Healthcare

[PrincessFiona]

Can we talk about the new plan? I am so appalled and outraged by the Senate bill that I can't stop thinking about it. I don't understand why people think that access to guns is a right, but treatment for cancer should only be for those who can afford outrageous premiums and deductibles. I'm afraid of what this bill will mean for me as a cancer survivor. Also, Andrew works and pays taxes. He is at a low-income job and doesn't qualify for insurance through his employer. He is considered a disabled adult and I applied for medical assistance for him. If that program is slowly phased out what will happen to him? What will happen to my mom if she ends up in a nursing home? What about all of us and our children and parents. There has to be some type of affordable basic health insurance for everyone. If people want private insurance, they should be able to buy that too.

Kris


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[rufflesanddots]

All very valid concerns. I just called my Senators asking that they vote no. It would be terrifying if this were to pass. I often think about how I'll be affected, my parents and friends will be affected, and the people I serve will be affected. Call and email your senators. Share your story and your wisdom. If they're saying they'll vote no, call and thank them.

[Thirteen]

My concerns are equally aligned with yours.


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[alotofyarn]

I have concerns too, but I don't know what the answer is. Pre-existing conditions and lifetime caps could obviously affect us - C hasn't hit one million in claims yet, but he will. Is care really affordable right now? We have a really good, subsidized plan through hubby - we pay $577/month for the whole family with no deductible, no co-insurance, and low co-pays. I know as soon as we're out of residency, that cost will probably double, at least.

[PrincessFiona]

Our care is unaffordable. We have $4000 deductibles per person with a 10,000 max. It's killing us.


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[ladymoreta]

I think it's terrible. Here is what I wrote my senators (both on the panel). You can tell they listened to me...

First, the biggest problem is that health care is really, really expensive for a small percentage of Americans; however, most citizens are healthy and don't need anything except catastrophic insurance. Spreading out the cost of coverage for the very ill among healthy people was a good thought with the ACA, but many of your constituents felt it was unfair taxation to require them to purchase health insurance that was far more expensive than they would usually pay out of pocket each year for their own health care.

What I propose is a shift in how we use Medicaid. It would continue to cover the poorest among us, but it would also be used to cover chronic or ongoing catastrophic health problems such as diabetes, autism, genetic diseases, AIDS, mental health disorders, and cancer. (Consult providers for a complete list.) These are the issues that can cause even financially stable people with good insurance to go into debt. I propose that the new health care bill remove these from required coverage for insurance companies. Instead, children and adults diagnosed with these things would have only that part of their health care covered under Medicaid. This would allow the government to negotiate prices with pharmaceutical companies, hospitals, etc. with an enormous amount of bargaining power, and it would be able to require best-practice treatments across all providers.

This would have two primary benefits for your constituents: 1) health care premiums for everyone would go down significantly because insurance companies would only be paying out for temporary care such as trauma, pregnancy, and short-term illnesses; and 2) cost of treatment for ongoing medical treatment would go down significantly due to reliable continuous funding for patients and being able to negotiate prices for the entire patient population.

Now for the bad news... Shifting the cost of these treatments to taxpayers will mean increasing the taxes currently collected to fund Medicaid, and of course no taxation is ever met with open arms. If it is done in conjunction with insurance companies reducing premiums due to less coverage requirements, I hope it would not dramatically increase the financial burden on taxpayers. Additionally, high-income families or individuals who qualify for the expanded Medicaid coverage could be required to pay a small premium for their coverage to help offset the burden.

[alotofyarn]

I really liked this article: http://www.chadhayesmd.com/healthcare/