U.S. Politics: Hairpiece In the Middle East Part 2

[Cas Stark]

1 hour ago, Kalbear said:

This is not remotely true, and has only been true in fairly recent times (namely, after the ACA was passed). Employer healthcare has tons of examples where people were not covered after they hit lifetime limits, or were covered only to a certain point, or were simply denied their coverage entirely. 

Personally, had I been at Amazon instead of Microsoft and my son had had cancer, he would have been cut off 1 month before his final chemo treatments. He would currently owe about $350,000, and it would continue to grow for the remainder of his life.

The lifetime limits were somewhere around $1M, so, again, no one who had a single surgery is getting a bill for $100K and would not have done in about 98% of the cases prior to ACA.  There are always going to be anecdotes on the margins, but the idea that a normal person in the U.S. who has major surgery and has insurance is on the hook for $100K is not true.

[Kalbear]

1 minute ago, Cas Stark said:

The lifetime limits were somewhere around $1M, so, again, no one who had a single surgery is getting a bill for $100K and would not have done in about 98% of the cases prior to ACA.  There are always going to be anecdotes on the margins, but the idea that a normal person in the U.S. who has major surgery and has insurance is on the hook for $100K is not true.

Depends a lot on the surgery honestly. The lifetime limits for some companies were absurdly low.

But now you're backtracking; at first you said it was impossible, and now it's 'a normal person'. Which is convenient given that your definition of abnormality is 'someone who doesn't fit my example'. 

There are a whole lot of people who were on the margins with the previous system. And point of fact, those on the margins have decreased significantly since the ACA, with about half the amount of medically-related bankruptcies during the ACA period. 

 

[Cas Stark]

Just now, Kalbear said:

Depends a lot on the surgery honestly. The lifetime limits for some companies were absurdly low.

But now you're backtracking; at first you said it was impossible, and now it's 'a normal person'. Which is convenient given that your definition of abnormality is 'someone who doesn't fit my example'. 

There are a whole lot of people who were on the margins with the previous system. And point of fact, those on the margins have decreased significantly since the ACA, with about half the amount of medically-related bankruptcies during the ACA period. 

 

Yeah, I am one of those people, I can attest to the absolute fact that ACA is terrible unless you are extremely poor, but I suspect you don't want to hear that particular kind of anecdote.  But, yeah, you caught me, instead of impossible I should have said almost impossible, virtually never occurs, unlike the OP who seemed according to my reading to think that $100K out of pocket expenses was NORMAL for people in the US with insurance, which is incorrect, it is something that almost is never going to happen.

[Kalbear]

5 minutes ago, Cas Stark said:

Yeah, I am one of those people, I can attest to the absolute fact that ACA is terrible unless you are extremely poor, but I suspect you don't want to hear that particular kind of anecdote.

I'm happy to hear it, because I know the ACA needs improving. Are you willing to state that your experience of it being terrible does not by itself mean that it is bad?

Also, the ACA is pretty awesome if you're not poor; it was a lifesaver for my family. But I suspect you're talking about the individual mandate and the open market. As you say, for the vast majority of people they weren't affected by that part at all, and instead things like pre-existing condition requirements, lifetime limits, required coverage and the like were all hugely beneficial to them. 

5 minutes ago, Cas Stark said:

 But, yeah, you caught me, instead of impossible I should have said almost impossible, virtually never occurs, unlike the OP who seemed according to my reading to think that $100K out of pocket expenses was NORMAL for people in the US with insurance, which is incorrect, it is something that almost is never going to happen.

And yet it happened quite regularly, enough that we can document it. Point of fact, it happened about 70,000 times less with the ACA than without it per year. 

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

3 hours ago, Cas Stark said:

How is that any different than telling the story of the civil war?  Are we going to rewrite the history books so that Robert E. Lee wasn't a hero to the South?  We can start with Robert E. Lee statues, but once it gets going it will always end with George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, unless somebody thinks Jefferson would have fought against VA.  It would seem to be much better that rather than erase history to simply put up some new monuments that are more reflective of current belief systems.  Losers of war changing the narrative to make themselves feel better isn't something novel about the Civil War South....

A statue isn't necessarily the same thing as telling the story of the Civil War, and taking one down is not the same as rewriting history. In fact, several of the statues are in some ways an attempt at rewriting history. Robert E. Lee was a hero to the South. Robert E. Lee was a legendary general. Robert E Lee also fought to keep people enslaved and was a traitor to United States of America. If you're going to tell his story, tell the whole story. Don't put a statue up of him to try and portray him as some noble figure. He wasn't.

As to the Founding Fathers and other famous historical figures who owned slaves that we currently praise, there very well might be a time and place where we as a society being to deemphasize them in public displays of affection, but that won't happen in mass any time soon. And if/when they are, or have a statue of theirs removed, it won't erase their history. It will simply mean that their public praise is being diminished. 

To the bolded sentence, it might not be unique to the Civil War, but never has a group of losers tried harder to rewrite their history than the sons and daughters of the Confederacy. 

2 hours ago, Kalbear said:

There's a reason that all the Hitler statues got torn down and instead there are memorials in Germany - because they aren't whitewashing history, they're owning up to it, but they're also not pushing a narrative that these things are good any more. 

This cannot be empathized enough. America's inability to own up to it's racist history is one of the main reasons that racism persists today to the degree that it does. 

[Manhole Eunuchsbane]

1 hour ago, Kalbear said:

And yet it happened quite regularly, enough that we can document it. Point of fact, it happened about 70,000 times less with the ACA than without it per year. 

BUT SOCIALISM!

 http://insider.foxnews.com/sites/insider.foxnews.com/files/styles/780/public/030916_sanders_meme.jpg?itok=e3btyMdi

[Zorral]

4 hours ago, Manhole Eunuchsbane said:

Eh, if you were talking about not pushing back to a proposed new statue of some controversial figure, then I'd agree. When you're talking about taking down monuments that have stood for 100 years plus, I don't see how you can classify that as appeasement.

Read the mayor's speech.  He spells it out for ya -- just as many others have.

These were erected to celebrate the war to preserve and expand slavery, and to justify Jim Crow.  There are no counter monuments erected in the years these went up to honor the enslaved, the Union fighters, and emancipation.  The Civil Rights era was one of literal war on African Americans in New Orleans by the very people who want to honor the memory of those people who were given those monuments.  I've listened to hours of chilling stories and revelations by the people who lived through this.

People say they can't understand how all this works in a society, a culture -- and historical white-washing and revisionism -- they may as well retire from the discussion because they just do not know enough to participate, and just block any honest discussion.

In the meantime these are the people invoked by the Dylann Roofs and just , the white guy who killed the African American college student in Baltimore yesterday, well that's what honoring those people gets ya.  In the meantime "officials decline to call this a hate crime. . . ."

 

[Rippounet]

1 hour ago, Cas Stark said:

Yeah, I am one of those people, I can attest to the absolute fact that ACA is terrible unless you are extremely poor, but I suspect you don't want to hear that particular kind of anecdote.  But, yeah, you caught me, instead of impossible I should have said almost impossible, virtually never occurs, unlike the OP who seemed according to my reading to think that $100K out of pocket expenses was NORMAL for people in the US with insurance, which is incorrect, it is something that almost is never going to happen.

Wasn't there a TV show about a guy who got lung cancer and his insurance wouldn't cover him or something, and then he started cooking meth, because that was the only way he could provide for his family?

Ok, jokes aside, you're actually comparing two different things. Since France was mentioned, I'd like to underline the fact that here surgery costs you close to nothing even if you can't afford insurance. Comparing the cost of surgery in France to the cost of surgery in the US for someone with insurance is deceptive. The 3000$ for a quadruple bypass that @Zorral mentioned would be the cost for someone regardless of their income ; in fact, a poor person would probably pay even less. Like, I had surgery when I was a student in my twenties and it cost me 50€. How much would the cheapest surgery cost in the US for someone without insurance, uh?

[Fragile Bird]

The US insurance story I always think of is that of poor Christopher Reeve, the actor who played Superman. He broke his neck falling off his horse in a riding mishap. Iirc, he ran out of money after about a year, and he had substantial coverage for the time, several million dollars.

Robin Williams was a good friend, and he stepped up and paid his bills.

Soon after Reeves died, his wife, sadly, died of lung cancer. I always wondered if she had any coverage.

[The Anti-Targ]

9 hours ago, The Wedge said:

There was a photo of Barron kicking a soccer ball in full Arsenal kit a few weeks back.  No sympathy for that! Anything associated with Stan Kroenke is by definition unsympathetic!

Pick a better club shirt to kick around in, Barron!

A football club owned by an American and a Russian. It was either that or Bournemouth I guess.

[Cas Stark]

19 minutes ago, Rippounet said:

Wasn't there a TV show about a guy who got lung cancer and his insurance wouldn't cover him or something, and then he started cooking meth, because that was the only way he could provide for his family?

Ok, jokes aside, you're actually comparing two different things. Since France was mentioned, I'd like to underline the fact that here surgery costs you close to nothing even if you can't afford insurance. Comparing the cost of surgery in France to the cost of surgery in the US for someone with insurance is deceptive. The 3000$ for a quadruple bypass that @Zorral mentioned would be the cost for someone regardless of their income ; in fact, a poor person would probably pay even less. Like, I had surgery when I was a student in my twenties and it cost me 50€. How much would the cheapest surgery cost in the US for someone without insurance, uh?

I used to not have any insurance and my doctor gave me apprx. a 70% discount, as did other specialists, you could even get similar discounts for some tests, but not everything.  I never had surgery without any insurance so I can't say, I suspect it would depend on the surgery and the institution.  Of course really poor people in the US have been covered by Medicaid for decades, their problem hasn't been $$ but availability and quality of care.    Certainly people have incurred large debts in the past, but that was always the exception, not the rule.  However, since ACA the majority of insurance now carries HIGHER deductables than before, so more people are paying more out of pocket than they did before, even though they're getting various 'free' mandated benefits as well.  My friend recently had major back surgery, he has insurance, his OOP was appr. $3K and the surgery was listed as costing more than $70K.

 

[Rippounet]

11 minutes ago, Cas Stark said:

I used to not have any insurance and my doctor gave me apprx. a 70% discount, as did other specialists, you could even get similar discounts for some tests, but not everything.  I never had surgery without any insurance so I can't say, I suspect it would depend on the surgery and the institution. 

So if you don't have health insurance in the US, you can count on your doctors to offer you discounts?

[Cas Stark]

13 minutes ago, Rippounet said:

So if you don't have health insurance in the US, you can count on your doctors to offer you discounts?

Well, thanks to ACA, now everyone who wants insurance can get it, or so I have heard.  LOL.

My doctor doesn't take the crap exchange insurance that I am mandated to purchase now...the one that isn't cheap and has a deductable threshold of several thousand dollars.  But, thankfully he still gives me the 70% discount.  

[OldGimletEye]

Just now, Cas Stark said:

  Of course really poor people in the US have been covered by Medicaid for decades,

Are you asserting here, that all poor people were eligible for Medicaid before the ACA was passed? Because that is not true.

 

Just now, Cas Stark said:

 However, since ACA the majority of insurance now carries HIGHER deductables than before, so more people are paying more out of pocket than they did before, even though they're getting various 'free' mandated benefits as well.

Perhaps it has caused higher user cost. But, certainly, premiums were lower than there historical averages before the ACA was passed. And while were on the topic of premiums please lets distinguish between the employer market and the individual market.

[Cas Stark]

Just now, OldGimletEye said:

Are you asserting here, that all poor people were eligible for Medicare before the ACA was passed? Because that is not true.

 

Perhaps it has caused higher user cost. But, certainly, premiums were lower than there historical averages before the ACA was passed. And on while were on the topic of premiums please lets distinquish between the employer market and the individual market.

Medicaid you mean.  Medicare is for seniors.  I assert that the Medicaid program was available for all Americans who qualified due to their poverty level and this program has been available for decades, yes.  And yes, I know that Medicaid has been expanded under ACA to cover more people, and I also know that the working poor and many 'middle class' people still cannot afford their ACA premiums and still do not qualify for Medicaid because they make too much.

Deductables are higher for everyone now, including those who get employer insurance.  And yes, I know the talking point that if not for ACA it all would have been even more expensive, LOL.  ACA has had a lot of, inaccurate talking points these many years.

http://time.com/money/4503325/obama-health-care-costs-obamacare/

High-Deductible Plans Are Now Standard

Insurance premiums tell only part of the story for health care costs. Looking at health insurance plan prices today side-by-side with those of a decade ago is not an apples-to-apples comparison. For one thing, plans in the Obamacare era generally must cover more services than they were required to in the past, including things like preventive screenings and contraception at no extra charge to customers.

For another, the typical plan's deductible is quite different nowadays. In 2008, high deductibles were the minority: 18% of covered workers had deductible of at least $1,000, per the Kaiser Family Foundation, up from only 10% in 2006. For workers with employer-sponsored plans at small firms, 35% had deductibles of $1,000 or more in 2008, up from 16% in 2006.

Read Next: Here’s How Much the Average American Worker Has to Pay for Health Care

Fast-forward to 2016, and high-deductible plans have become standard: 51% of all covered workers, and 65% of workers in small firms, face deductibles of at least $1,000. Workers at smaller firms must pay an average of $2,069 out of pocket before insurance payments kick in, versus $1,238 for workers at firms with 200 or more employees.

[Kalbear]

Yep, my deductible went up significantly after the ACA, through work. It cost me an extra $3k or so for our plan - which basically meant that i was now paying $3k, since before I was paying literally nothing for most things. 

Of course, it also meant that my kids are covered until they're 26, they can't get kicked off insurance and there are no pre-existing conditions, so we estimate that we saved something like 2.5 million. 

[OldGimletEye]

Just now, Cas Stark said:

Medicaid you mean

Yes, that's what I meant.

Just now, Cas Stark said:

 I assert that the Medicaid program was available for all Americans who qualified due to their poverty level and this program has been available for decades, yes.

Not true:

http://kff.org/health-reform/issue-brief/medicaid-moving-forward/

Quote

Before the ACA, federal law provided federal funding for Medicaid only for specified categories of low-income individuals: children, pregnant women, parents of dependent children, individuals with disabilities, and people age 65 and older. States were required to cover individuals in these groups up to federal minimum income thresholds, but also had the option to expand coverage to people at higher income levels. Importantly, prior to the ACA low-income adults were largely excluded from Medicaid. In FY 2011, the most current year for which national data are available, about three-quarters of all Medicaid beneficiaries were children and non-elderly, non-disabled adults (primarily, working parents), and the elderly and younger people with disabilities accounted for the remaining one-quarter (Figure 2).

 

Just now, Cas Stark said:

Deductables are higher for everyone now, including those who get employer insurance.  And yes, I know the talking point that if not for ACA it all would have been even more expensive, LOL.  ACA has had a lot of, inaccurate talking points these many years.

Yes, there has been a lot of bullshit about the ACA, much of it coming from conservatives who, at least when talking about premiums, have not taken care to distinguish between the individual market and the employer market. Because on premiums at least, the rate of growth was slower than before the ACA, on the employer market.

On deductibles, I guess the ACA might have been responsible. But, lets remember correlation is not causation. 

And if you don't like deductibles wait to you get a load of the Republican Plan.

Also, whatever your take on the ACA is, I agree that cost are still rising too damn fast. And we need to slow them down. And we can slow them down while getting universal coverage. And that is doable.

Also,

It's interesting  you quoted from that time article. I've read the same one. I'll quote some stuff from it that you didn't bother to quote:

Quote

But because millions more Americans have health coverage, and because things might have been even more costly had the Affordable Care Act never gone into effect, we may be better off, collectively.

Quote

These increased costs for employers and employees alike may seem steep—up around 50% over the past eight years—but they could have risen far higher had the Affordable Care Act never passed. The Kaiser study shows that average family premiums rose 20% from 2011 to 2016. That rate of increase is actually much lower than the previous five years (up 31% from 2006 to 2011) and the five years before that (up 63% from 2001 to 2006).

 

[Cas Stark]

13 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

Yep, my deductible went up significantly after the ACA, through work. It cost me an extra $3k or so for our plan - which basically meant that i was now paying $3k, since before I was paying literally nothing for most things. 

Of course, it also meant that my kids are covered until they're 26, they can't get kicked off insurance and there are no pre-existing conditions, so we estimate that we saved something like 2.5 million. 

You are an exception, that's nice for you.  The vast majority of Americans will never incur that kind of costs over their entire lifetime.  I am now paying thousands of dollars for "insurance" that I wasn't before and can't even see my own f. doctor in the plan I am on.  ACA helped some people, fine.  It also failed to help a lot of people, made some people, you know, exceptions, like you, but at the other end of the spectrum, worse off and is costing a lot more people more money.  I see that as a failure.  I get that you and many others don't. 

[LongRider]

Wait until you see how many people get kicked off of Medicare/Medicaid and SS Disability under the Prezzie's plan!   Get those fuckers off the dole and back to work.  I heard a person (sorry, didn't get the name) on NPR just after I turned my car radio on this afternoon make the unsubstantiated claim that many on SS Disability could just go back to work, no problem.   Really?  Have a bunch of crippled people in chronic pain sounds just way to cut the budget so billionaires could put more of the that re-distributed dollars in the bank.  What compassion!   span data-node-flag="true">a

[Kalbear]

1 minute ago, Cas Stark said:

You are an exception, that's nice for you.  The vast majority of Americans will never incur that kind of costs over their entire lifetime.

Citation needed. As an example, there are approximately 5 million kids that are going to have insurance that wouldn't have simply because of the 26 year old limit. 

1 minute ago, Cas Stark said:

 I am now paying thousands of dollars for "insurance" that I wasn't before and can't even see my own f. doctor in the plan I am on.

You are an exception, that sucks for you. The vast majority of Americans aren't affected this way and are happily seeing the same doctors they were previously. 

1 minute ago, Cas Stark said:

 ACA helped some people, fine.  It also failed to help a lot of people, made some people, you know, exceptions, like you, but at the other end of the spectrum, worse off and is costing a lot more people more money.  I see that as a failure.  I get that you and many others don't. 

ACA helped 22 million people get insurance that didn't have it previously, and helped make insurance significantly better for those who did have it - often in ways that they didn't even think otherwise. "Helped some people" is a bit of a misnomer here. It helped about 8% of the US population. 

How many did it hurt?