Medicare for All

Regardless of what party or if independent if you believe in Medicare for all sign this petition. Doesn't ask your party.

http://go.justicedemocrats.com/page/s/take-a-stand

I want all of the govt programs rolled into a public option... completely separate from the private one.

Enjoy comrades.

This article went with the above.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/bernie-sanders-progressives-medicare-for-all_us_58d6f5c1e4b03692bea68fd2?frydbutvrcgv0wwmi&

PkrBum wrote:I want all of the govt programs rolled into a public option... completely separate from the private one.

Enjoy comrades.

In my 69 years the only people I have seen that use the word comrade are normally commie's.

Bernie is largely irrelevant inside of the establishment dem party. So if he can't really make traction there...

ppaca wrote:

PkrBum wrote:I want all of the govt programs rolled into a public option... completely separate from the private one.

Enjoy comrades.

In my 69 years the only people I have seen that use the word comrade are normally commie's.

Now you can add steroid abusers to the list.

PkrBum wrote: Bernie is largely irrelevant inside of the establishment dem party. So if he can't really make traction there...

I do not give a rats ass about Bernie I have advocated Medicare for ALMOST ALL for quite a few years. It came up just before obamacare if you remember and close to passage but liberman sank it.

Obamacaid was the largest tax ever imposed on the American public... disproportionately felt by the young, middle class, and the fixed income elderly. I can only image (more like a nightmare) the effects of Medicare for all... which in accuracy should be termed Medicaid for all.

Starting with the fact that you are socializing 1/6th of our economy as well as all of the citizens that invested in their future and acquired skills... valuable skills. Then we also get the waste and corruption that comes with govt bureaucracy. We would in fact be handing over our very bodies. If you don't think that the commands and controls will be implemented and enforced... you're a fool. The biggest driver of healthcare costs are poor habits and genetic predispositions. Do you really think that the govt won't address that?

Medicare has been around for a long time and is one of the most successful govt. programs. Now all of a sudden it will control people can only be imagined by right wing loons like Pkr. who see's govt. monsters in everything. It must be so scary living in his mind?

Well before the passage of the PPACA, insurance premiums were rising annually. Coverage was often denied based on a pre-existing condition, or the insured's claim was handled like a hot potato. Many policies had such limited coverage, despite high premiums, that they were essentially worthless. That's one reason some of these policies did not survive the new regulations. It is the greed of the insurance companies and pharmaceutical companies that have historically caused the erosion of health care benefits, not the PPACA. And the GOP, after 50 attempts to reverse the PPACA, including challenging it in the courts, finally capped the funds available from the risk corridors, causing chaos in the markets. Of course, some states never cooperated with the program, and it cost them...or rather, it cost their citizens.

PkrBum wrote: Obamacaid was the largest tax ever imposed on the American public... disproportionately felt by the young, middle class, and the fixed income elderly. I can only image (more like a nightmare) the effects of Medicare for all... which in accuracy should be termed Medicaid for all.

Starting with the fact that you are socializing 1/6th of our economy as well as all of the citizens that invested in their future and acquired skills... valuable skills. Then we also get the waste and corruption that comes with govt bureaucracy. We would in fact be  handing over our very bodies. If you don't think that the commands and controls will be implemented and enforced... you're a fool. The biggest driver of healthcare costs are poor habits and genetic predispositions. Do you really think that the govt won't address that?

I'm certainly having a hard time grasping how much more I paid in taxes because of ACA. Well I didn't. I guess I would have paid for a medical device if needed or a tax penalty if I was under 65 and did not get a plan, but I just can't figure out it all out since I have paid less taxes in the last 10 years. Can you list all the taxes one had to pay so I'll know if I'm missing something in my own tax return?

Well I guess we could take all the people with poor habits and genetic predispositions and do what Hitler did with the Jews, that could certainly save a few bucks.

http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2015/aug/07/mike-huckabee/obamacare-robbed-medicare-700-billion-says-huckabe/

Obamacare doesn’t literally "rob" Medicare. But the Affordable Care Act does include provisions that reduce future increases in Medicare spending. In other words, the law slows down the rising costs of Medicare.

It’s also important to note that the savings come at the expense of insurers and hospitals, not beneficiaries. (The $700 billion figure is also old, from a 2012 report by the Congressional Budget Office. It’s now updated to about $800 billion.)

PkrBum wrote:http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2015/aug/07/mike-huckabee/obamacare-robbed-medicare-700-billion-says-huckabe/

Obamacare doesn’t literally "rob" Medicare. But the Affordable Care Act does include provisions that reduce future increases in Medicare spending. In other words, the law slows down the rising costs of Medicare.

It’s also important to note that the savings come at the expense of insurers and hospitals, not beneficiaries. (The $700 billion figure is also old, from a 2012 report by the Congressional Budget Office. It’s now updated to about $800 billion.)

You know I thought you could do the math. You gradually let different age groups into the Medicare system starting with 50-64 and charge them a reasonable premium (of course reasonable to me is not the same as you) but let's say $350.00 per month. One year later everyone and graduated premium's from age 0 - 49. Could just save the Medicare program, you would have a hell of a lot of healthy people in the program.
I figured the math once at different premium's and the money it generated was overwhelming.

Plan B 45-64 into Medicare at $400 monthly premium's those that cannot afford would go into the program for under 45.

Under 45 reverse guaranteed issue for regular health insurance and go back to underwriting days, rejecting and rating one's with problems. But the rejection's then go into a high risk pool and the premium's for high risk based on one's income and if they can work, the rest to come from what would be extinct at that point known as Medicaid.

The one's that have to go through medical underwriting of course would enjoy lower premium's than today.

For all in any program cut the essential health benefits in half. If one wants maternity on the underwritten plan they may purchase extra 30 days before conception at least at $200 per month premium.

There are many ways to do this with everyone being covered that is not going to break the bank. Raise Medicare deduction 1% of everyone who works. Take taxes from legal marijuana and online gambling to pay towards what the feds give to the states for Medicaid for the high risk pools. Or a certain % written into law. Thus no need for the cadilac tax and of course the penalty would be eliminated because everyone is covered.

ppaca wrote:

PkrBum wrote:http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2015/aug/07/mike-huckabee/obamacare-robbed-medicare-700-billion-says-huckabe/

Obamacare doesn’t literally "rob" Medicare. But the Affordable Care Act does include provisions that reduce future increases in Medicare spending. In other words, the law slows down the rising costs of Medicare.

It’s also important to note that the savings come at the expense of insurers and hospitals, not beneficiaries. (The $700 billion figure is also old, from a 2012 report by the Congressional Budget Office. It’s now updated to about $800 billion.)

You know I thought you could do the math. You gradually let different age groups into the Medicare system starting with 50-64 and charge them a reasonable premium (of course reasonable to me is not the same as you) but let's say $350.00 per month. One year later everyone and graduated premium's from age 0 - 49. Could just save the Medicare program, you would have a hell of a lot of healthy people in the program.
I figured the math once at different premium's and the money it generated was overwhelming.

Plan B 45-64 into Medicare at $400 monthly premium's those that cannot afford would go into the program for under 45.

Under 45 reverse guaranteed issue for regular health insurance and go back to underwriting days, rejecting and rating one's with problems. But the rejection's then go into a high risk pool and the premium's for high risk based on one's income and if they can work, the rest to come from what would be extinct at that point known as Medicaid.

The one's that have to go through medical underwriting of course would enjoy lower premium's than today.

For all in any program cut the essential health benefits in half. If one wants maternity on the underwritten plan they may purchase extra 30 days before conception at least at $200 per month premium.

There are many ways to do this with everyone being covered that is not going to break the bank. Raise Medicare deduction 1% of everyone who works. Take taxes from legal marijuana and online gambling to pay towards what the feds give to the states for Medicaid for the high risk pools. Or a certain % written into law. Thus no need for the cadilac tax and of course the penalty would be eliminated because everyone is covered.

I have a real problem with your proposal to limit "essential health benefits". What good is coverage that doesn't cover anything? And what's the deal with a maternity benefit that must be purchased prior to conception? These things aren't exactly given to planning, and pregnancy can turn into a high risk situation without warning. I have fought my employer in the past for maternity benefits. There's no reason to penalize people for having children, and that includes the fathers.

I worked with Borg Warner Corporation when my oldest child was born. My wife worked as a public school teacher. We both kept our health insurance, which at that time was provided to employees of the school district, and management at Borg Warner with no premium payment. So we both had health insurance when our first child was born.

About three months after her birth, we received a $800 check from my Borg Warner health insurance carrier. I sent it back to them and said there must be a mistake. They sent me a letter and said that it was ours because of a copay by my wife's health insurance company. So we wrote a letter to her company and enclosed the check and endorsed it. About three weeks later they sent us the endorsed check and said they could not accept the same. At that point I realized even in simpler times, health insurance was not working in America. We kept the $800, and when our son was born we had chosen her health insurance for the family plan, and we did not receive a check.

The insurance companies dictate healthcare. We went out of pocket for my daughter's surgery. My daughter was covered on my group policy and her dad's group insurance. We were told to wait 3 months and have her re-evaluated and if needed they would perform her procedure....the procedure was an outdated surgery and would eventually require 2 additional surgeries. I argued the new procedure was recommended by American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Johns Hopkins and the Mayo clinic....all to no avail.

We went to another hospital and had the doctor we chose perform the procedure. Six months later I received a letter telling me the new procedure was available......my answer was two short words.  Her re-evaluation and surgery could not wait. Her condition advanced in the two weeks we wasted arguing with the insurance company.

I paid cash (w catastrophic ins) for my families healthcare for several years at a time as I started businesses... the cash discount was always significant. I think that if people started health savings accounts early in life that it could easily cover almost all conditions that arise... and it'd be YOUR money to get interest on... or invest... or borrow against... etc. I just don't see the practicality or realistic benefit of premiums that are a burden to people and then a deductible that makes it a HUGE burden... it's basically just a catastrophic ins plan. This entire fascist collusion between huge corps and a huge central govt is wrong... plain wrong. We are not getting the good end of this deal... and neither are the healthcare providers. Get the damn middlemen out of the equation. The funniest thing i hear is that capitalism is the problem... while we can't even get a vote to allow competition across state lines... lol. There hasn't been anything truly free market for over a hundred years. What rubes.

PkrBum wrote:I paid cash (w catastrophic ins) for my families healthcare for several years at a time as I started businesses... the cash discount was always significant. I think that if people started health savings accounts early in life that it could easily cover almost all conditions that arise... and it'd be YOUR money to get interest on... or invest... or borrow against... etc. I just don't see the practicality or realistic benefit of premiums that are a burden to people and then a deductible that makes it a HUGE burden... it's basically just a catastrophic ins plan. This entire fascist collusion between huge corps and a huge central govt is wrong... plain wrong. We are not getting the good end of this deal... and neither are the healthcare providers. Get the damn middlemen out of the equation. The funniest thing i hear is that capitalism is the problem... while we can't even get a vote to allow competition across state lines... lol. There hasn't been anything truly free market for over a hundred years.  What rubes.

Cash discounts are perks most people do not know about.

Floridatexan wrote:

ppaca wrote:

PkrBum wrote:http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2015/aug/07/mike-huckabee/obamacare-robbed-medicare-700-billion-says-huckabe/

Obamacare doesn’t literally "rob" Medicare. But the Affordable Care Act does include provisions that reduce future increases in Medicare spending. In other words, the law slows down the rising costs of Medicare.

It’s also important to note that the savings come at the expense of insurers and hospitals, not beneficiaries. (The $700 billion figure is also old, from a 2012 report by the Congressional Budget Office. It’s now updated to about $800 billion.)

You know I thought you could do the math. You gradually let different age groups into the Medicare system starting with 50-64 and charge them a reasonable premium (of course reasonable to me is not the same as you) but let's say $350.00 per month. One year later everyone and graduated premium's from age 0 - 49. Could just save the Medicare program, you would have a hell of a lot of healthy people in the program.
I figured the math once at different premium's and the money it generated was overwhelming.

Plan B 45-64 into Medicare at $400 monthly premium's those that cannot afford would go into the program for under 45.

Under 45 reverse guaranteed issue for regular health insurance and go back to underwriting days, rejecting and rating one's with problems. But the rejection's then go into a high risk pool and the premium's for high risk based on one's income and if they can work, the rest to come from what would be extinct at that point known as Medicaid.

The one's that have to go through medical underwriting of course would enjoy lower premium's than today.

For all in any program cut the essential health benefits in half. If one wants maternity on the underwritten plan they may purchase extra 30 days before conception at least at $200 per month premium.

There are many ways to do this with everyone being covered that is not going to break the bank. Raise Medicare deduction 1% of everyone who works. Take taxes from legal marijuana and online gambling to pay towards what the feds give to the states for Medicaid for the high risk pools. Or a certain % written into law. Thus no need for the cadilac tax and of course the penalty would be eliminated because everyone is covered.

I have a real problem with your proposal to limit "essential health benefits".  What good is coverage that doesn't cover anything?  And what's the deal with a maternity benefit that must be purchased prior to conception?  These things aren't exactly given to planning, and pregnancy can turn into a high risk situation without warning.  I have fought my employer in the past for maternity benefits.  There's no reason to penalize people for having children, and that includes the fathers.

Why should an insurance company let you purchase maternity when you're 3 months pregnant? When I speak here I am speaking of Florida only, before ACA even if a woman had no maternity coverage and she had a complication the complication alone was paid for. In 3 or 4 years leading up to ACA you could purchase a health insurance (individual) and add maternity for $220 per month but you could not be pregnant at the time. When you found out you were pregnant you paid a one time $35.00 co pay to the ob/gyn (that's it) and when you delivered you were responsible for $150.00 per day with max 3 days. That maternity coverage was damn near the best in the industry for an individual plan.

Under ACA let's say you have a plan with a $50 co pay to a specialist and the plan has a $5000 deductible and then after deductible you pay 20% co insurance and when the 5 grand and 20% you have 100% coverage. So you get pregnant pay the ob/gyn $50 every visit, delivery $5000 deductible and then 20%. Which plan is better? This plan without subsidy.

Let's take it farther, if one received a good subsidy and fell into 150% of federal poverty level and chose a silver plan that has a C behind the plan number, 0 Deductible and a max out of pocket of $950 and a copay to a specialist of $10 each time you visited your ob/gyn. Still the plan is good but on maternity your paying the max $950.

Now if you purchased the maternity rider let's say 6 months into the policy, which you could if you weren't pregnant then you became pregnant 30 days after the rider approved, carried 9 months you would have paid $2200 in premium's for the rider, $35.00 to ob and if normal delivery probably $300. That would be $2535 out of pocket for that rider. Yes it's not as good as the subsidized plan, but you can drop that rider immediately after birth. Also most be that were highly subsidized were older and not possible to get pregnant.

If your employer was in Florida hell maternity has been a part of group plans for as long as I can remember and included in the premium.

A physical, mammogram and blood work for the most part as essential health benefits are free, put a $25.00 co pay on each. There are many ways to do this but as we were discussing at work today the govt has not requested any help from agents or middle manager's. CEO's at insurance companies don't know how this works they are all just figure heads.

http://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/4/13/15262614/obamacare-alaska-reinsurance

How Alaska fixed Obamacare

Last year, Alaska’s Obamacare marketplaces seemed on the verge of implosion. Premiums for individual health insurance plans were set to rise 42 percent. State officials worried that they were on the verge of a “death spiral,” where only the sickest people buy coverage and cause rates to skyrocket year after year.

So the state tried something new and different — and it worked. Lori Wing-Heier, Alaska’s insurance commissioner, put together a plan that had the state pay back insurers for especially high medical claims submitted to Obamacare plans. This lowered premiums for everyone. In the end, the premium increase was a mere 7 percent.

"We knew we were facing a death spiral," says Wing-Heier. "We knew even though it was a federal law, we had to do something."

Now other states are interested in trying Alaska’s idea, especially because Wing-Heier is working with the Trump administration to have the federal government, not the state, cover those costs.

There are rampant concerns about the future of Obamacare right now. We don’t know whether its marketplaces will remain stable in 2018 or, as the president has predicted, explode as premiums rise and insurers drop out. But Alaska’s experiment is a reminder that the future of Obamacare isn’t entirely up to Republicans in Washington. The work happening 3,000 miles away in Alaska shows that states have the ability to fix Obamacare too — and that the Trump administration might even support those policies.

How Alaska prevented an Obamacare horror story — and is trying to make the federal government pay for it
Premiums in the individual market went up a lot last year. The national average was a 25 percent hike. Alaska was bracing for an even higher 42 percent increase from its one remaining Obamacare insurer, Premera Blue Cross.

That’s when Wing-Heier and other Alaska officials had an idea. The state already had a tax on insurance plans (not just health but also life and property insurance). Usually the money goes to a general Alaska budget fund, but the state decided to divert $55 million of the tax revenue into a reinsurance program.

This would give Obamacare insurers — at this point, just Premera — extra money if they had some especially large medical claims. Reinsurance essentially backstops insurers’ losses; it guarantees they won't be on the hook for the bills of a handful of exceptionally sick patients.

The new reinsurance program convinced Premera to only raise rates 7 percent in 2017. Alaska suddenly went from having one of the highest rate increases in the nation to one of the lowest.

This didn't just save customers money. The federal government subsidizes premium costs for 86 percent of Alaska's Obamacare enrollees. With cheaper premiums, the federal government didn’t have to spend as much money. The cost of these subsidies fell by $56 million when Alaska created the reinsurance fund.

This got Wing-Heier thinking: Why shouldn't we get that money back?

"Why shouldn't the money come back to us to fund the reinsurance program?" she recalls thinking. "It was that simple."

Alaska applied for a waiver in late December, asking the federal government to refund its spending. The state got conditional approval in mid-January from former Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia Mathews Burwell. Current HHS Secretary Tom Price has spoken favorably of the Alaska approach too.

In a letter last month to governors, he described their idea as an example for other states to follow. It was, he said, an "opportunity for states to lower premiums for consumers, improve market stability, and increase consumer choice."

Alaska officials say the Trump administration has so far been easy to work with, helping them make sure the application looks right and moves quickly toward review.

If the waiver does go through — and Wing-Heier says she is "confident" the Trump administration will approve it — Alaska expects that Obamacare rates might actually do something unheard of in 2018: They might decrease. The state estimates that an additional 1,650 people will join the marketplace due to the lower premiums.

Other states want to get that same kind of funding too
Alaska’s marketplace is far from perfect. The state only has one insurance plan selling coverage on its Obamacare marketplace, and doesn’t project any more to join in 2018. Premiums are high in Alaska; the state is large and rural, which means it can be expensive to get patients to a hospital or a specialty doctor. A midlevel plan on the Obamacare marketplace there cost, on average, $904 in 2017.

But even with those problems, Wing-Heier says, it’s still a whole lot better than where the state would have been without this policy change.

"Do I think it's a perfect solution? No, but it works for us," she says. "It's working in the right direction. It did what it was intended. It brought stability to our market, and the waiver is going to bring funding to us."

Alaska’s approach has inspired other states. Minnesota is looking into building a reinsurance fund. At the insurance conference I went to last weekend, regulators from New York were asking lots of questions about Alaska’s approach.

It's easy to see why this is appealing to other states, given the combination of additional federal money and lower Obamacare premiums. Most interesting, though, is that Alaska’s approach is something the Trump and Obama administrations apparently agree on. There aren't many examples of that right now — so the ones that exist are certainly worth watching.

*************

Where do you suppose that Alaska got that money to "pay back insurers for especially high medical claims submitted to Obamacare plans"... to lower premiums? Is that magical bean money or sumthin?

PkrBum wrote:Where do you suppose that Alaska got that money to "pay back insurers for especially high medical claims submitted to Obamacare plans"... to lower premiums? Is that magical bean money or sumthin?

Have you been hiding under a rock or something?  Alaska is still getting North Slope oil money. They give every citizen of the state a bonus every year and have been for decades. You musta missed the ten thousand articles about it.

This is the first implementation of what will become the next big Economic argument: JG or UBI.

Don't know what they are? Look 'em up, you're sitting right at a computer. DUH!

Eventually, as more and more work is automated, we're going to have to figure out a way to pay people NOT to work the same way be pay farmers not to farm. The same way we've been paying them NOT to farm since FDR was in office.

Gotta love that country life, being self-sufficient and independent and all.

Green Acres is the place to be,
farm livin' is the life for me!

Why don't you do some serious reading--try and drag yourself into the Twenty First century instead of bleating Obama! Obama! It's not fair! It's not fair! all the time.

Oh, wait, I forgot, ignorance is bliss... and PkrBitch is the happiest man alive.

PkrBum wrote:I paid cash (w catastrophic ins) for my families healthcare for several years at a time as I started businesses... the cash discount was always significant. I think that if people started health savings accounts early in life that it could easily cover almost all conditions that arise... and it'd be YOUR money to get interest on... or invest... or borrow against... etc. I just don't see the practicality or realistic benefit of premiums that are a burden to people and then a deductible that makes it a HUGE burden... it's basically just a catastrophic ins plan. This entire fascist collusion between huge corps and a huge central govt is wrong... plain wrong. We are not getting the good end of this deal... and neither are the healthcare providers. Get the damn middlemen out of the equation. The funniest thing i hear is that capitalism is the problem... while we can't even get a vote to allow competition across state lines... lol. There hasn't been anything truly free market for over a hundred years.  What rubes.

Georgia has had competition across state liens for over 5 years and it failed. Nobody was interested. What a rube you are.