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The Supreme Court is expected to deliver its ruling on the validity of the individual mandate requiring nearly all Americans to buy insurance or face a penalty-- and perhaps the validity of the entire reform package -- in June.
Two years ago when the most sweeping legislation regarding health care was first enacted, msnbc.com talked to numerous people about their health care needs, and their hopes or fears regarding health care reform. We wanted to know if the people we spoke with back in 2010 had changed their minds about healthcare reform, due perhaps, to changes in personal circumstances. Here is an update on some of the people we interviewed.
Readers reveal real-world impact of health reform
Billy Weeks / for msnbc.com
Aubree Sullivan Carpenter
Name: Aubree Carpenter (formerly Sullivan), 28, Chattanooga, Tenn.
Occupation: Education director, Epilepsy Foundation, Southeast Tennessee
Income: $29,500 annually
Current insurance: Blue Cross Blue Shield personal plan, excludes coverage for melanoma
When she was 19, Carpenter was diagnosed with melanoma, the most serious, potentially deadly, form of skin cancer. Surgery was successful, but getting insurance with a pre-existing condition was tough. When she went to work full-time at the local chapter of the Epilepsy Foundation, she still had trouble qualifying for insurance, but found a plan that would cover everything, except her melanoma. Her situation is still the same today.
Although she’s now happily married, her husband, Keelan, is a full-time college student studying computer science and doesn’t have a group health insurance plan. Her employer does pay for her plan, which costs $330 a month, and for that she is very grateful.
Today, Carpenter is healthy. But she has concerns. “It always crosses my mind that I might get another lesion,” she says. “I don’t know what I would do. It can be worrisome, but you have to do what you have to do.”
She is somewhat confused about the individual mandate, but feels that health care reform must happen, especially for those with pre-existing conditions. “I appreciate what President Obama has done to move the conversation forward,” she says. “Insurance companies shouldn’t be able to discriminate or drop you. But I don’t know if a mandate is the answer. There are a lot of questions.”
What she would like to see is the government offer competition to the private sector insurers that would provide competition at affordable rates for people. “Fed Ex and UPS are competition for the postal service, and I would like to see something similar for health care, that doesn’t discriminate against those with pre-existing conditions, and the self-employed or those, like me, who work for small organizations,” she says. “Because I’m not in a group plan, I have no options.”
Her only recourse, she says, would be to change jobs and find an employer with a group plan, which would hopefully take her.
She does not want to see the entire reform package get dismantled. “I don’t want them to repeal the whole thing,” she says. “There are thousands of people with more tragic stories than mine. I would be sad for them I am afraid that things will go back to status quo and nothing would ever be done.”
Charles Mason / for msnbc.com
Robb Myers
Fairbanks, Alaska
Name: Robb Myers, 28, Fairbanks, Alaska
Occupation: Truck driver
Income: $45,000 annually
Current insurance: Employer-sponsored Plan
Back in January 2010, Myers was a single guy who lived in a modest apartment, drove a 2000 Hyundai and tried to keep his living expenses as low as possible. He turned down health insurance coverage because he was young and healthy.
Today, Myers, now 28, is married and lives in a slightly larger apartment in Fairbanks, but still drives the same car, he and his wife, Dawna, share. The couple is expecting their first child in the middle of May. Myers now works as a full-time truck driver. His wife is a part-time nanny. Myers now carries health insurance, which costs $460 a month. When their child is born, the premium, he says, will double. They also carry a high deductible of $3,000, but his employer runs a program in which costs over $1,000 are reimbursed until the deductible is reached.
Myers, a “news junkie”, has been following the hearings. “I think the individual mandate is a stupid idea,” he says. “Ultimately, responsibility needs to fall on the individual person and not the government telling us what we need to buy. I know what I need to buy and what I can afford to buy.”
He believes that the government is on the “wrong track” with healthcare changes. “It’s going to be an economic issue, and they took a look at the demand side, not the supply side.” To cut costs, he’d like it to be less expensive to study medicine and become a doctor, and to have other medical professionals, such as nurses, “. . . do some of the things,” that traditionally fall under the purview of a doctor.
“Today, my situation has changed but I don’t see that the healthcare law is really helping much,” says Meyers, who has been with his new company since June 2011.
His colleagues have told him that insurance coverage used to be more encompassing, but after the Affordable Care Act passed, premiums actually rose. “It makes me wonder, if something in the bill kicked up the premiums,” he says.
He does believe there is “a social dimension,” to the entire issue, to be, in a sense, “. . .our brother’s keeper.”
He mentions friends who used Facebook to fundraise for monthly pledges to help offset costs for their daughter’s residential treatment program, which is out of state. Within a week, they had more than half the money needed to cover the $40,000 charge insurance would not cover. “We have a have a responsibility to each other, and having the government do it for us isn’t fulfilling that responsibility,” he says.
John Makely / msnbc.com
Greg Mohr and his wife Susan in Randolph, NJ, Jan. 4, 2010.
Name: Greg Mohr, 49; Susan Mohr, 43, Randolph, N.J.
Occupation: Self-employed computer technician, owner of cat kennel
Income (household): $92,000 annually
Current insurance: Small group HMO
Greg Mohr still runs his New Jersey computer network business and with his wife, Susan, a cat kennel owner. Mohr remains opposed to the health care overhaul and is vehemently opposed to the individual mandate. “My personal hope is that they (the Supreme Court) rule it (the individual mandate) unconstitutional and illegal,” says Mohr, who does believe, however, that health care does need to be changed.
Today, Mohr, whose income has stayed the same as it was two years ago, is paying significantly more for health insurance. The rub: He’s paying more for less coverage. Back in 2010, Mohr’s plan, which covered him, as well as his wife and two children, cost $14,640 a year. Today, he’s paying $16,500 a year, under a new policy, with higher co-pays and a few more restrictions. He recently talked to his broker and is bracing himself for a significant increase when he renews his policy in October. “It turns my stomach,” says Mohr, who estimates that 10 years ago his health insurance ate up only about 5 percent of his income. “If I raised my rates like this I would be out of business, but the insurance companies have an attitude that they want to get as much as they can.”
Instead of the current plan, some of the changes Mohr would like to see include liability limits, deterrence of nuisance lawsuits, as well as an elimination of cost differentials in procedures depending on where you live. He would also like to see hospitals and health insurers become not-for-profit entities. “I can sympathize with both sides, but in our interest it would be best for us to have the entire (health reform) package overturned and go back to the drawing board,” he says. “Not enough time was spent truly looking at options.”
Allen Brisson-smith / for msnbc.com
Ed and Sharon Blanding of Danbury, Wisconsin, at their home on Thusday, April 8, 2009. Photo/ Allen Brisson-Smith
Name: Sharon Blanding, 67; Ed Blanding, 63, Danbury, Wis.
Occupation: Retired
Household income: $45,000
Current insurance: Traditional Medicare, plus Part D for prescription drugs and a supplemental policy
With Sharon retired and having chronic medical problems, and with her husband Ed, on disability with his own set of chronic health issues, the past two years have been a little tough for the couple, both economically and physically.
Sharon takes 14 medications, up from nine. Ed, she says, now takes six prescription drugs, instead of four. They have a retirement income, but the costs of health care are “staggering,” Sharon says. They pay about $600 for a Part D Medicare supplement and supplemental health insurance coverage. Their prescriptions can run more than $250 every month. Last year, Sharon came in just a few dollars short of hitting the magic number of $4,000 to reach a point in which “catastrophic” coverage would kick in after paying out-of-pocket costs.
Reform did help the Blandings a little, focusing on the so-called “doughnut hole,” a gap in Medicare's prescription drug coverage until an individual hits certain thresholds. Under reform, the Blandings each received a check for $250. “It was nice, and it did help us, but not really a lot,” says Sharon.
Because of the economy and their health conditions, the Blandings have been trying to sell their Wisconsin property for the last year and move to a warmer, drier climate. “If it doesn’t sell, though I think it will eventually, we’ll be in bigger trouble,” she says.
She does not want to see the individual mandate or healthcare reform overturned. “Ditching the individual mandate would be bad, but ditching the entire package would be horrible,” she says. “Every year it would get better for us and people like us, and if they take it away they take away a lot of help, a lot of hope.”
But she says her sense of “dread,” may have a bright side. “Maybe that will be good and maybe we’ll go to a single payer system, which is what we should have done in the first place,” she says.
She says that in her all her years she has never been so disgusted with politics. “We’ve done everything right all of our lives, but people need to understand, almost everyone will get sick and even with insurance, it can be horrible,” she says. “There is a horrible mindset among the right wing that I think they would do absolutely anything to get rid of President Obama and his policies. I truly hope the Supreme Court sides with the law, rather than their politics.”
Related:
Court signals entire health care law might need to be struck down
Justices express skepticism over constitutionality of health care mandate
Leave a Comment:
Prediction
SCOTUS dumps Affordable Health Care Act. Obama runs the table in November. New and improved Health Care Act in 2013.
I would like to see a single payer system based on the Canadian/European model. I understand they appreciate having full health coverage enough to be willing to pay higher taxes. Think of the savings in premiums and out of pocket costs if we cut the insurance companies right out and let the system be managed by a single authority. It seems to work for much of the world. I worked for a US company with no health insurance that had a Canadian affiliate that, of course did. Their employee related costs were no more unreasonable than the US and the employees were much happier and healthier.
You forget, European politicians are smarter than American pols. This is because they have to appeal to a smarter, leaner, healthier populace. Americans go twd the Rush Limbaugh model: Fat, Dumb, and Sickly.
I would like to see the med school training and payment transferred back to the states . Importing of medications, going to a capitated medicare plan, ending medicare and pushing it back to the states with block grants, and getting the federal government out of everyones business. ....DUMP it all. These guys in washington don't deserve a dime in tax.
Maybe a good one this time. Like the rest of the civilized world.
Only if we truly remove the republicans from the equation. A total replacement of the Tired Old Party might let us catch up with the rest of the modern world. Meanwhile, everyone watching this political debacle in what is not supposed to be a political body should make their statement here:
http://tinyurl.com/7yfs689
dave-sunny
And the rest of the civilized world has a LOWER Corporate TAX RATE than we do. Should we lower our Corporate Tax Rate to their levels?
But the rest of the world has fewer loopholes. Check this out. Top ten Tax evaders. Release: Tax Time? Not for Giant Corporations
No link allowed so just type the headline into a search engine and learn the facts.
Release: Tax Time? Not for Giant Corporations
There are major problems with the Canadian model. Americans would never accept prohibitions on use of private medical care and cancer therapy is delayed long enough to ensure the treatment period is short. Medical care is effectively rationed and you have to cross the border to get private care.
On the other hand, US Medicare and Medicade is not perfect but works very well. There is strong rational that US manufacturing employers should not bear the cost of medical care since their international competitors do not pay directly for employee care which is funded through the tax structure, primarily the value added tax.
I think health care reform was a good idea but it would have been better going to a single payer system.
Heath care costs go up every year and after the ACA was put in place, the health companies seem to have raised the cost more than was required just to spite the people who need it and use it the most.
I hope the Supremes will not scrap the mandate OR the entire act. It was a good thing to do.
Medicare part "D" should have been allowed to get cheaper drugs. Congress not allowing that was a HUGE give-away to Big Pharma. One seriously foolish idea!
Health care is a human necessity.
In this country, if you lose your job due to illness, retirement, seasonable employment, etc., you soon lose your health care coverage. How does this help retired seniors, the disabled, pregnant women, children, the unemployed, the poor?
This economy cannot afford to do without a SINGLE PAYER.
How would single payer significantly lower costs?
Understood that certainly there would be some savings from removing the profit margin, increasing efficiency (which I doubt, but will allow for the sake of argument), possibly decreased paperwork
But costs are rapidly rising...what about single payer will slow that down?
BS, after the Affordable Care Act passed, premiums actually rose." The increase happened before any Affordable Care Act was passed. Stop blaming Obama for the increase of health insurance. My wife and I have been saying all a long the Affordable Care Act didn't do anything to hold down health care cost nor will it. The reporter that wrote this story needs a history lesson.
Confused
Here is a report on the Massachusetts Health care Law.
Costs are rising relentlessly for both families and for the state government. The median annual premium for family plans jumped 10% from 2007 to 2009 to $14,300 -- again, that's a substantial rise on top of an already enormous number. For small businesses, the increase was 12%. In 2006, the state spent around $1 billion on Medicaid, subsidies for medium-to-lower earners, and other health-care programs. Today, the figure is $1.75 billion. The federal government absorbed half of the increase.
http://money.cnn.com/2010/06/15/news/economy/massachusetts_healthcare_reform.fortune/index.htm
If you need health insurance, then you are obviously not taking care of yourself. Thanks for bringing this upon us all.
So I am a fit and trim adult, but I get a sore stomach and see my Dr and he tell me I have lung cancer and never smoked in my life or I get in an auto accident and the driver at fault dies and has no insurance. Who was not taking cae of themself. Can I call you to pay for this?
No. Absolutely not.
Your perspective of of this topic is as little as your penis-
Maturity is your strong suit, I see, Katie.
Imoen,
Some health issues you cannot prevent. You cannot stop cancer from killing you without medical help for example. You cannot fix a broken leg on your own and expect not to have to have it amputated later. The only way to ensure everyone pays for their own insurance is to make everyone get their own insurance. Otherwise you pay for someone that does not have it.
Come On, Imoen is just jerking your chain.
The Young don't have the Wisdom or the Life Experience of the Elderly and they have no idea how good security for the elderly and future generations used to be .
For the past thirty years, both parties have had a hand in devastating the American Standard of Living, the Republicans are worse by far, especially now a days. They are nothing like Ike. Everything for the Wealthy, Tax Breaks and all and along with Globalization, America has undergone some serious changes these past thirty years and they only benefit the Wealthy, Hands Down...
The Democrats were the Only Party addressing Health Insurance Reform, there was never a Peep from the Republican Side, nothing but Crickets!
Want to REALLY fix health care?
OUTLAW HEALTH INSURANCE!
I'm for a single payer system, and agree that a return to the drawing board is needed to address a crisis in health care/costs. I don't think that government has the power under the guise of regulating commerce to require the purchase of health insurance, which I think is quite different than requiring auto insurance (in order to use a public transportation system provided by government).
Write an amendment to control the cost of health care fee, from insurance coverage to drug. Write an amendment to guarantee the equal access to health care when citizens are invaded by germs/bacteria. According to the existed constitutional rights, we the citizens are supposed to live happy, safe, and healthy environment.
"Accordingly, the casing was updated and the Rotunda rededicated on September 17, 2003. . . . President George W. Bush stated, "The true [American] revolution was not to defy one earthly power, but to declare principles that stand above every earthly power—the equality of each person before God, and the responsibility of government to secure the rights of all." (Wikipedia)
To secure the rights of all means one of the rights is the equal access to the quality health care when citizens got germs/bacteria or other things attacked to their bodies.
Liberterian: another word for C H E A P. This wouldn't be a problem if people who had neither insurance nor money never went to a doctor or hospital. Grow up!
I read these comments and what worries me as much as the Supreme Court's lack of concern for the 30 million or so American's that will immediately lose coverage if the bill is scuttled but the clear lack of understanding about the issues by the people who write here or even better, the general public.
Here I hear people talk about "starting over" as if their knowledge of American history or even the present, is simply gone from their minds. Start over as said the 28 year old misguided man, thinks that will happen. Does he have any idea how long it has taken to get any reform whatsoever? How about twice as long as he has been alive, that is how long. So, while he gets old and his insurance goes through the roof anyway, because the caps on how much "for profit" the insurance companies can make is no longer there and he no longer can afford health insurance or gets booted off just when he needs it and then cries for help to an empty stadium, then he might understand. He gets diabetes and is in danger of losing his sight and they kick him off because they "claim" it is a pre-existing condition, then he will want it. Now he has a child and when the child gets sick and he can't get insurance at any price, then he will want it. But today? Today he is just a stupid American who can't see beyond the nose at the end of his face. But tomorrow, he will be crying how big a mistake he made.
Then there are the legions who want "the government" out of the health care. Of course, NONE OF THESE PEOPLE WILL VOLUNTARILY GIVE UP THEIR MEDICARE- and give it to the uninsured. No, for them Medicare must be something else. I cannot possibly be a government run program to provide health care. You hit 65, you get health care, unless of course, you dopey Tea Party idiots vote Republican and get the Ryan plan, which gets rid of Medicare and instead you get a small monthly FIXED check, which you might use for health insurance, if you can afford it, or use it to buy ice cream instead and go to the emergency room uninsured and let the tax payer pay for that after you get a heart attack for eating too much ice cream.
So, for the legions of idiot Tea Partiers, whose brains have been pre-washed, they don't want any government health care, unless of course, it is one they already have, such as Medicare. They like THEIR Medicare, not YOURS, THEIRS. They are so stupid it is even a waste of time even writing about it.
Of course, those same idiots that want to keep government away from their healthcare, fantasize that they actually have a choice in what kink of treatment they get and that this decision is between their doctor and them, if they can afford insurance. The insurance companies make that decision. If it costs too much, don't count on them paying for it, while with the Affordable Care Act, the insurance companies could not deny treatment, unlike now, when the insurance companies always do that. So, therefore, your treatment is really governed by insurance companies not doctors NOW. The Affordable Care Act won't let the insurance companies deny coverage if your doctor says you need it. SO- in the new law, you and your doctor can make the choice, whereas now, it is a myth that this happens.
And the employer thinks his costs will go up and he can't afford it. Well, if there was a single payer system like ever other civilized country, and we did not have to subsidize insurance companies, then surely the cost would go down. Like in Canada or England or every single other civilized nation around the globe. And exactly what planet has any of these people been living on ? I suppose health care premiums have been going down recently. Or maybe in the last 50 years? NO? Wonder why? Profits maybe? Health care that focuses on spending rather than results maybe? Anyone reading this believe that Congress will give a hoot about American's before corporations in their lifetime? I did not think so, so don't expect a change if the law is struck down.
If the law is struck down, there goes caps on how much insurance companies can make on your premiums. Gone is the pre-existing denials, gone is the Prescription Drug Benefit donut hole closing. Gone are denials generally. Gone are the decisions between you and your doctor. Up goes your premiums. Does anyone think they will go down ever? Is anyone that stupid? We need a single payer system like Canada, you pay taxes, you live in Canada as a citizen and get health care. It is a right. Not a right for insurance companies. For you as a citizen who breathes air.
One last thing: I heard every single word coming out of the Supreme Court Justices mouths and not once did anyone mention the people who will lose their coverage, which is estimated at 30 million. Instead, all I hear from them is, How much will it cost the insurance companies. Companies first, people last. Just like in Citizens United. Corporations are people. Lord, when will anyone in our government begin to give a crap for the people of this country instead of the businesses here.
Excellent post Robert.
Hey Robert ! Wake up! Our supreme court isn't there to show concern or not . But it is there to uphold the constitution that our founding fathers created. If they uphold the constitution and refrain from being activist judges the individual mandate will and should be struck down. Whether these judges are democrats, republicans, or whatever, there job is to rule on the constitutionality of this law. It should never boil down to whatever political leanings these justices have . It's the constitution stupid!
I keep reading about young people not wanting to purchase health insurance. I'm a little confused
They do not want to buy it because the premiums are too high. Under this bill premiums should drop when the industry no longer has to pick up the tab for those that come in and do not pay for their care. Is that really so hard to understand? The reason premiums are so high is because the cost of those uninsured patients gets passed on to everyone else, forcing everyone to buy a plan will lower premium costs that are increased due to those uninsured patients.
OK Geowil, I'll bite. I live in San Diego and pay $2200 a month in housing expenses along with another $1500 a month is utilities, credit obligations, food, car expenses, gasoline etc. each month there is around $100 left in our checking account after paying these obligations due to our new found reduced wage income.
We do not eat out. We do not buy electronics. We really do not do anything superfluous at all, but our income is such that we are not even close to the Federal poverty guidelines.
Exactly HOW much would you propose I pay for Insurance for myself and my wife (both just a couple years shy of 50). Are we talking an affordable $100 a month or $1200 a month like today?
Unless someone can provide me specifics it looks to me like we will not qualify for the poverty rate plan because we live (AND WORK) in a very expensive area and will end up paying another $1400 a year in income tax which could have been used to pay bills or medical costs. Am I missing something in this marvelous bill?
Geowil - Who do you think will pay the tab for those additional 30 million new patients which Obamacare says will be subsidized by the government? If your insurance premiums don't go up, your taxes surely will. There is no free lunch. Someone has to pay.
That someone is you and me and all the other 50% of the population who actually pay taxes. You will pay more - not less. Yeah, yeah, I know we need to take care of the truly needy. But how many of that 30 million are truly needy versus just too lazy to get a job and pay for their own insurance? I fully agree we should take care of the truly needy, but I do not agree I have a responsibility to pay for the lazy. Under Obamacare, we'll have no choice but to pay and pay and pay. Costs won't go down, they'll go up.
By the way, if Obamacare is so great, why did Congress exempt themselves and their pet supporters (e.g. some unions) from its provisions?
We need good health care reform, but Obamacare is not what we need. If the Supreme Court rules against Obamacare, maybe we can do it right the second time around.
when our children got out of school and got regular paying jobs they also were able to purchase insurance from their employers. I believe they had to make some sort of choice - purchase for themselves, a family plan or maybe for a child.
I think it is a shame that we live in one of the largest most industrialized countries in the world and yet our political system is so partisian that they cannot or will not agree to help find affordable health insurance and health care for all citizens. It is really unheard of in the rest of the civilized world.
The problem is multi-faceted. On one facet, you have insurance companies that serve as an expensive profiteering middle man. On another facet, you have hospitals and doctors profitting from the dying and sick. Personally, I think medical practioners often over diagnose a person's illnesses in order to gain repeat customers. Treat the patient with drugs and keep them coming back. Yet, then consider another facet of treatment costs. The drug companies can pretty much set whatever cost they want, citing research recovery costs. Why is it that so many people now have to take daily drugs? Because their doctors have told them they need to, or suffer the consequences. What about the long term consequences of taking those drugs? Seems like every few months or so another 'trusted' and highly prescribed drug is under fire for some previously undisclosed side effects.
haha...what nonsense.
Drs overdiagnose people to gain repeat customers? What do drs do...force people off the street to come into their offices?
People WALK into a drs office because they aren't feeling well, or have some kind of problem. Relatively few perfectly healthy people go to the dr.
Come on, think before you post something like that....
I ran in to this problem personally. I had a blood test when sick with flu like symptoms. The test came back saying that my potassium was too high and my blood sugar was low and they recommended a follow up visit. Because I was a college student at the time going back to school, my follow up was at a different office. My second blood test came back well within the normal levels. The second doctor suggested a possible reason for the abnormal potassium levels in the first test could be due to the blood being left too long in the centrifuge. He also stated that my blood sugar from the initial and subsequent test was within the normal range. You don't think the first location I went to was profiteering? Keep on dreaming pal.
sure, hemolysis can be one cause of hyperkalemia
blood sugar is NOT affected by that though
you easily could have been showing the first signs of diabetes
Your doctors were showing appropriate concern
Youre welcome...even though you are too ignorant to realize it...
When your are sick, You have a hard time eating normal foods and keeping them down. You usually vomit and have abnormal bowel movements. Taking a blood test while you are still suffering symptoms of an illness is ridiculous. No wonder blood results at that time would be skewed.
Who is "too ignorant to realize it" now?
You are
diarrhea will lower your potassium, not raise it. And while those are possible explanations, they are surely not the only ones. Its a drs job to rule out more insidious, possibly dangerous reasons for lab abnormalites. Once those are ruled out, and ONLY afterwards, blaming it on the reasons you propose is ok
But if you have all the answers, and know how to interpret blood tests, then why even bother going to the doctor?
Ridiculous
There are too many people dipping into the Health Insurance Well that do absolutely nothing to provide Health Care. That's it's biggest Problem.
One Insurance Company and all the other deadbeats need to get real jobs.
Single Payer Insurance Universal Healthcare only. Get the For Profit Leaches out of Healing.
America is the only industrialized Nation on Earth that does not have Universal Health Care.
Even Israel has Universal Health Care and we keep sending them Billions in Taxpayer Dollars every year!
Warning: if this bill goes down no one will try it again for at least two decades (20 years). It will be apparent that it will be a loser for any future president. This president at least had the guts to do it and it may cost him his job. Instead of chucking the whole thing, decide what's wrong with this bill and fix it. I heard the president say a number of times, this was not the end but the beginning of health care reform. I am so sorry for those who will be crushed by the decision of one old, rich man in black robes.
Obama tried to please everyone and ended up making everyone upset.
He rode into office on a promise of a single payer system. We ended up with a bill which required 4000 NEW IRS agents to be hired. What do IRS agents have to do with medicine?
Insurance is NOT the way. Mandated insurance is NOT the way.
Until the profit margin is eliminated in our healthcare system, nothing is going to change. As long as we have big healthcare systems for profit, the healthcare we need as a nation will suffer. Other nations have done it and it works. They cap the industry, so that everyone can afford healthcare and those who provide the care are awarded sufficiently and not extravagantly. It's not a perfect system, but it works for them. You pay what you can afford, but you are not turned away if you can't pay. My sister was priced out of the healthcare market because she had benign fatty cysts in her breasts. She can't afford what they were charging her every month as high as $800 a month and she still had many copays that were simply unaffordable, but she makes too much money for Medi-Cal to qualify without being stuck with a huge share of cost out of pocket before she can be covered. People lose their job because of the bad economy and are forced into CMSP or Medicaid and then other people's tax dollars are burdened with paying the cost of those programs. We live in such a rich country where educated people should be able to design a workable healthcare system for all, but when too many people stand to loose too much money then it all falls apart. The big healthcare lobbyists control the purse strings and only a few at the top benefit. Affordable healthcare is a right we should all have and not have to worry about going bankrupt or losing a loved one because of greed.
Certainly a coin toss debate thus far. There is still a plan offered now for those with pre -ex and over 50,000 enrolled with coverage so if anyone diagnosed with cancer heart conditions or diabetes for example can now sign on for coverage. See plans by the government at because they charge the same rate as if were healthy. Get in the know and let other people as well by sharing.
well see plans at the site i dont know why it wont appear correctly but preexistingconditioninsuranceplan dot com
I am sorry but the gentlemen in the article who said he did not get health insurance until he got married was just being irresponsible. If he had had needed major surgery or some chronic illness he probably would not have been able to pay the tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands one unexpected sickness could cause.
I was diagnosed with crohn's as a teenager and have had to have bowel resections and other surgeries that would make you cringe. Luckily, I had health insurance but now I have to make sure I always have health insurance without any gap otherwise no insurance will take me because of pre-existing conditions. This mandate will help solve the pre-existing conditions issue and most of all will stop people from not paying their way until they have to go into the emergency room and we all have to pay for it.
Everyone needs to pay into healthcare one way or another because they will need it either now or soon enough. This mandate makes sure that everyone pays what they can for health insurance instead of those who literally think that the emergency rooms (which cost the most) are the free clinics for their family.
Well said. I was diagnosed with what is now 4th stage colon cancer. There's no known history of cancer in my family and needless to say, the diagnosis was a complete surprise. Besides having health insurance, I also have disability insurance which is really helping me keep my head above water. I've urged people to get disability but so many of them refuse to, It never ceases to amaze me how so many people either refuse to get health coverage, disability etc., thinking it's a "ripoff" or they'll never need it. After all, they're young and healthy, take yoga classes and swallow a million supplements. Then, the unthinkable happens.
Politics aside, The congress needs to impeach Judge Thomas. His lack of dialogue and his wife's attachments make him unfit to sit on the Supreme Court. His lying under oath in regards to outside income make him eligible for impeachment. Whether he would be convicted by today's wrong headed House of Representatives, is questionable, but proceedings should begin shortly after the November Elections.
We pay more for less even with the New Health Care Bill. The only thing that would actually save us money and improve health care would be a Single Payer Insurance System but The Affordable Care Act was better than nothing. If the Supreme Court strikes the Afforable Health Care Act Americans should take to the Streets. Scream to the powers that we are tired of being murdered by greed. Show the World that Americans aren't frightened or complacent. Prove Americans will stand up for their rights. We are tired of Corporatist Greed.
“Fascism should rightly be called Corporatism, as it is the merger of corporate and government power.” Benito Mussolini
OMG I totally want a plan to get free dingdong stiffener! Every time I watch TV I see it and want it. "See Alice and your dingdong will go stiff." "Leave Etra and your dingdong will go stiff." "Visit Niagara Falls and it will not fall for a very long time. However, if it doesn't fall after four hours, you might need to put it in a sling and call a nurse." Go Obama! Free dingdong stiffener for all!
APPALLED BY REQUIRING ALL TO HAVE INSURANCE? WHAT IS FAIR ABOUT THE PRESENT SYSTEM?
There are two methods in use for paying the health care for those who can't pay. One is government help in some form(taxes). The second is by increased rates for those who have insurance.
Two questions: Why are the insured on the hook to make up the difference when the people who don't choose to have insurance are given a pass? Secondly, since the insured pay above and beyond the cost of their own medical care to provide funds to cover the uninsured, how is it conscionable for insurers to collect large salaries and bonuses? It is like giving to a charity and having administrators fill their pockets.
THIS SYSTEM WITH BIG INSURANCE AND BIG PHARMACEUTICAL CALLING THE SHOTS IS SUCKING THE LIFE OUT OF THE MEDICAL PROFESSION. NO MATTER WHAT OUR POLITICAL SUPREME COURT DECIDES, THIS ISSUE IS NOT GOING AWAY. ZEEK
The government health insurance fight has little to do with rising health care delivery services costs. They have been rising at extraordinary rates for decades and there is NO end in sight.
People who have employer group insurance aren't safe. ALL insurance with become unaffordable.
Big corporations have self-insured for years and used insurance companies as paper pushers. They did it because it was the cheapest way for them. Groups employee premiums, deductibles and co-insurance have and will continue to rise.
The healthcare cost bubble breaks when most people cannot afford have insurance or pay to get treated and then, unemployment hits the health care industry and prices will drop --kinda like Russia after the fall of communism.
Just like in Russia the select "haves" will never go hungry and always have the best healthcare --just not you or your children--much less your grand children.
The solution is simple and obvious - decide to never get sick. (kinda like asking Gays to decide to stop being gay)