The ACA may not set prices but it does drive up costs for insurance and this means people that were paying for health insurance all along are going to get higher prices and lower coverage. My current plan is considered a platinum plan and the coverage is limited by the ACA because we wouldn't want someone that works hard for it to receive much better coverage than someone who doesn't.
Did you research your current plan and choose it yourself or take what your employer handed to you? If you haven't already, go online and see what plans are available in your state and compare them to what you have now. Most of the people that I've talked to that are wigging out over their increased costs never took the initiative to find things out for themselves...they just assumed that what their employer offered them was the best option available.
I am a union carpenter and I have kept this job through the years mainly for the health insurance for my family and now that is all gone so that people who choose to remain unskilled can have health insurance. I made sure that I had a good work ethic and valuable skills to keep working in the construction industry and I've never been laid off even in the slowest of times because I've made myself valuable to my employer. If you, or anyone else, choose to not have health insurance then that is on you and the rest of the country shouldn't be dragged into it.
Skill has very little to do with it, and you cannot assume that your life experiences are status quo across the nation.
I chose not to have health insurance because I was unwilling to spend 25-33% of my income on it.
I have never, even for a second, sat down and thought that someone richer than me should pay for anything for me or my family. In the end, it doesn't really matter how any of us feel about this because the healthcare system we had is gone and has been replaced by government red tape that I'm sure will somehow make it all better. Our president told us it would be better so it must be true.
The healthcare system we had before was broken, so I'm glad its gone. Its focus was not on efficient, preventative healthcare, it was focused on raking in the $ when shit got serious.
Rich people always pay in more because they buy expensive shit. Nobody twists their arm into paying extra for things, they do it because they can and they want to. This isn't about the rich footing the bill...its about everyone paying in what they can so that everyone has at least minimal coverage. We will not see the benefits of this for several years...
Always. :mrgreen:
In order for the insurance game to function it needs people to pay in who do not use. It needs lots of young healthy people to support all us over 40 people who will start having health issues.
Exactly, and if broad enough changes can be made in the mindset of us 'mericans, the over-40 crowd might not be such a load on the system.
The largest issue is the fact we are forced to buy it.
Just like car insurance and homeowners insurance.
Health care in this country is a finite resource. There is only so much. Of course this only applies to the unwashed masses, because the rich will always be above the rules for the rest. It is a tough call. If I have $10 to feed 5 people how exactly do we divvy it up? The fair way is $2 each, but if it is my $10 should I not get a little more. What if one of them has not eaten in days, maybe he should get more.
Healthcare has become a massive source for financial gain, which is the root of this problem.
I know a doctor who until recently operated two offices. He opened the second one in a retirement community 15 minutes away because Medicare used to be a pretty profitable way to get paid. He shut it down because things have changed and he was no longer profiting like he used to.
When it comes to health care the sickly use more of it. If your healthy you might drop into the doctor once a year to refill your Viagra. If your born with a severe condition, you might be at the doctors once a week until you die at 12.
Yup. The only times I've ever seen a doctor is when whatever was ailing me got out of my control. Now I can plan on a yearly butt fingering and a prescription for migraine meds.
Back to the food thing. If one person need $9 worth of food, should the other 4 have to survive on whats left?
That is an ethical question, but face the facts. The Spartans would not have spent $2 million to keep a retarded deformed baby alive for a few years. Pitch it off the mountain, and society is better off.
I get this is am extreme example. But it is exactly where we stand at this point in our country. There are more people collecting a check from the government than collecting one from outside of it. Welfare, social security, government employees (federal, state, city, county, police, fire dept,etc) , private contractors, military, etc. So in essence half are supporting the rest. Eventually the productive half will either give up and get on the government gravy train, or leave for less taxation.
It is extreme, but it makes the point. However, as a civilized society can we really just let people die or at the very least live miserable lives in perpetual poor health for no other reason than "it costs too much"?
Nobody wants to support the lazy. Even the most liberal of liberals hates good-for-nothing shitheels, but that is not who the ACA was aimed at in the first place...
It cannot be supported. I give up 1/3 of my check. Not counting the taxes I pay on the things I buy on the 2/3 that is left. Sales tax here is 9%. My $10 earned gives me less than $6 in actual buying power. Even less if I eat out. 13% there. Why bother to work? If given his way oshitbag would make us all pay "our fair share", but where does that line fall. It is time to pitch some people off the mountain. Make them carry themselves before we are all dragged to the bottom.
The Valley is fawking expensive, so I can sympathize with you. I can't tell you how happy I am to be away from there. I make less here than I did there, but my cost of living dropped even more.
