Hey folks,
If you're interested in implementation of ACA, here's a link to a guy who knows a LOT about how the health industrial complex works. He worked in it for years. He posts today about some upcoming buzzword advertising you're going to see in their new campaigns.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/wendell-potter/the-usual-suspects-who-wi_b_2158649.html
We're getting ready to switch from Group Health to my wife's employer health care (Regent/Blue Cross), so we've been getting updates from both insurance groups.
Its interesting - because of "changes in regulations" our monthly premiums are about to drop almost 30% - and we received a similar letter from both companies. The difference in cost is so significant that we decided to up our coverage with the new plan, knowing that we'll only pay the old rate for one month.
Now, neither insurance group sighted the ACA as a reason for this change, just "new regulations". But I'm deeply suspicious.
I'd be suspicious too if someone LOWERED my bill and blamed it on government regulations. (Hmm.)
You're either going to get a decrease in coverage/service or someone else is going to be footing part of your bill from now on. (Hmmmm.)
Either that or Group Health's been overcharging you all this time.
Hmmmmmmm . . . .
This is interesting. Keep us informed. I would rather hear from the community than any politician.
mtnfreak..
yours is not the only company making some changes :(
we will see how this plays out.. since employees have little choice in the matter.
The truth is that entrusting out health care delivery to the best deal an insurance company will give our employers was maybe not the wisest decision we ever made.
redblack
Member Profile
jo: i heard maddow explain our de facto health care "system" recently.
turns out that health care was offered as an incentive to vets returning from WW2. a decade later, it was standard bait for recruiting new employees.
three decades later, it was the norm for everyone who wasn't unionized.
just offering an explanation for how we got here. but that still doesn't make it right, or, as you point out, a wise decision.
we should have implemented universal health care around the same time we were setting up england's NHS.
redblack
that would have been the smart move.
dobro
Member Profile
Here's an interesting story...
Short summary: This person's healthcare premiums are going up and her employer said in a meeting that this increase is a direct result of Obamacare. Her increases in past years had ranged anywhere from 9% to 28%. This year's increase due to Obamacare? 3%.
Mark my word, 5 years from now when Obamacare is fully implemented and people can see the benefits for real instead of being sold lies and misrepresentations, the Repubs will never be able to pry it loose. They've missed their chance. And the governors that are refusing to create the exchanges, thereby forcing the feds to do it for them,are actually making it easier, not harder, to put things in place.
dobro
Member Profile
More info coming out today from HHS on the new rules and regs on insurance companies in Obamacare...
These are draft rules still subject to comment and revision to be finalized in 2013.
Wed have three entitlement programs now that are financially unsustainable. Obamacare will be the fourth. What will decide the "fate" of Obamacare.. will be the budget. Democrats will not make a single offer now on entitlement cuts.. much like the social democrats of Greece and Spain. The will take us off the cliff.. idealogues do those sort of things. Be interesting to have a "chat" with the millions of southern Europeans who are now asking USAID for grain imports.. imagine that. But I will make sure to ask my Brit internal medicine doc who left England and his brother who practices in Hong Kong of all places... why did you leave the NHS ?
In fact redblack.... rationing is fact. Here is what you can expect from the "rationing board" of Obamacare. Two days ... ooops missed the cutoff. On this board, we have numerous cases of healthcare that would have been denied due to age. It's called cost/benefit analysis. Only it won't doctors and informed patients making decision.. it will be federal guidelines.
United Kingdom)—A young British mother has criticized medical guidelines that, she said, resulted in doctors refusing treatment and leaving her newborn premature son to die. 23 year-old Sarah Capewell told media that her son Jayden, born at 21 weeks and five days gestation, was refused intensive care because he was two days under the limit set by the British government's National Health Service (NHS) rationing guidelines.
See that redblack? Rationing guidelines.
Learn the term Liverpool Care Pathway .. indeed read about it.. a few excerpts for you.
"It can include withdrawal of treatment – including the provision of water and nourishment by tube – and on average brings a patient to death in 33 hours. There are around 450,000 deaths in Britain each year of people who are in hospital or under NHS care. Around 29 per cent – 130,000 – are of patients who were on the LCP."
"In the example he revealed a 71-year-old who was admitted to hospital suffering from pneumonia and epilepsy was put on the LCP by a covering doctor on a weekend shift.
Professor Pullicino said he had returned to work after a weekend to find the patient unresponsive and his family upset because they had not agreed to place him on the LCP.
‘I removed the patient from the LCP despite significant resistance,’ he said.
‘His seizures came under control and four weeks later he was discharged home to his family,’ he said."
http://www.lifenews.com/2012/06/20/shock-british-nhs-euthanizes-130000-elderly-patients-annually/
I know, I know.. it can't happen here..right?
miws
Member Profile
Of course they are an objective news source, aren't they?
Mike
Well Mike the doctor himself was quoted... but being the smart guy you are... the LCP is yours for the reading. I mean when you quote a doctor I guess it was a right wing plant. Smell the coffee dude... healthcare is rationed.
"There are around 450,000 deaths in Britain each year of people who are in hospital or under NHS care. Around 29 per cent – 130,000 – are of patients who were on the LCP."
That's 1/3 of the entire hospital population was denied state of the art care for a government protocol.
dobro
Member Profile
From the link..
LifeNews.com also acts as a service provider to furnish news content to media that share the pro-life perspective. The topics covered by LifeNews.com include abortion, assisted suicide and euthanasia..."
They call this fair and balanced.
Gosh a "pro-life" agenda?!! Beats death panels.
From Wiki section "Controversy section"
The LCP has continued to be controversial. It has been claimed that elderly patients were admitted to hospital for emergency treatment and put on the LCP without documented proof that the patient wanted it, or could not recover from their health problem; 48 year old Norfolk man Andrew Flanagan was revived by his family and went home for a further five weeks after doctors put him on the LCP.[29] The Royal College of Physicians found that up to half of families were not informed of clinicians’ decision to put a relative on the pathway.[30]
HALF THE FAMILIES WERE NOT INFORMED THAT THE FAMILY MEMBER WAS "LIVERPOOLED"... AS IT IS CALLED IN MERRY OLD ENGLAND.
Another source?
A senior cancer specialist today condemned the controversial Liverpool Care Pathway as a corrupt and scandalous system used to free hospital beds of the old and sick.
Professor Mark Glaser said the pathway – in use across the NHS as a way to ease the suffering of the dying – is employed by Health Service managers to clear bed space and to achieve targets that bring more money to their hospitals.
The professor, who treated former Labour Cabinet minister Mo Mowlam during her last illness, said practices in British hospitals are ‘morally bad medicine’ and that he would personally ‘never be treated in a hospital in England’.
‘I would go to America because I don’t trust anybody,’ he said.
He added that he has removed ‘dozens’ of his own patients from the Liverpool Care Pathway.
The intervention by Professor Glaser, consultant oncologist at Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust, comes at a time of growing concern over the Liverpool Care Pathway.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2227863/Cancer-expert-treated-Mo-Mowlam-brands-Liverpool-Care-Pathway-corrupt-practice-British-medicine.html#ixzz2CveaVoEh
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dobro
Member Profile
Notice how none of this has anything to do with Obamacare, the erstwhile topic of the thread?
Dobro... economics has this path already charted and plotted. We ourselves, contained in Obamacare are incentives for no returns after initial hospitalization.... what better way to meet your financial incentive than to kill your patient? They won't be coming back. You are projecting into the future this wonderful achievement.. at least do some research into the pig in a poke you bought unseen.... others have been down this path. Intellectually too tough? It's not in the Messiah pamphlet?
BBC a little too biased for ya too?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-derbyshire-20151870
Care given to a terminally ill woman at a Derby hospital has been compared to "torture" by her family.
Pritnam Kaur Ghuman died last week after a stroke but her son said it was cruel to deny her food and water.
In Nottinghamshire, the family of Philip Charlesworth claim he was put on the same end of life programme without their knowledge.
Both the Royal Derby and King's Mill Hospitals said the Liverpool Care Pathway is designed to limit distress.
or
Paul Ghuman, who lives in Derby, said he was shocked at the care given to his mother: "To me it is a form of torture. It is a lingering death and you are increasing the torture by denying them the food and drink and drips and medication.
"We don't leave animals which are sick just to die without medication, we don't just leave them to die of their own causes, so why do that to humans?
BBC.. right wing as they come eh? Clear the beds... that's the financial incentive.
You don't have far to look amigo... a google search of good old Washington state and the use of methadone as "pain management for the poor" is a cautionary tale. You can bet your ass I didn't get methadone ... not on private health insurance!!! Only the government would do that... not outside a confined hospital stay with all the respiration and heart monitors ... never a home managed standard of care. Enjoy the MULTIPLE reads... I think KIRO or KOMO got a Pulitzer nomination for it. Hundreds died. Oooops ... they got caught... practice ceased. Note only the poor got "universal" access to methadone.
While NEITHER of us "know" the full effects of the ACA.... there is evidence ... lots of it.. of other government run healthcare systems... rationing is always a major component.
dobro
Member Profile
"It's not in the Messiah pamphlet?"
When people show respect for their partners in a discussion, good things can result. When respect is not shown, it says more about the disrespector than the disrespectee.
Wel, Jeesh JoB... I took the healthcare offered.as a young married man with a dependent (well younger) .. and it sucked.. so... I bought supplemental, catastrophic coverage. Oh, my god... actually setting priorities and being responsible! And I could have had a snowmobile, projector screen TV, for the price of 4 pairs of Air Jordans.... per year. $865 per year with a 20K deductible.
Well dobro.. that is what we got... a "Messiah" pamphlet.... a vague promise of free birth control, pre-existing coverage, and very expensive eternal teenager coverage. That was enough to convince the masses. Over half the states aren't playing. Yes, once we pass it you'll get to read it... and everybody signed on. Makes me wish for the days of yore selling aluminum siding... you'd be first on my call list.
dobro
Member Profile
"Makes me wish for the days of yore selling aluminum siding... you'd be first on my call list."
Some people think they're smarter and better than other people. You don't generally want to waste your time talking with people like that. Kind of like why you don't mudwrestle with a pig. You both get dirty and the pig likes it.
Read your link JoB... you "can" get billions.. Hostess generated billions... but lost it's ass.. GM generated billions and went bankrupt.... and Chrysler... just cause the government is giving ya billions doesn't mean they are profitable billions. Which do you think takes more off the top? The federal government or private health insurance? It costs more for the government overhead which is about 40%.. of every dollar taken in. Makes the insurance industry look downright benevolent.
redblack
Member Profile
ko00o0000110otch's zinger of the day:
(mmmm... zingers...)
Wed have three entitlement programs now that are financially unsustainable. Obamacare will be the fourth.
medicare and social security are defined benefit programs, not entitlements. you don't draw from the systems unless you pay into the systems. some benefit more than others. tough tinsel. that's the way it goes. life in socialist utopia ain't always fair to those who are better off.
the only thing about social security that's an entitlement is that congress feels that it's entitled to borrow from the trust fund and leave it stuffed with IOU's written on dirty, lipstick -smudged cocktail napkins. (thanks, greenspan, you a-hole.)
medicaid is a block grant to the states. it's also not an entitlement. and even if it was an entitlement, it's not an entitlement for poor people. because all of that block grant money ultimately goes... where, kootch?
come on. this one is easy.
then we come to obamacare. an entitlement? hardly.
the fact is that no one is getting free health insurance, and no one's taxes will go up to pay for someone else to see a doctor. no one. everyone is being required to pay an insurance company, who will in turn pay a provider. the elderly will still have medicare and SSI. the poor will still have medicaid.
and insurance companies will have obamacare.
another fact is that most americans' health insurance isn't going to change, with this exception: employers - who pay most of the insurance premiums in america - will see a reduction in premiums.
now, you're going to try and tell me how premiums are rising since obamacare. but, as was pointed out higher in this thread, premiums have been rising at a good clip for 20 years. now they're starting to plateau. soon they will start to fall.
ah, screw it. i'm not sure why i waste my time. i guess it's for posterity, so that your lies aren't etched on the internet forever without being exposed for what they are.
miws
Member Profile
Smell the coffee dude.....
Ah, I see you have not read the fine print of Obamacare.. redblack not to worry.... no one else has. Medicare a paid for, benefits plan, was by Obamacare put on parity with Medicaid. One does not receive benefits protections before the other. They are at entitlement parity. A fiscal shortfall in one, means a fiscal shortfall in the other. The scramble is on... to drop insurance coverage. Does rolling high risk obligations into low risk ones sound familiar? It should. It was called the housing bubble. Even the trustees themselves ... will tell ya.. none of the plans are sustainable. They all assumed actuarial data that isn't even close. Let me help you... in 1965 Medicare was sold with a cost projection... here is your FANTASTIC federal budgeting machine... of 9 Billion in 1990..... ACTUAL COST 110 Billion.... !0 times more than federal projections. Wanna go down SS memory lane too? When the system was to have 33 workers supporting every retiree?
miws
Member Profile
Let me help you...
redblack
Member Profile
and of course you can back all of that up with quotes and citations and 8 x 10 glossy color photos with the circles and the arrows and the paragraph on the back.
right?
redbalck..
"ah, screw it. i'm not sure why i waste my time. i guess it's for posterity, so that your lies aren't etched on the internet forever without being exposed for what they are."
you do it for the other people who read this forum and who might be inclined to believe long winded rants full of half truths and innuendos if they never heard the countering opinion.
common sense will prevail as long as those of us who think for ourselves make sure that it gets airtime
EarthMama
Member Profile
Gah! I do my best to keep up with it all, but there is so much to follow! In the end, our family has been forking out $1850/mo since May in order to maintain the same health/dental/vision & prescription coverage we've have for the last seven years.
Query to the panel: Our COBRA benefits are available to us through 11/2013. Do your informed opinions foresee a rate decrease through Obama-Care at any point up through that date- or is it just going to be more bad news...
Just for clarification's sake, I want to point out that my #2 post stated that our premium rates FOR THE SAME AMOUNT OF COVERAGE were dropping, so much so that we decided to increase our coverage - because even the increased coverage under the new rate plan was less than what we're currently paying!
EarthMama, I never found COBRA to be effective because you're essentially paying for yours and your ex-employer's share of the premium. When in between work we've always switched to a third party. We've had a lot of good experiences with Group Health. I'd recommend leaving COBRA coverage and getting a third party insurer like Group Health ASAP.
EarthMama, I don't know if you will see much difference in 2013. Most of the provisions that will affect rates, including the exchanges and subsidies, don't take effect until 2014.
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