UnitedHealth may exit Obamacare individual exchanges

same thing that happens when you find a hospital or dr that wont cover your current plan, you find one that will, ans I would cut any hospital off the 911 service that refuses to cover a public option

though most would cover a government option

I would expect Congress to actually work and fix problems as they are discovered for ANY system we use, not whine all day and do nothing

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So how were these sick people treated before
I Seem to remember pre existing condition gotchas before obama care
And employers typically want a young healthy work force
Which is why employer sponsred plans work well for insurance companies


and if obamacare is trashed
What is the new and improved plan for these high risk people?

If you are over 55, the cost of a private plan goes up
And keeps going up until you get medicare
Because, big surprise, older people have more health issues
And more expensive health issues

 

this was Pre-ACA under complete republican control

"Wal-Mart Memo Suggests Ways to Cut Employee Benefit Costs " 2005

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/26/business/26walmart.ready.html?pagewanted=all

"Wal-Mart executives said the memo was part of an effort to rein in benefit costs, which to Wall Street's dismay have soared by 15 percent a year on average since 2002. Like much of corporate America, Wal-Mart has been squeezed by soaring health costs. The proposed plan, if approved, would save the company more than $1 billion a year by 2011."

"Ms. Chambers acknowledged that 46 percent of the children of Wal-Mart's 1.33 million United States employees were uninsured or on Medicaid."

an interesting Article, Walmart claims Healthcare raising by 15% a year back in 2005 under complete republican control...

 

I don't dispute preexisting conditions... in fact that is literally the ONLY thing I like about the ACA... I had an employee, who was offered a better job someplace else, he was going to make $30 an hour operating equipment, and we were only paying $20 an hour at the time to him... but he literally couldn't leave us because his wife was battling cancer at the time, and she would go without insurance for almost 10 months... believe me I actually sat down with him and the lawyers and we tried to find a way to cover things until the other insurance would kick in during their open enrollment period... but we just couldn't justify the cost for someone leaving us...

luckily for him 3 months before the new year they came back and offered him another job, and we were able to create a package he left with that would keep them on the insurance paid for that period out of their pocket as allowed by law... most folks simply can't afford it, but we gave him enough salary to cover the 2 months of paying for that out of pocket and he gave us his 1 month notice and the company agreed to give him that time in light of the circumstances... I couldn't justify it for almost the entire year at the companies expense, but after 10 years it was time for him to get the chance to move up, now the ACA allows for this very scenario...

now your question was, whats the new plan for these high risk people...

I dunno you tell me, the ACA was never supposed to allow this to happen... yet this is the scenario we're very much facing in the next few years as more and more folks are getting less and less choice, and prices are still rising quite dramatic, I don't care what examples folks want to point out in other places, I myself, and my employees, we only care about whats happening in our marketplace, because savings in one example doesn't make it cheaper for us here ya know... its not to be bitter its just a reality... going forward as this collapse I think we're only going to be left with a single payer option... problem is, nobody seems to be able to explain what version of single payer...

I mean there isn't just one single payer path... do we eliminate insurance companies, meaning a million plus jobs erased from our economy, that would be disastrous, surely you can agree... or do we pick a single payer option with free choice in a marketplace... which sure everyone will have insurance, but will they have healthcare, subtle difference between the two as people now don't use their insurance because its too expensive in order to do so... or do we have a single payer with a choice for a public option like medicaid... which dives into the dozens of issues I cited above which ultimately would collapse upon itself as well, so its not a better solution either...

so while I keep seeing fingers pointed at both sides... holy cow, what are we really going to do that isn't excessively wasteful and won't cause just as many issues??? are we finally to the point, where we're going to have to suffer an economic collapse, and put insurance companies out of business in order to have affordable healthcare going forward? what ripple effect would that have on the entire world as well if the largest consumer of goods, creates another recession heh...

P.S. the least destructive option I see now... and its not a good one when you run the numbers by any means... is to take the sick and expand medicaid, and force the middle class to continue subsidizing healthcare through higher premiums and deductibles like they already are... its sadly the least destructive but it means the middle class with have the least access to healthcare going forward... only the poor and wealthy will have it... its horrific but economically, unless we want to destroy insurance companies and most likely cause another recession, its the only option at this point... it'll cost billions to expand it, another trillion of pass along expense to the middle class with private insurance... but I just don't think we can handle another recession at this point, we have NO way to fix it if it happens...

 

you're kind of just giving me generic feel good answers, instead of going into detail on HOW that would work and get accomplished... see thats the whole problem... everyone says things but they don't think through the consequences and apply reality to see how it would work out... I mean I can say things that feel good to and would make me sound brilliant, but I would be lying to myself if I believed them without proving and showing how it would work in reality... that just makes it an opinion, and opinions don't provide healthcare... I'm not trying to beat up on you... I just am struggling to find someone with a solution that has actually worked through the reality of it... believe me I actually am interested in finding a solution, problem is, we're at a point where the choices are all awful, and we don't have a good one... that worries me...

like I said... how does someone in the inner city just "find one" that will work with their insurance... when so many of the inner city doctors are dropping medicaid patients because they LOSE money every time one comes in... because the reimbursement rates are lower than the cost to provide the care... and they don't have a lot of private insurance patients they can pass that cost along to...

medicaid pays "x" for a procedure...
doctor charges "y" for that procedure...
private insurance pays "z" for a procedure...

x is less than y... and z is greater than y... because z is subsidizing the loss from x...

thats the current problem... so like I said... would you pass a law mandating medicaid finally pay "true cost" so that private insurance holders aren't subsidizing them? and once you do that, who will you tax to get the money in order to pay for the true cost of medicaid patients?

or would you continue to allow doctors to drop medicaid patients because they simply can't afford to treat them with the low reimbursement rates that are BELOW cost?

and like I said, if you pass a law saying they can't drop medicaid patients, what do you do when they literally go out of business for losing money? then who provides the care?!

these are all complex issues intertwined and nobody seems to be exploring them in depth and applying reality to scenarios to work out the real results... we just keep saying things that feel good and sound good but have no practical application or logic to back up the claims... we're about to make things worse and nobody is working towards making them better... and when I said nobody, I truly mean neither side is addressing these issues... democrats promised to fix the ACA after we passed it, I sure haven't seen any fixing solutions coming out to address the current issues unraveling, as well as the future sustainability of the entire program itself... its imploding...

P.S. do you not acknowledge inner cities have a serious lack of healthcare, not just because of no insurance, but because of lack of facilities, that can't afford to often stay open long because of all the medicaid patients? I mean there is a reason why most doctors don't go to inner cities, they can't afford to lose money for long... thats why charities often run the bulk of the hospitals and doctors offices in the inner cities across our nation... catholic charities spends billions running them annually... going to places no for-profit place would consider because they can't make a profit... its a growing problem now with more being put on medicaid... and your plan would compound this greatly and accelerate the collapse... I'm not trying to be mean, I'm just working out the reality of it...

 

Seems like all the major health care companies are having issues.

 

yes, it should have been more. I agree on that

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But that tax would be less than what your premiums are today. Isn't that a good thing ?

 

Isn't that what we had ? And those who didn't buy insurance, but still used healthcare drove up the costs of healthcare, and by proxy drove up the cost of your insurance. So you and I were paying for them. All the government did was tell that that they had to pay into the system they were using.

 

they were, that is why changes were needed, the problem now is we made some changes, but more still needs fixed and congress is afraid to fix anything for fear of being attacked by their own party

 

As Carly Fiorina said, the leftists use government to create problems then propose more government to fix the problem they created in the first place.

Obama "fixed" healthcare which is to say he reformed health insurance with Obamacare. I suspect the demoquacks conspired to create a system in which no private insurer could survive thus creating the need for a government insurer.

Demoquacks are high fiving as a result of this announcement. This isn't a bad thing to them, nope, this is fantastic news because now they'll be able to say, "see we told you so, we need SINGLE PAYER".

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Things would be 2000% better had you demoquacks left the system alone in the first place.

 

Well of course it's the Republicans fault. Silly me.

 

Thanks, I didn't even consider this as a way demoquacks might achieve their holy grail of single payer. If all but one insurer drops out of every state leaving behind a single insurer then the when a crisis occurs and the lone insurer in a state needs a bail out, the demoquacks could suggest a government takeover of the insurer thus achieving the single payer goal.

It'd be a long laborious process but I never put anything past the fascist left.

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Yep, government creates the problem and now you've got the solution, MORE GOVERMENT!

That's a fresh idea.

 

while I can appreciate the response, maybe stop the name calling... I'm just getting fed up with this website turning into a big name calling festival... you can destroy their opinions, you can obliterate their facts, but just quit it with the name calling... just call them democrats... both political party names are now associated with negativity anyhow, so its almost as if you're calling someone a name when you call them a democrat or republican these days anyhow... no need to add more negativity...

 

You realize the costs are increasing more under obamacare than they were without right?

And the govt didn't tell them they had to pay into the system they were using. They said WE had to pay for it because thode people won't.

And now instead of them just coming in when there's an actual emergency. Now Shaniqua is taking her five food stamp babies to the emergency room and the doctor for every sniffle, bruise, stubbed toe, cough and sneeze.

Absolutely retarded policy.

 

I won't be laughing but that is precisely what he'll do and his minions will all run to the nearest TV camera to blame whatever boogeyman they think the American people will buy as the scapegoat.

 

Not true:

http://www.factcheck.org/2015/02/slower-premium-growth-under-obama/

Now if your talking about the costs of healthcare, thats still a private market so would have nothing to do with Obamacare.

And now the government IS telling them they have to pay into the system they are using and thats wrong ?

You could not be more wrong in that statement. Under Obamacare they get to go to a regular doctor. BEFORE Obamacare that statement was correct, and was the driving factor in healthcare costs.

This IMHO is the one thing Obamacare got right



And now the government IS telling them they have to pay into the system they are using and thats wrong ?

 

Well employee plans are being sabotaged too. I think the fines governing the cost of employee plans kick in either next year or the one after, and then after that employee plans will just be high deductible HSA types since that's all that can fit under the allowable costs.

 

Insurance companies are greedy and just want to make a profit.

 

I suspect that's the administration solution to this. Make participation in such programs as Medicare Advantage or Tricare dependent on throwing money down the exchange rathole.

 

things were fine and premiums were reasonable before the Demcorats got their meathooks into it.

My premiums are through the roof and the coverage is worse than before the ACA. My employees also must contribute more toward it too. We all took a haircut, Democrats got good donations, the idle got handouts

A true victory for the Democrat party

maybe the fed govt should spend $millions of taxpayer dollars advertising for people to come get taxpayer subsidized insurance.....................oh wait

 

Either people will not get treated, or they will
If they are treated, there is an expense, and some one must bear that expense

I think medicare option for all makes most sense

Actually , what i think makes most sense is a public health system that deliveries baseline medical care
If you want better care, you work that out separately. Maybe this system does not do transplants or kidney dialysis, maybe it does not treat terminal cancer

Imo, the aca is far from perfect.... But better than alternatives that are politically viable. And political viability is the main issue. You or i may have great ideas.... But if they cannot be implemented, it does not matter hiw great is the idea

And at this point, there are two choices on the table
Kill aca, or maybe try to fix it

 

The ACA is a shining example of governmental ineptitude and political dishonesty. Needless to say, the same cretinous pillocks who viciously attacked anyone who dared question Obama's claims about the program that we all now know were a pack of lies, continue to pretend the program is a success even though it is not doing what they themselves repeatedly claimed it would do.

 

I'd have preferred the Leprechauns bag of Gold since we're talking fantasy.


Single Payer isn't coming. We don't have the funds for it as long as we're trying to own the globe. Heck we cant even keep our roads in healthy condition, you think there's money to pay for peoples healthcare? The small sample here with what we got reinforces this. Even when paying subsidies it's coming off the rails.

It didn't come, not because people didn't want it...but because we can't do it. All the nations that have it aren't borrowing and blowing through their treasure trying to own the world.

 

Why does the government owe you healthcare?

 

I agree, if we waste all our money nation building places like Iraq, that means less we can do at home