago

    Your welcome. I'll thank my parents and all my friends for you...
    
    ... After all, that's where the money's coming from.
    
    Be sure to thank everyone you meet who pays taxes. Be sure to thank them for having their freedom taken away to pay for your health.
    
    Don't get me wrong: I'm glad you're getting insurance, but be clear as to where the money is coming from.

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       wildernessposted 14 years agoin reply to this

       I think I'm lost.  Are you replying to the OP?

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11. 74

    Mighty Momposted 14 years ago

    Wilderness,
    I am truly sorry that your family is experiencing this. There is no good reason that citizens should live with this fear. There is no reason anyone should have to declare bankruptcy to pay for just one visit to the hospital. That's just wrong.
    Countries like Costa Rica provide excellent, FREE health care to all residents. What is wrong with the US that we allow small businesses to be put out of business by greedy insurance companies and citizens live in fear of losing their benefits.
    It's just inhumane.
    
    Evan -- I really don't get where you are coming from. Wilderness said he does NOT have health insurance.
    There is NOT taxpayer funded insurance at this point.
    And not for anything, but your post makes it sound like your parents and your friends are paying taxes. What about you? If you're not paying taxes, what in the world are you squawking about anyway????

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