Jon, I actually think it was smart of the democrats to delay implementation of the individual mandate until after the 2012 election. Who is going to support a party that makes them buy unaffordable healthcare? Expanding medicaid would be a gain for democrats, but I think that will totally be overshadowed by the individual mandate. It pisses me off and I have insurance (currently).

You know what, I don’t want insurance.

I want healthCARE for everybody.

Screw the insurance extortionists and their puppets in the White House and Congress.

Also, I really don’t give a shit about how any of this looks through the lens of political advantage for either of the two faces of the one-party system.

It wasn’t affordable unless expanded coverage was delayed until 2014. Remember Obamacare reduces the deficit over 10 years. Sure, by taking for 10 years and paying out for 6.

One recalls that according to John Geyman’s book “Do Not Resuscitate” the insurance industry was going to price itself out of business anyway. I’m sure the corporate execs can hardly wait for 2014 themselves, though if the courts don’t uphold the mandate that may put a crimp in their plans.

You know what, I don’t want insurance.

I want healthCARE for everybody

x2…and I’m willing to pay for it.

Boxturtle (If only to see the waiting lines at the emergency rooms go down)

Good morning, folks. Last year, in October of 2010 I applied for Preexisting Condition Insurance Program coverage with the New York State GHI, PCIP, “Bridgeplan”. It costs 362.00 a month for upstate residents and a bit more for downstate resident coverage. The Feds allowed each state to set up their own program for PCIP, with varying rates of success. Only about 20,000 people signed up for PCIP plans. The intention was to cover millions of people who were refused tx because they had no insurance, because they could not afford private plans, or they were not covered by employers.

My experience with the PCIP plan has been mixed. I was very relieved to get coverage as I felt very insecure without it. I was scared to fall off a roof or to get hit by a tree out in the woods when culling for firewood. I thought I was one illness away from poverty without insurance. The lesson learned after ten months with insurance is that having insurance is not a guarantee of good healthcare, nor is it a guarantee against economic disaster due to medical expenses or illness. We still have a long way to go to provide adequate care to those with little money and to insure people against job losses and misfortunes.

I was talking to a (working) lawyer about the ACA and he burbled on about what a great thing it was for him to have his twenty-something daughter on his insurance. I tried to point out that for the millions of people, 50 million, I think it is, who don’t have any insurance, that one small benefit is useless. If you can’t afford insurance, it’s, um, unlikely?, you can afford the increased premiums for an adult dependent. Do you think? He just kept on about his daughter on his insurance. And right there is a large part of the middle class’ problem: they haven’t considered anything outside their own myopically focused “interests” in decades.

The middle class who are rallying to political activism now are furious that they’re getting screwed over. In that they’re correct, they are getting screwed over. But they voted for and supported the policies and politicians who effected the screw over.

Texas, California, and Florida — all three of which have an uninsured rate higher than 20% — have disproportionately large Hispanic populations, the demographic group Gallup finds to be the most likely to be uninsured.

Uninsured rates are lower in the Northeast, with 7 of 10 states with the fewest uninsured residents located there, as in past years.

This tragedy has a real human cost. It is indeed horrifying that more money, both federal and state is not being channeled to medicaid during this time of great need. More individuals receiving the benefit would enhance our support and encourage economic activity across a broad swath of the economy. Some of the absolute morons on the extreme right squak that by forcing individuals to purchase affordable health insurance, money that would otherwise be spent elsewhere in the economy won’t be and so the overall effect will be deleterious. This is absolute rubbish spewed forth by the same sort of nutbags who buy gold and suspect that the sun plays a significant role in climate change. They are idiots!

not to mention the idiodic and unconstitutional mandate.

please don’t tell me how “everyone needs health care” therefore the mandate is fine. That’s bullshit.

If health care is something everyone needs then it is a UTILITY and needs to be provided PUBLICLY and NOT FOR PROFIT. thank you.

You are RONG.

Just because voters DID NOT GET WHAT THEY VOTED for does not mean they should be blamed.

Voters elected Obummer hoping for change, demanding change, but instead all they got is Bush III. VOTERS DID NOT CHOSE THIS.

Voters did not vote for a sociopathic congress who would shovel austerity in a time of deep unemployment, when the only people paying taxes in this country are working people not the parasitic rich. VOTERS DID NOT CHOSE THIS.

I won’t go into too many intimate details of the problems I am having with the healthcare system, but I can tell you that being charged 100.00 up front for any visit to the emergency room, after already contributing 362.00 a month for insurance, feels like I am being punished for taking care of traumatic injuries (a deep cut on a grinding machine). It is like saying to someone, “We are going to give you insurance, but if you sustain an injury, we are going to charge you 100.00 each time you go to the emergency room.”

sorry Tom, but more bad news – participation in PCIP renders you ineligible for the exchanges set to open in 2014 (I would really like to be wrong on this – so please firedogs, jump in and correct me)

“I can’t stress enough how politically idiotic it was for Democrats to…” describes about 50 politically idiotic things this pathetic excuse for a party has done in the past decade. That they made a pig’s breakfast out of health care “reform” is par for the course for them.

After receiving the PCIP insurance, I was mistakenly confident that I would now get all of the care I needed for the problems identified in a blood test I took as an uninsured person. As an uninsured person I took a group blood test screening for which I drove for an hour to a public school and local community grass roots group which sponsored an AMBA screening. That cost about 75.00 for a whole bunch of different diagnostic blood tests, but the juice and cookies afterword were free. God bless those people.

After I got insurance through PCIP I got an equivalent of just ONE part of the blood tests done at the hospital for which the insurance company was charged 264.00 dollars by the hospital. Nice. Almost four times the cost for only one part of the blood test. I cite this as an example of hospitals overcharging for their services. They seem to be a big part of the problem. But the whole paradigm appears to be predatory capitalistic business oriented healthcare, from start to finish. The whole system needs to go Canadian, or Euro. We/I cannot afford this system.

Thanks for the storm warning, I will definitely check that out.

and while I’m at it – big blow up in an ACA diary over at Big Orange a few days ago – all those pro active screenings that Big Ins. is now required to pay at 100% ? — all well and good, unless they find something in said screening — then it’s all re-coded as “treatment” and deductions and co-pays apply — just in case anyone was still wondering why Big Hospital was involved in the back room negotiations

what an effin’ travesty

You could have started the Medicaid expansion in 2011 and left the mandate/exchanges until 2014

Over the next couple of months, I will be testing this system (the PCIP) as I progress in treatment for the condition which qualified me for the insurance in the first place. I will keep FDL posted about the good things I discover in the system, and any flaws I encounter.

No the intent was not to cover millions with the high risk pools. It only has enough money to cover roughly 90,000 for four years

I am sorry for repeating information I read somewhere else which you say is “wrong”. I had read that the intention was to cover the millions of us who had preexisting conditions, prior to the 2014 programs.

hide and watch come 2014 or even 2015 and that number (which I think is too low) will not change, for those people can’t afford it now, and dam if they will be able to afford it come then when it will be 30 or 40% higher.

You are 100% correct. Glad you’re on our side.

Well, I wouldn’t have insurance right now without the law passing, and I needed knee surgery on September 1st. So I’m still glad it passed.

Here in Houston, we employ about 100 people. About 30 are Hispanic, mostly minimum wage or thereabouts. The company pays $300 of the $405 monthly health insuracne cost. But very few of our Hispanic workers participate because they and their families are eligible for Medicaid becasue they get paid so little.

Yep. At minimum wage how can you afford to contribute for a family of 4?

Hell, I make roughly 3 times the minimum wage and I can’t afford insurance.

On edit – partly because my employer’s plan sucks. But mostly because it’s just so effing expensive.

cbl–careful there, don’t go giving people heart attacks:

I found this on the PCIP site:

What is going to happen to my PCIP coverage when the program ends in 2014?
The Pre-Existing Condition Insurance Plan is a transitional program that provides health coverage to people with pre-existing conditions. This program is available until 2014. In 2014, you will have access to affordable health insurance choices through a new competitive marketplace called an Exchange. An Exchange will provide a transparent and competitive insurance marketplace where individuals and small businesses can buy affordable and qualified health benefit plans. Exchanges will offer you a choice of health plans that meet certain benefits and cost standards. In addition, starting in 2014, it will be against the law for an insurance company to discriminate against you based on a pre-existing condition. If you are enrolled in PCIP, we will provide additional information about how your Pre-Existing Condition Insurance Plan coverage will change and how you can take advantage of the new coverage options available in 2014.

Well ACA will give you a generous 25% subsidy!
Welcome to the insured, err, good luck coming up with that other 75%…/s

I am in the same boat, I can not understand how someone at 300% of the poverty level is supposed to cough up 8.5% of their income for 60% coverage. I’ll be forced to just pay the IRS penalty.

The number of people without insurance hasn’t increased because Obama’s big health care reform law “failed.” The number of uninsured people has increased because the Affordable Care Act, for the most part, hasn’t started helping people get insurance yet. By design, it will not expand coverage until the year 2014.

That sounds like failure by design.

$5 billion is simply not capable of covering millions for several years.

“Starting to phase in the Medicaid expansion in 2011 would have resulted in millions gaining coverage over the next years ….”

And where would we find the doctors willing to see these patients?

Congress is determined to take the knife to Medicaid funding even without adding eligible clients. This is the biggest flaw in the ACA plan. It was doomed from the day it passed and is only going to get worse.

Boy……~snark on~ That sure sounds like scarcity hyperbole to me. Back at ya buddy! Maybe the truth lies somewhere between what you said and millions of doctors without patients because everyone is too poor to seek medical care. ~snark off~

Obama and the Democratic Party are directly responsible for the sorry state of health care today. They passed up an opportunity to improve the situation and instead made it worse.

I’m adding this into the discussion from another thread. Try clicking on the links to figure your health care cost. Imagine if you wanted to start a small business or hire more employees and did not have to deal with the health insurance racket. This is real, and shows how retarded our discourse and action has been. Obama is a failure.

Living so close to the border, it is a shame and a pity to consider how retarded our health insurance racket is for most of us. No way for it ever to improve when the basic premise is flawed. Win the Future indeed.

Just a little reminder of how bamboozled and screwed we are here. I’m in Bellingham, WA 20 minutes from the border. Across the line, prescription drugs cost 1/3 to 1/4 of Stateside prices. Below are health care costs:

My friend in British Columbia, CANADA!, pays 60/month.
If you make nothing, you file a form and based on your pay, you get the help you need.

http://www.health.gov.bc.ca/….
“Effective January 1, 2011, monthly rates are $60.50 for one person, $109.00 for a family of two and $121.00 for a family of three or more.”

http://www.health.gov.bc.ca/….
1st Line = Adjusted Net Income
2nd Line = Subsidy Level
3rd Line = One Person
4th Line = Family of Two
5th Line = Family of Three or More

$0 – $22,000
100% premium assistance
$0.00
$0.00
$0.00

$22,001 – $24,000
80% premium assistance
$12.10
$21.80
$24.20

$24,001 – $26,000
60% premium assistance
$24.20
$43.60
$48.40

$26001 – $28,000
40% premium assistance
$36.30
$65.40
$72.60

$28,001 – $30,000
20% premium assistance
$48.40
$87.20
$96.80

Over $30,000
Full Rate
$60.50
$109.00
$121.00

——————-
So if you make over 30k/year, then you pay the regular.
The regular for
1 person is 60.50
2 people is 109
3 or more is 121.

SO A FING FAMILY OF 3 OR MORE PAYS 121 PER MONTH. OR $1452 PER YEAR!!!

I hope the example above will help some understand why the ACA will never solve the problem. It was a crime when Baucus and Obama arrested single payer advocates to keep it off the table!

And they’ve failed so miserably that they might never get another chance to address health care because they’ll be a permanent minority party.

The ACA entrenched an insurance model into our health care system which is why it was to put it mildly, extremely irritating when I heard people make comments about how this was just the beginning. The bill would be “fixed” later.

If the real intent was to improve our health care system, then Dr. Margaret Flowers and others would not have been removed from Senate hearings. They weren’t even allowed to bring single payer issues to the discussion. This was rigged from the start.