Just Lost My Insurance

[RottenApple]

Clearly there is no perfect answer, but I think it's reasonable to expect one where *most* people can afford care and the quality of care is reasonable.

Before the ObamaCare debacle, 92% of Americans had healthcare insurance. Now, I don't know about you, but the last time *I* checked, 92% definitely qualifies as "*most* people".

BTW, the 92% number comes from the Democrats themselves. Democrats claim there are between 10 and 30 million uninsured in the US which has a population of roughly 385 million. 30 million is less than 10% of the total population.

[rotor]

In response to cb1000rider

Not correct. You are not exempt because you have an employer. Congress and their employees are exempt. When you have an insurance card which you are now mandated to have that does not mean that you have either affordable care or quality. All you have is a card. If that card grants you Medicaid status then you can kick your rear end goodbye when you get sick because the cream of the crop docs will not be seeing you. I am in the medical field. I deal with this all the time. As far as I am concerned, cash is king. Good insurance (and the emphasis is good because much is not- Ae**a is one of those not so good) is queen. Medicare only gets you in on referral from a doctor and Medicaid doesn't get you in at all. Obamacare is a giant Medicaid. There are some docs that see everything- you really don't want one of those as your private doctor. When you have to wait three months to get in to see someone do you think you are getting quality care? Look at other "civilized" countries like England. They have age cut offs for dialysis, cardiac surgery and everything else. Can take years to get scheduled for a hernia repair. What happens if you are at that age ( and we consider that young here) you die because you don't get the care. Who sets the guideline- the accountants. Money always talks whether it be guns or medical care. He who has gets the best. Pellosi is worth hundreds of millions- she and hers get in their private jet and go anywhere. You didn't see that in Obamacare? You have to pass it before you know it's there. You with your dinky Obamacare card will be at the bottom of the totem pole, somewhere close to me as I am on Medicare. My pets get better care without delay, cash is king, no outside government interference, when they need surgery there are no delays, when they need to be put to sleep it is done with dignity and love ( we call that humane but it is not for humans- only pets), and they always see a doctor as their caregiver while you will probably see a nurse (if you even get that high up in the medical scheme).

[Tic Tac]

Freedom is doomed once the takers can vote themselves bread and circuses on the back of the productive people.

[cb1000rider]

In response to cb1000rider

Not correct. You are not exempt because you have an employer.

I meant that I don't have to go to the exchange because I'm already covered per minimums... You're right, I'm not exempt.

Explain to me though - Congress is explicitly exempt? That is, if the US Government did not provide health coverage for those "employees" they are somehow exempted from having to seek coverage in an exchange?

[rotor]

Correct. We are the peons. They are the monarchy. As Marie Antoinette supposedly said of the starving masses, "let them eat cake". No matter what they will end up with the gold plan and you will end up with the "smelly brown" plan. And you will supplement their cost for that plan. We are not just talking money- the care you receive is the deciding factor of whether you live or die with that heart attack, stroke, or cancer. Our rulers will for sure get the best care, the most skilled doctors, no restrictions on the cost of medicines, access to the best facilities. So, it is not just a money issue but a survival issue. But you will have your obamacare card that you can take to the grave with you. Do I sound like a bitter old man? Is the NSA scanning this?

[cb1000rider]

This "exempt" thing seems to be a common not-so-truth.. My die hard Republican mother-in-law said the same thing to me "They're exempt".

Turns out, they're not exempt. We all believe it on face value.
Congress isn't any more exempt than anyone else is with employer sponsored health care... See the CNN fact check:
http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/20 ... obamacare/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

I'm not required to purchase on the exchanges.. Neither is congress.

[Vol Texan]

This "exempt" thing seems to be a common not-so-truth.. My die hard Republican mother-in-law said the same thing to me "They're exempt".

Turns out, they're not exempt. We all believe it on face value.
Congress isn't any more exempt than anyone else is with employer sponsored health care... See the CNN fact check:
http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/20 ... obamacare/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

I'm not required to purchase on the exchanges.. Neither is congress.

They may not be fully exempt, but they don't have to eat the bitter pill that ALL of the rest of us have to. Their employer has unlimited funds (our tax money) and will gladly pay to cover a significant amount of their costs.
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/3 ... -john-fund

In 2009, Senator Chuck Grassley (R., Iowa) decided that the principle deserved to be embedded in Obamacare, and he was able to insert a provision requiring all members of Congress and their staffs to get insurance through the Obamacare health exchanges. “The more that Congress experiences the laws it passes, the better,” said Grassley. Although his amendment was watered down before final passage to exclude committee staff, it still applies to members of Congress and their personal staffs. Most employment lawyers interpreted that to mean that the taxpayer-funded federal health-insurance subsidies dispensed to those on Congress’s payroll — which now range from $5,000 to $11,000 a year — would have to end.

Democratic and Republican staffers alike were furious, warning that Congress faced a “brain drain” if the provision stuck. Under behind-the-scenes pressure from members of Congress in both parties, President Obama used the quiet of the August recess to personally order the Office of Personnel Management, which supervises federal employment issues, to interpret the law so as to retain the generous congressional benefits.

OPM had previously balked at issuing such a ruling. Even without OPM, Congress could have voted to restore the subsidies or ordered a salary raise to compensate for the loss of benefits, but that would have been a messy, public process, which everyone wanted to avoid.

Senator Vitter says the OPM ruling has removed “the sting of Obamacare” from Congress.

[cb1000rider]

[
They may not be fully exempt, but they don't have to eat the bitter pill that ALL of the rest of us have to.

How are they any more exempt than me? There is no language anywhere exempting them. They're like any federal employee with "employer" coverage.

I agree, they should eat their own dog food, so to speak.. but saying they are exempt isn't remotely factual.

[Vol Texan]

I don't care even if it did reduce our costs - it is a BAD THING that the government is taking over. Remember, a government that is strong enough to give you everything is also strong enough to take it away.

That is a point of view that I can understand.

The alternative is "do nothing". The course of doing nothing leaves the vast majority of Americans on a track that would mean they can't afford to be old or sick, unless they're substantially wealthy. There would be mass migration to Canada... :-)

cb1000rider,

From reading a number of your postings, it appears that you are supportive of (or at least tolerant of) Obamacare. As I'm sure that you're aware, the one thing that a great number of this board's contributors agree on (other than our love of the 2nd Amendment) is our utter disgust for the poorly named 'Affordable Care Act'. As this abomination nears (and passes) the date of implementation, our tempers will rise exponentially, and our tolerance for Obamacare (and supporters of Obamacare) will likely grow thin.

I'm reminded of a quote from our own TAM on another thread:

That said, I would not likely knowingly advance someone whose political activities I knew to be contrary to the best interests of my business, regardless of how unfair that might be to some. If I had knowledge of someone's personal political choices being destructive to my business, I could not in good conscience promote such a person, no matter how well they performed their duties while at work, because their ultimate interests are destructive of my own..........which is why it is best for employees to not talk about politics at work. I'm not saying that I would forbid employees to talk about politics on their own time....lunch breaks, etc.......I'm just saying that I would incorporate the things they say into my opinion about their intelligence, reliability, and dedication; and that might have a negative impact on whether or not I would consider them for advancement.

While this forum is not a workplace, some of his conclusions still apply. I do hope that this board remains civil, as it's one of the best-run forums out on the web (I run one for our HOA, and it's a challenge keeping it sane even when we're neighbors in the same subdivision). But civility and acceptance may be hard to come by as the weeks and months progress. I hope you'll be understanding if others on the board become less civil (or less conversational) with you on this topic. I, for one, will adopt the latter of those two, in part due to the reasons expressed by TAM above.

I relish a good debate as well as anyone, but there are some discussions I won't undertake. For instance, I love to compare / contrast my own Roman Catholic faith with my friends who are Buddhist, etc., but I won't even enter the conversation with someone who thinks all Christians need to die immediately. I enjoy discussing guns with friends who are unsure of their stance, but I won't waste my breath on anyone who insists that all guns are bad, and full gun confiscation is the only answer. Likewise, I won't waste my time discussing Obamacare (which I personally believe to be the equivalent of stage 4 pancreatic cancer on our country's - and my personal - fiscal health) with anyone who continually finds the 'good things' about it.

Why so harsh? I believe any good debate has the potential for us to reach a common ground - some sort of compromise, can be reached. However, in each example above, the gap in our beliefs is just too far, and I'm not willing to take even one step to try to bridge it. Therefore, there is no need to even enter the conversation.

Thanks for taking the time to read to the bottom of this.

[cb1000rider]

Vol Texan,
I don't know enough about how Obamacare is going to turn out to be a supporter. If a wait-and-see attitude is too opposed to yours that we can't discuss it, I'm willing to avoid that topic with you also.
Why am I wait an see? If it decreases costs and flattens or reverses the trend of healthcare costs in the US, I consider that a positive. I'm not sure it's going to do that. If it doesn't do that, it's a failure.
I support a change in that I recognize the cost of medical care in the US had a growth rate that had been outpacing incomes for many years. Sure, we have amazing technology and great doctors, but the trend was clearly that unless you were well above middle-class, you were not going to get that type of care... Just calculating what it would take me to retire - the biggest expense was looking to be health insurance costs. And those costs will probably keep me working for years, unless I decided to wrangle a state or federal job that provided healthcare in retirement.

What I don't like about Obamacare, quite simply, is that it is Socialism. That's how I view it. That's not wait-and-see... It is what it is. It's not free market. It's not pay per risk. It's certainly helping those who are poor and have major not-currently-covered health conditions, but it does so at the cost of the rest of us.

I don't mean to come off harsh, but I'm fairly black and white on facts. The fact is that Congress isn't exempt, yet people continue to post that they are... It's not personal and it certainly isn't intended as harsh, but I'm going to challenge those that post it to show me the facts. I can understand and respect varying opinions on Obamacare. I can't understand why people say that congress is exempt.

It's frustrating that fiction, especially spun-up politicized fiction spreads like wildfire.. I don't blame the conservatives alone. I don't blame the liberals alone. It seems to be an effective means of "advertising" and both sides seem to use it.
I think it lends credence to the fact that our founding fathers setup a Republic, not a straight Democracy.. Perhaps because we're not smart enough on a whole to actually check facts - we believe what we want to believe and what supports our agenda.

I just think we'd have a much more effective debate and might actually improve things if we stopped twisting reality.

[rotor]

cb1000rider
The affordable care act as written put congressional staff into the exchanges. They should have read what they wrote because they would no longer have received the huge financial support from the taxpayer to pay for their insurance. This was the Grassley ammendment. These are not low income workers on food stamps. The exemption they get is that they still have over 70% of their premiums covered by the taxpayer. They can afford to get the best plans available because we pay for it. The legislature did not pass any laws which created this great benefit for congressional folks. Obama just dictated that it be done. So they are able to get the top health plans available, payed mostly by you and me and in violation of the law they passed. True, before Obamacare they had those benefits paid for by you and me but they are now getting those benefits by exemption because it was not in the law as passed with the Grassley ammendment. How about some nice exemptions for the rest of us working slobs. As written though congressional staff would have paid for their own insurance. Come to think of it I have been doing that for the last 30 years. So when by dictum alone you give one group an exemption from the law as written I call that--- an exemption. Now let's see if the unions get their exemptions. As Pelosi said, we have to pass it-etc. We may be just debating semantics now and I don't deny that the Grassley ammendment put congressional staff on an "unfair" footing compared to the pre-Obamacare but much of Obamacare is unfair. By law when you are born and take that first breath you are taxed- you must have insurance or pay the tax. You are taxed because you live. Lots of things are unfair. But as far as congressional staff, they are exempt from Obamacare as written because by law they should not get any of their insurance covered by the taxpayer. When a large company cancels insurance and tells it's employees to buy their own at the exchanges those individuals are on their own unless their employer decides to pay part of the expense. I would bet that most don't do that. I doubt that a middle class individual will end up with a policy as good as the congressional staffer unless he/she is independantly wealthy. I hope this clarifies that congressional staffers are exempt from obamacare as written without any actual legislative change in the law. Our monarch just declares it to be so. Come to think of it, isn't that what happened to the author of this thread? Where is his exemption so that 70% of his premium will be paid for by someone else?

[cb1000rider]

Rotor,
I think we're on the same page. Congress doesn't have to buy healthcare on the exchange because over 70% of their premiums are covered by their employer (us / Federal government). As I understand it, Congress is treated no differently than any other federal employee with high levels of coverage.

As I understand it, this is the same level of healthcare that they've always had... I did some reading on Grassley - and it's a bit of a mess for what we're trying to keep straight here as it starts to look at Congressional staff (some low paid, some high paid). I think it was intended as "eat your own dog food".

"When a large company cancels insurance and tells it's employees to buy their own at the exchanges those is their employer decides to pay part of individuals are on their own uthe expense. I would bet that most don't do that."

I'm not sure that Obamacare is going to trigger vast majorities of companies to cancel healthcare and just pocket those (often very significant) funds. I'm sure it will happen in some cases. Healthcare coverage is a form of compensation - and that's how I look at it. If you dropped it, you just gave me a pay cut and I'll take that into consideration. Ideally, employers would offer to continue funding current plans or provide those funds to employees to purchase care on the "health exchange".

I know that internally health care costs for companies I've worked for over the last 10 years have gotten ridiculous. Companies started to essentially lower benefits and move to providers that were not of the same quality or accessibility that I had 10 years ago. Again, for me it's part of total compensation. Obamacare or not, something had to change or eventually most of us would end up not being able to afford medical coverage. And getting coverage after having a health condition like Cancer? Forget about it... It wasn't going to happen. Basically, I'd support a "better idea". Haven't seen one. Until I see one, I'm solidly wait-and-see... I want the statistical data that won't be out for a few months.

[Kythas]

The alternative is "do nothing". The course of doing nothing leaves the vast majority of Americans on a track that would mean they can't afford to be old or sick, unless they're substantially wealthy. There would be mass migration to Canada... :-)

Here, my friend, you've fallen for Democrat propaganda. The alternative is not, and has never been, do nothing.

Republicans have proposed numerous alternatives, especially when Obamacare was being debated originally. Their proposals were dismissed by Democrats, who then insisted that Republicans had no plan. This was all a lie.

This past June, the House of Representatives has introduced HR 2300 (written by US Rep Tom Price, who is a doctor), which replaces Obamacare with a series of health care reforms, most notably:

-- It extends tax deductions for health insurance to those who buy as individuals, thus eliminating the incentive that favored employer-purchased insurance.
-- It gives patients true portability by making them the owners of their insurance – not their employers.
-- It gives doctors the real power to make treatment decisions, not insurance companies or the government.
-- It reforms medical liability laws and thus saves money by reducing the practice of defensive medicine.

As recently as two weeks ago, Republicans unveiled what they call the American Healthcare Reform Act, which also seems to be a decent alternative.

My point in bringing up these particular bills is not to endorse them, but to show that Republicans do have, and have had for years, alternatives to Obamacare. Many of these have been passed by the Republican controlled House, but Harry Reid refuses to even consider them in the Democrat controlled Senate, then pillories the Republicans by saying "They hate Obamacare but have no plan of their own", knowing all the time it's a lie. The media, which is nothing more than the propaganda arm of the Democrat Party these days, then repeats that mantra. The media claims to cover the topic of healthcare, then ignores proposed solutions from the very people they criticize for allegedly not having any.

[sjfcontrol]

Obamacare or not, something had to change or eventually most of us would end up not being able to afford medical coverage. And getting coverage after having a health condition like Cancer? Forget about it... It wasn't going to happen. Basically, I'd support a "better idea". Haven't seen one. Until I see one, I'm solidly wait-and-see... I want the statistical data that won't be out for a few months.

Simply not true. The Texas Health Insurance Pool is (was) available for those that couldn't otherwise qualify due to preexisting conditions. My wife had cancer, and was covered under the pool until she turned 65 and medicare took over. Expensive? Yes. High Deductibles? Yes. But it was insurance and was available.

[The Annoyed Man]

Obamacare or not, something had to change or eventually most of us would end up not being able to afford medical coverage. And getting coverage after having a health condition like Cancer? Forget about it... It wasn't going to happen. Basically, I'd support a "better idea". Haven't seen one. Until I see one, I'm solidly wait-and-see... I want the statistical data that won't be out for a few months.

Simply not true. The Texas Health Insurance Pool is (was) available for those that couldn't otherwise qualify due to preexisting conditions. My wife had cancer, and was covered under the pool until she turned 65 and medicare took over. Expensive? Yes. High Deductibles? Yes. But it was insurance and was available.

And don't forget that, with the implementation of Obamacare, the Texas High Risk Pool is now canceled. So Obamacare destroyed a viable alternative, forcing sjfcontrol's wife into the exchanges, WHERE DEATH PANELS will begin making her cancer treatment decisions "for" her.

cb1000rider, did you know that the consulting committee the administration brought in which made all of the recommendations for women's healthcare relative to the treatment of breast cancer did not include one physician practicing in female oncology? Not one. Those recommendations about how Obamacare should manage breast and ovarian cancer were all made by people who know nothing about the treatment and management of breast and ovarian cancer. God forbid you should ever get testicular cancer, but if you do, how are you going to feel about the fact that the recommendations made for its management were made by people who know nothing about treating the disease?

You want to wait and see how this one turns out? http://washingtonexaminer.com/19-of-hea ... le/2536481

A unique new survey of health care professionals finds that 56 percent oppose Obamacare, with more than nine in 10 believing that there could be major negative impacts such as a drop in quality care. A shocking 19 percent believe Americans will die earlier.

In its 2013 Health Care Survey of 200 top health care professionals nationally, Coupa Software told Secrets that health care professionals are worried about a number of setbacks that the health law could result in. Asked to list the “negative impacts,” of which they could pick several, here's what Coupa found:

-- 53 percent, “Quality of health insurance policies will suffer.”

-- 51 percent, “Quality of care will go down.”

-- 49 percent, “The law is overly complicated.”

-- 42 percent, “Insurance exchanges will be poorly managed.”

-- 37 percent, “The law still allows insurance companies to be the middleman.”

-- 32 percent, “Too complex for businesses.”

-- 19 percent, “Americans will die earlier.”

And this is from people who have, for the most part, actually READ the law because it directly affects their medical practices and their ability to stay in business, treat patients, and earn a decent income from the investment they made in education and training.

They don't need to wait and see. They know what is coming.