Giving more people access to services almost invariably raises the use of those services - so I would bet big, big money that the ACA will increase the use of health services and thus health care costs at least over the short and medium term.
But that is a stupid way to measure it. You don’t make health care universal because it saves big bucks, you do it because it extends lives and makes your population healthier, and because it can benefit your economy through entrepreneurship (before the ACA, doing a startup as anyone but a straight out of college kid was an insane risk, especially if you ever had any health issue at all ever).
Wow. I state correctly that UHC is tremendously popular and you say that means it doesn’t cost anything? :smack:
Your desperation is showing.
Let me try again. UHC is tremendously popular because taxpayers recognise that the cost is well worth it. it improves the quality of life at a reasonable (not huge) cost.
In case it helps:
when I visit Europe, I fill in one form and my medical costs are covered
when I visit the US, I take out insurance for $1,000,000
The Tea Party spread lies about UHC purely because they hate Obama.
P.S. I like Americans and enjoyed my visits there. UHC will improve their lives.
Hey that’s socialist. All USA residents must fight against socialism, because …well what was the reasn given … hmm it wasnt very good, so hard t remember, ah yes "because its only word away from communism… "
Because President Obama may be a socialist (we don’t know but suspect so, heard it on Fox News so there must be some truth to it); that alone is reason enough to hate socialism.
American taxpayers are *already *footing those expenses. It’s not like the obligation doesn’t exist. We’re just paying it in the form of higher costs when we need medical treatment, so the cost is more hidden.
That’s it. There’s no saving this board anymore. This is NOT a political question. It is a fiduciary question, plain and simple, but the board’s raging liberals simply can’t leaving it at that. Somebody says “Obamacare,” and they have to go on their Tea Party screed. They have mock ridiculous strawman caricatures of their political opponents until the thread is so far off-topic that it gets a forum change.
You want examples? Here:
And to a lesser extent, but still in the vein…
Who said ‘socialist’ first in this thread, liberals or conservatives? Did the OP, at any point, ask whether the cost was well worth it? Whether it’s about evolution, healthcare, debt, or guns, it’s like you all just can’t resist the opportunity to use every thread to recite the party line.
Yours was the second reply to this thread and you referred to yourself as the “taxpayer” and those whose policies would be subsidized as the “tax takers”. How does a loaded term like “tax taker” not contribute to the politicization of the discussion?
Not if it changes what type of medical services are used. As already pointed out, people without health insurance tend to use the emergency room as their first and only medical care. Emergency rooms are very expensive to operate.
Also, preventive care and management of chronic diseases can reduce the need for more drastic procedures which costs more.
But it just happens that it saves big bucks, as evident from comparing US health care costs to countries with universal health care.
Heck, I know the costs. I pay higher taxes than an American citizen of comparable income and expenses. But I also know I rather badly (well, it looked worse than it really was) cut the little finger of my left hand on a table saw about seven weeks ago and did not pay the equivalent of half a year’s salary getting it treated.
I have pictures of my finger if anyone wants to be grossed out a little. I can also show pictures of my still-full wallet if the appetite is for anti-GOP outrage.
The OP seemed to think Obamacare was some sort of federal insurance company and couldn’t understand how it could cost the government money if those companies make profit (i.e., have a “pile of money”). I corrected that by pointing out the subsidies and saying it’s only expensive for taxpayers. Obviously, for everyone else, it’s not expensive at all. In fact, it’s a windfall.
But everyone pays taxes. If not income tax, than FICA, or sales taxes, or property taxes or some other sort of taxes. I don’t think there are any people in the US who pay no taxes (except perhaps for small children). And as someone pointed out, those of us who already had insurance already pay for medical care for the uninsured, in the form of inflated costs. The US spends more on health care per capita than other countries and yet we have had millions of uninsured people.
The run away cost structure is because of how medicare/medicaid was changed to curtail costs in the 90s. They basically went “We are going to pay THIS RATE.” instead of negotiating rates and then all the insurance companies jump on to that rate, too. The hospitals increased their costs because those medicare rates are largely unsustainable and tend to over-inflate costs across the board to try and eek more money out. Add into that the for-profit status of hospitals and this sort of billing monkey business becomes par for the course.
Insurance companies also make out because they can advertise that of the infinity dollars in submitted claims they only paid 12 cents and a mars bar when trying to attract new customers.
Preventative care visits (yearly physical) are included as no-cost-to-insured services in the ACA.
No, there WILL be huge costs. And:
This isn’t UHC. This is universal insurance. Since all of the insurance companies and hospitals in the US are for-profit and not run by the government, this will increase costs beyond what UHC in other countries is. We pay the most per-capita in health care in the world. And the ACA does nothing to address that. It adds insurance requirements that are needed but expensive on top of our old cost structure and then mandates that everyone must purchase the insurance.
The “affordability” comes from the subsidies paid to people and not any actual change in the US’s health care system. I’m glad you like to visit, but the situation won’t change for your visits. You’ll still need to get insurance to protect yourself.
Has it reduced unemployment because, since they have health insurance, they don’t need to try and get a job? Or because they can take a shittier job that doesn’t require insurance? Or for another reason?
The short term revenues will not cover it. The longer-term revenues will likely match the outlay in the 80-120% range, if all of the estimates turn out to be true. Problem is, the CBO has a poor track record of future estimates because Congress continues to monkey with just about every law it passes. Constantly. Take what the CBO says with a grain of salt because of Congressional sabotage.
But that expense is a product of the for-profit insurance and hospital industries. HealthOne isn’t running a conglomerate health agency for the benefit of us, it’s for the benefit of HealthOne’s shareholders. So if they can get away with charging you $812 for the 16 aspirin you received across the two hours you were there, they are going to do it.
If you look at Canada or Britain, you become a doctor and generally get paid by the government not on a per-incident fee but on a meritory or statutory salary. So you go to work for the government (unless you go into something like cosmetic surgery) and they control access to the services of the doctors, generally on an immediate-need basis and then followed by FCFS. They can spend quite a bit less on health care for it.
Funding is a little different for Canada versus Britain, though. BC as far as I know, does a premium-type cost every month while the other provinces pull it out of income tax receipts and Britain does a straight income tax method.
I was never sold on that adding the estimated $3 Billion per year (for the next ten years). It’s an excise tax, which means a tax on importing/MFR sales of the devices (not to be confused with a direct sales tax to the consumer). For anything not destined to US consumption, they would get re-routed.
Medical devices would start to get manufactured in China/India, for instance, and shipped to the rest of the world to avoid it and devices that are imported and later exported would likely evaporate, leaving only devices that are going to be sold here actually on our soil with us.
We might get $3 billion a year for the next two years, but I suspect that conditions would change enough to drop that significantly after that two year time frame.
Believe me, my preference would be a true single-payer UHC system, or at least Medicare-for-all, so that the uninsured could choose to pay into Medicare or buy private health insurance. The ACA system is far from ideal.
This is patently false. Just because an entity is not government run/funded, does not make it a for profit company. There are MANY hospitals AND health insurance companies around the country that are not-for-profit/non-profit.
Minnesota, for example, has state regulations which severely limit for-profit health insurance companies. United Healthcare Group - the largest health insurer in the country - is a for-profit with its headquarters in Minnesota and they are not allowed to market/sell many of their products in their home state because of their for-profit status. And as far as I’m aware, there isn’t a single for-profit hospital in that state.
The elephant in the room that is so often ignored – those of us with employer-sponsored plans are already getting a ton of government subsidies on our health care plans, in the form of tax deductibility.
We (family of 3, top 10% household income) get $5300/year of health care for free, courtesy of tax payers (fed and state), pre-ACA. I just don’t see how just because we are high income employees of a nice employer we deserve it any more than the working poor.
Under ACA, a single mom with 2 kids making $35k now gets about the same federal subsidy as we do. I really can’t see being outraged about that.
True but I don’t think that’s the issue. People are going to the ER for minor illnesses, not physicals. People will (IMHO) continue to have routine illnesses and abuse the ER system due to high deductibles.