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I'm confused here jack, you advocating for or against a national healthcare system. Because a "national" healthcare system means that those "private" insurance companies essentially become agents of the state. They are not private whatsoever.

As for everyone qualifying, that's true. However, everybody getting access to everything doesn't happen. Political connections become currency to getting good treatment.

And if stuff is national, there are zero alternatives.

And yes it'll make it easier for small business to offer insurance, because they don't have to offer it at all. What they DO have to offer is a crushing tax burden to fund a monolithic system that is inflexible, inefficient, and will eventually collapse under its own weight. Name for me five "national" programs that run more efficiently than their private enterprise counterparts.

You want to fix the system? Revert back to catastrophic care insurance, pay for doctor visits and tests out of pocket. You'll see that over the same amount of time, health care spending will either drop or remain constant for the same level of service, while nationalized healthcare runs amok. The large majority of providers will be forced to drop fees to attract patients, they will be able to cut back on staff and services that's required for insurance billing, and the market will provide specific services for billing and collection that are economical and competitively priced.

In the end, the bigger the pot of honey, the more flies it attracts. That is the way of the world.

Now Jpotts,
It really isn't national healthcare. The ACA forces people to buy insurance, from insurance companies, and regulates, and in some cases subsidizes those companies. That is nothing like nationalized healthcare. National healthcare, would be fully funded by the government, and would be paid for by taxpayers. As it is, the ACA still requires for profit insurance companies to work.

Dave (A.K.A. Homebrew)

The government doesn't run healthcare. See my post just above.

Dave (A.K.A. Homebrew)

ObamaCare's Broken Promises
January 31, 2013, 6:52 p.m. ET

Every one of the main claims made for the law is turning out to be false. .

By DANIEL P. KESSLERAs the federal government moves forward to implement President Obama's Affordable Care Act, the Department of Health and Human Services is slated to spend millions of dollars promoting the unpopular legislation. In the face of this publicity blitz, it is worth remembering that the law was originally sold largely on four grounds—all of which have become increasingly implausible.

• Lower health-care costs. One key talking point for ObamaCare was that it would reduce the cost of insurance, especially for non-group insurance. The president, citing the work of several health-policy experts, claimed that improved care coordination, investments in information technology, and more efficient marketing through exchanges would save the typical family $2,500 per year.

That was then. Now, even advocates for the law acknowledge that premiums are going up. In analyses conducted for the states of Wisconsin, Minnesota and Colorado, Jonathan Gruber of MIT forecasts that premiums in the non-group market will rise by 19% to 30% due to the law. Other estimates are even higher. The actuarial firm Milliman predicts that non-group premiums in Ohio will rise by 55%-85%. Maine, Oregon and Nevada have sponsored their own studies, all of which reach essentially the same conclusion.

Some champions of the law argue that this misses the point, because once the law's new subsidies are taken into account, the net price of insurance will be lower. This argument is misleading. It fails to consider that the money for the subsidies has to come from somewhere. Although debt-financed transfer payments may make insurance look cheaper, they do not change its true social cost.

• Smaller deficits. Increases in the estimated impact of the law on private insurance premiums, along with increases in the estimated cost of health care more generally, have led the Congressional Budget Office to increase its estimate of the budget cost of the law's coverage expansion. In 2010, CBO estimated the cost per year of expanding coverage at $154 billion; by 2012, the estimated cost grew to $186 billion. Yet CBO still scores the law as reducing the deficit.

How can this be? The positive budget score turns on the fact that the estimated revenues to pay for the law have risen along with its costs. The single largest source of these revenues? Money taken from Medicare in the form of lower Medicare payment rates, mostly in the law's out-years. Since the law's passage, however, Congress and the president have undone various scheduled Medicare cuts—including some prescribed by the law itself.

Put aside the absurdity that savings from Medicare—the country's largest unfunded liability—can be used to finance a new entitlement. The argument that health reform decreases the deficit is even worse. It depends on Congress and the president not only imposing Medicare cuts that they have proven unwilling to make but also imposing cuts that they have already specifically undone, most notably to Medicare Advantage, a program that helps millions of seniors pay for private health plans.

• Preservation of existing insurance. After the Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of health reform in June 2012, President Obama said, "If you're one of the more than 250 million Americans who already have health insurance, you will keep your insurance." This theme ran throughout the selling of ObamaCare: People who have insurance would not have their current arrangements disrupted.

This claim is obviously false. Indeed, disruption of people's existing insurance is one of the law's stated goals. On one hand, the law seeks to increase the generosity of policies that it deems too stingy, by limiting deductibles and mandating coverage that the secretary of Health and Human Services thinks is "essential," whether or not the policyholder can afford it. On the other hand, the law seeks to reduce the generosity of policies that it deems too extravagant, by imposing the "Cadillac tax" on costly insurance plans.

Employer-sponsored insurance has already begun to change. According to the annual Kaiser/HRET Employer Health Benefits Survey, the share of workers in high-deductible plans rose to 19% in 2012 from 13% in 2010.

That's just the intended consequences. One of the law's unintended consequences is that some employers will drop coverage in response to new regulations and the availability of subsidized insurance in the new exchanges. How many is anybody's guess. In 2010, CBO estimated that employer-sponsored coverage would decline by three million people in 2019; by 2012, CBO's estimate had doubled to six million.

• Increased productivity. In 2009, the president's Council of Economic Advisers concluded that health reform would reduce unemployment, raise labor supply, and improve the functioning of labor markets. According to its reasoning, expanding insurance coverage would reduce absenteeism, disability and mortality, thereby encouraging and enabling work.

This reasoning is flawed. The evidence that a broad coverage expansion would improve health is questionable. Some studies have shown that targeted coverage can improve the health of certain groups. But according to the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation's Economic Research Initiative on the Uninsured, "evidence is lacking that health insurance improves the health of non-elderly adults." More recent work by Richard Kronick, a health-policy adviser to former President Bill Clinton, concludes "there is little evidence to suggest that extending insurance coverage to all adults would have a large effect on the number of deaths in the U.S."

The White House economic analysis also fails to consider the adverse consequences of income-based subsidies on incentives. The support provided by both the Medicaid expansion and the new exchanges phases out as a family's income rises. But, as I and others have pointed out in these pages, income phaseouts create work disincentives like taxes do, because they reduce the net rewards to work. Further, the law imposes taxes on employers who fail to provide sufficiently generous insurance, with exceptions for part-time workers and small firms. On net, it is hard to see how health reform will make labor markets function better.

Some believe that expanding insurance coverage is a moral imperative regardless of its cost. Most supporters of the law, however, use more nuanced arguments that depend on assumptions that are increasingly impossible to defend. If we are ever to have an honest debate about entitlement spending, we will need to distinguish these positions from one another—and see them for what they really are, rather than what we wish they would be.

Mr. Kessler is a professor of business and law at Stanford University and a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323374504578217720567917856.html

This is not the first time I have heard this. My child's pediatrician foresaw this a few years ago. He told me that he was considering retiring (he's about 50 now). He said that he was having to see more and more patients to make a decent living. Costs were going through the roof in terms of added staff to complete paperwork, file claims etc....

What do ya think KIDMD stands for?

Think about it...


BTW the kaiser foundation is a very liberal group...kinda out of touch..

I know you mean well but not only dod you have your plans mixed up

Bronze = 60/40

Silver (Considered standard)= is a 70/30

Gold = 80/20

Platinum ( I am almost afraid to say that here ! = 90/10

Those big deductibles you talk about are not in fact deducible but out of pocket maximums

Also almost all preveative , wellness and checkups are no co-pay .

And also remember that most private insurance plans have a 1 to 2 million dollar maximum life time payout and these plans are limitless maximums.


I am a long time Insurance professional and have seen the plans and in spite of what you might hear in the Media they are simple to understand.

I'd have to look it up (OOP Max). I think deductable, coins, copay etc. can vary because it's based more on actuarial value.

"Bronze - 60% AV (the QHP issuer pays, on average, 60% of the cost of EHB coverage) Silver - 70% AV (the QHP issuer pays, on average, 70% of the cost of EHB coverage) Gold - 80% AV (the QHP issuer pays, on average, 80% of the cost of EHB coverage) Platinum - 90% AV (the QHP issuer pays, on average, 90% of the cost of EHB coverage)

The health plan category a consumer chooses affects the total amount he or she will likely spend on EHB during the year. Consumers who choose a plan in a higher health plan category (e.g., Gold or Platinum) will pay higher monthly premiums on average, but will pay less for cost-sharing expenses (e.g., deductibles, coinsurance, and copayments). For example, if a plan has an AV of 70%, on average, the consumer would be responsible for 30% of the cost of covered benefits. However, consumers could be responsible for a higher or lower percentage of the total costs of covered services for the year, depending on their actual health care needs."

I'm no expert, just referring to the navigator training. I beleive they can. I think thre are a lot of variables but it all boils down to the AV.... there are multiple ways of designing a benefit plan to get to the same place.

To be honest I'm a bit confused by the whole scenario above and question it a bit..... that said they very well could be confusing OOP and ded in this instance...... I dunno. Without actually looking at specifics it's hard to tell but does seem odd given AV must be attached. (Jack's intincts on this one may very well be correct)

I did that the other day. Turns out I must have eaten corn.

Actually I copied and pasted from this which was the third line in the post you quoted.:

http://kaiserfamilyfoundation.files.wordpress.com/2013/01/8303.pdf

Having been a licensed agent myself who, among other plans, sold health insurance, I'm capable of reading a plan document. Problem is a cursory search on the net didn't reveal one. This was the best I found. But, I would love a link to actual plan documents if you have one. I would guess these plans are going to follow the same type of logic the NAIC used when crafting basic health insurance policies, medicare supplements and long term care policies.

I didn't know you dabbled in insurance as well. Very cool. So did I.
Great speaking with you today, Abri.

Wonder if Obamacare will eventually just become a more expensive (and limited) mishmash version of the Medicaid/care with private carriers that we currently enjoy?

http://www.uspreventiveservicestaskforce.org/uspstf/grades.htm

Grade Definitions After July 2012

What the Grades Mean and Suggestions for Practice

The USPSTF updated its definition of and suggestions for practice for the grade C recommendation. This new definition applies to USPSTF recommendations voted on after July 2012. Describing the strength of a recommendation is an important part of communicating its importance to clinicians and other users. Although most of the grade definitions have evolved since the USPSTF first began, none has changed more noticeably than the definition of a C recommendation, which has undergone three major revisions since 1998. Despite these revisions, the essence of the C recommendation has remained consistent: at the population level, the balance of benefits and harms is very close, and the magnitude of net benefit is small. Given this small net benefit, the USPSTF has either not made a recommendation “for or against routinely” providing the service (1998), recommended “against routinely” providing the service (2007), or recommended “selectively” providing the service (2012). Grade C recommendations are particularly sensitive to patient values and circumstances. Determining whether or not the service should be offered or provided to an individual patient will typically require an informed conversation between the clinician and patient.


Grade

Definition

Suggestions for Practice

A The USPSTF recommends the service. There is high certainty that the net benefit is substantial. Offer or provide this service.

B The USPSTF recommends the service. There is high certainty that the net benefit is moderate or there is moderate certainty that the net benefit is moderate to substantial. Offer or provide this service.

C The USPSTF recommends selectively offering or providing this service to individual patients based on professional judgment and patient preferences. There is at least moderate certainty that the net benefit is small. Offer or provide this service for selected patients depending on individual circumstances.

D The USPSTF recommends against the service. There is moderate or high certainty that the service has no net benefit or that the harms outweigh the benefits. Discourage the use of this service.

I Statement The USPSTF concludes that the current evidence is insufficient to assess the balance of benefits and harms of the service. Evidence is lacking, of poor quality, or conflicting, and the balance of benefits and harms cannot be determined. Read the clinical considerations section of USPSTF Recommendation Statement. If the service is offered, patients should understand the uncertainty about the balance of benefits and harms.

You mean like all the states that rely on tobacco settlement money that are now long-term business partners with the cigarette companies?
So for those keeping score at home:

Government colluding with tobacco companies to ensure settlement checks keep coming in while spending money on smoking cessation ads and programs
Government colluding with health insurance companies to ensure "marketplaces" function (pay no attention to classic meaning of marketplace)

Next thing you know the government will fund an organization to foster peace and positive international relations, maybe even give it a martial name like "Peace Corps" while spending trillions on weapons and military. Naw, what am I thinking?

drip, drip, drip

IS EVERYONE SUFFICIENTLY CONFUSED?????

No wonder the billing companies are telling me to get a line of credit for the first quarter of 2014.. They are anticipating payment delays to doctors for up to 3-4 months....
What other profession gets paid (maybe) 3 months later? And at a lower rate..

I personally am NOT going to accept patients on these insurances, minimal pay..if you get paid at all....FORGET it!

With obamacare you will not be able to practice based on needs...you will practice in order to save money for the insurance...the law is set up to reimburse those that don't do tests, push patients out the door quickly, don't do that MRI you think might help, etc.....doc and hospitals will get incentives ($) to not run the expensive tests, discharge patients early, etc....they are not going to fund routine mammograms any more until after 50, evn if you are high risk, this is only one example.....the "death panels" do exist, they already do, it is just gunna get worse with the new care reguLations.....