scrubbedexpat099

Seems the discussion is about who is crappier, I give the Donald the edge. But serious competition.

dc koop

If you try to make sense of it you wont. My co-payment for having a filling replaced and crack in the tooth sealed was 400 dollars. The insurance paid 300 dollars. The dentist originally billed the insurer for over a thousand bucks but settled for the seven hundred. You never see a poor dentist do you?
No one tells a dentist to "stuff it i'll fix the tooth myself"

PPO dental insurance is a pile of crap with a sizeable premium to pay but at least it spares the pain of having to pay the full whack

I have known people who found it more expedient to have all their teeth pulled out and replaced with dentures. The savings literally run into the thousands

scrubbedexpat099

Somebody I know is in Mexico at the moment, goes there for Dentistry.

dc koop

Tijuana would be the nearest place for me. Trouble is I hate the place. Twice visited was more than enough for me

morpeth

I know someone who had to go to hospital for a simple out-patient operation. Total time spent 3 hours. One doctor, one doctor in training, two nurses. Bill $25,000. The main doctor's bill alone was $3,000. There is no way $1,000 an hour is reasonable.

I used to work for McKesson years ago which is a supplier of pharmacies and hospitals, I don't recall mark-ups very high. If hospitals paying so much to suppliers in this era of globalization, it is probably because they can get away with charging so much.

morpeth

My understanding is that a significant percentage of US bankruptcies arise from medical costs, perhaps 25% of the total bankruptcies.

The only real difference between non profit hospitals and for profit hospitals is who gets to profit- shareholders, or top employees.

morpeth

Collection agencies can get a judgement, attach wages, car or whatever. I agree if someone has poor credit anyway, hurting their credit not a big deal.

carcajou

Happily. ACA raised expenses on the working poor - in some cases dramatically - while at the same time reducing benefits and penalizing them if they didn't buy these lower quality policies at inflated prices. As other posters have indicated - if you can "wrap your head around that" you can understand why blue-collar working class citizens hate this law. It's not because they are too stupid to know what's good for them and need you to explain it. Many of them are materially worse off, substantially so.

I agree with Boiler. In a contest of who is crappier Trump is still ahead. But the Obama beatification makes me nauseous. He doesn't deserve it.

scrubbedexpat099

Single-payer healthcare could cost $400 billion to implement in California - LA Times

Do not think this has been mentioned, California is looking at a Single Payer scheme, costs look challenging.

scrubbedexpat091

One would need the resources to fight the hospital in court.

When I ended up with 30k bill for a weeks stay about 13 years ago in the US the cost to fight the bill would have been far higher then the cost to file bankruptcy which is what happened in the end as the hospital refused to negotiate a reduced amount.

Yes it dinged my credit but I was only making 13k or so a year so I had no need for good credit since income was too low to get credit.

Giantaxe

The "working poor" either have become eligible for Medicaid - as per the chart I linked to 60% of Medicaid recipients have a working member in their household unit - or receive the largest subsidies to buy insurance and cost sharing with deductibles/copayments. I disagree that that segment has overall been disadvantaged by the ACA. Many (most?) previously had either no insurance or insurance that was so minimal that it was essentially worthless if they got sick. Additionally, pre-ACA, only seven states covered adults without minor age children for Medicaid regardless of income level. There is a better argument that those with a higher income, i.e. near or above the threshold for subsidies, have been disadvantaged.

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics...macare/512159/

Some interesting polling. Half don't even know cost-sharing for poorer recipients even exists. Also interesting that support for the ACA is slowly growing:

http://kff.org/health-reform/report/...re-the-budget/

scrubbedexpat099

I can see the legal costs issue, might be cases where small claims court is involved.

Just wondered if you represented yourself and stood there and said that these costs which were not agree and have been billed to me are obviously crazy.

Anian

Why healthcare in Iowa shouldn't be seen as a sign for other states:
Is Iowa Obamacare’s canary in the coal mine? Not really. | PolitiFact

Makes me curious about this $12 million man.

Giantaxe

It's also interesting that it highlights how "grandfathered" plans are causing two essentially different risk pools to form, with a sicker pool being the ACA pool. It's another example of how segmented approaches to access make it that much much difficult to enact reform. If everyone is in the same "risk pool", risk is spread that much wider.

morpeth

The idea that the working poor can afford medical insurance even after subsidies I think must depend on the state. I lived in a place in the Midwest that simply lower paid workers made too much for Medicaid, but couldn't afford premiums for medical insurance. Zero hour employers had to offer medical insurance but simply premiums too high and deductibles too high.

Those who had pre-existing conditions were of course well-served by Obamacare. And the local private company that administered the Obamacare certainly much more efficient than Anthem.