This back and forth is why we should have universal healthcare. The current system sucks.
12 Likes
Something more like the ESRD type benefit?
Twig wants no age bands, because her dad is old. Ideally she apparently wants some kind of universal single payer system. And barring that she wants to go back to when sick people were either employed or bankrupt.
3 Likes
Another anecdote: my inlaws chose to retire before they were old enough for medicare. They were in excellent physical shape with no major health issues at the time, and did purchase individual health insurance. My MIL got breast cancer, which she survived. After her diagnosis their health insurance cost jumped to tens of thousands per year (my memory is that it was near 50k annually with a huge deductible).
They could afford to pay it and did so. I don’t think most households could do that.
2 Likes
False across the board.
When was that? I thought that became not allowed at some point well before Obamacare.
Dont remember the exact years, but general timeframe was 2000-7 ish.
Isn’t this exactly the type of individual pricing and underwriting you are an advocate of?
2 Likes
Maybe put another way, are you suggesting taking the top 10% (or whatever) most expensive people, and having their care funded by baking it into the premiums for group and individual in the US? And Medicare too, or just commercial?
You said ‘uninsured with pre-ex’ but I assume you mean anyone high cost. Otherwise wouldn’t we wind up with the prior problem with adverse selection?
The average ACA cost is comparable to what group coverage. You are upset that your dad pays a lot more than average because he is old. My impression there is you want the ACA to not have age rates.
You also want people with group coverage to subsidize aca (more than they already do that is), because you think it’s less healthy. That’s fair enough, -but imo- if your goal is to make all people equally responsible for the burden of the sick and poor, then you might as well dump the unnecessarily stupid and complicated system of group insurance.
You also keep talking about UW, and you seem to be using the word differently than most people. My question, I guess, is: do you think the current system is better or worse than the pre-ACA system with Pre-Ex, and individual UW pricing and exclusions.
(Which put the burden of the sick squarely onto the shoulders of the sick, unless they took a job with a large employer and bizarrely avoided moving around.)
1 Like
False.
That would be an improvement over what we have now, certainly.
People with group coverage are only funding the subsidies for low-income individuals, not the actual premiums. To the extent that individual premiums are higher than group premiums due to the population being sicker, then the healthy people in the individual market are subsidizing the sick people in the individual market in a way that people in the group market are not, and by design can not.
If we got rid of underwriting for automobile insurance then the premiums for good drivers would increase. If we kept underwriting for all drivers getting a good driver discounts except those GoA posters who have mammals for avatars then the premium for most of us would stay the same, but you would essentially be paying the bad driver rate.
Post of the day imo.
4 Likes
I’m just lurking here and I’m still trying to figure out exactly how twig proposes to “solve” the problem. It seems like she’s advocating for universal single-payer but then she said no to that. I’ve pretty much lost interest at this point.
3 Likes
If only there was some penalty for not having insurance that would share the cost with everyone built into the ACA. Oh that’s right the republicans set that $0.
3 Likes
Also you keep using that word without explaining it. Group plans have guaranteed issue. And they aren’t allowed to exclude pre-existing conditions. So are you referring to discrimination? If so what are the numbers you have in mind?
1 Like
I’m starting to think she is proposing that we allow ACA coverage to be fully underwritten. And then, secondary to that, create transfer payments from group plans to individual plans, to offset ACA premiums being higher.
Maybe I’m still not getting it.
1 Like
I’m willing to spread them across, I don’t know, 350 million people.
2 Likes
Do we need an ACA thread set up too? Aren’t there already a couple to choose from?
1 Like