Obama Care

 Two words:

 

AMEN!!!!!!!!!!  I wasnt gonna click....wasn't going to skipped over it for a long time.... then I clicked it.
I am going to bite my tongue to not start yelling about this issue...calling it "obamacare" ****** ME OFF though.... ok, climbing carefully down off my little box before I go nuts.

 I am so sorry for offending you and anyone else for calling our new nationalized health care "Obama Care", I had simply read on two other peoples posts that his health care system was a factor in why they wanted their surgeries before the new year, and I had not specifically been creative and plagiarized their term. :D

I spent the morning at a meeting of senior citizens and doctors who are fear-mongering to get them riled up.  I finally said, "I remember when HMOs were being legalized in this country and we were all told that if HMOs were allowed to exist, it would be the end of medicine in the United States..."  [insert doctors laughing right here]..."that the doctors would all go into some other field...that people would drop dead left and right.  I'm not an HMO member myself, but I'll bet a lot of people in this room are...DECADES after we were all supposed to be killed off by HMOs.  So how much of this 'concern' is based on legitimate problems with what has been proposed and how much is due to a truly unfounded fear of the unknown?"

They backed down a bit and admitted that a reluctance to change and a fear of the unknown was what was informing at least part of THEIR hysteria.


So let's talk about yours...



Due to Obama Care insurance companies are raising premiums and employers are doing what they can to cut out covered benefits that raise those premiums like WLS.

That's funny...our premiums have gone up every year for the past 30 years or so...I didn't know it was a NEW thing.


My husbands company due to Obama Care has raised the annual deductible and co-pay amount so we can keep the premiums at a minimum.

That's funny, my husband's company has tried to save on costs every year that we've had insurance with them...the last 30 years or so.


My work has raised our weekly premium for family coverage from $85 a week to $115 a week. We are struggling financially and health care costs are skyrocketing.

So you want to blame "Obamacare" for a $30 a week increase?  ONLY $1520 a year?  Our insurance went up over $5000 a year...during the Bush years and I never thought of blaming Bush for that.  I figured it was insurance company greed, just like it always has been.  The CEO of our insurance company paid herself $13 million last year because the $9 million she had been paying herself just wasn't enough.  THAT is why my rates went up.  And if you tell us the name of your insurance company, we can see what that CEO is paying him- or herself, too.  Unless you think that executive compensation at insurance companies has nothing to do with health care costs.

See that what I was thinking too.... I have remembered that my premiums have ALAWYS gone up every year... it's always some excuse or another.

If I was an insurance company I would be jacking up rates to get people's tits in a ringer as well.  They have to control this somehow.   So now they throw their arms up in the air and act like this is Obama's fault. 

Let's go over the "Obamacare" timeline:

Jan 1 2010: Start of Small Business Health Insurance Tax Credits
March 23, 2010: Start of "Affordable Care Act" 
April 1, 2010: States can now choose federal matching funds for covering low income families on medicaid
June 2010: First relief checks were mailed out to seniors who hit the medicare prescription "Donut Hole".
New procedures were put into place to reduce Medicare, Medicaid, and CHIP fraud.
June 1, 2010: Early Retiree Reinsurance Program started
July 1, 2010: People with Pre-Exisitng conditions can now get insurance either through a state run program or through the Department of health and human services.. this plan stays in place until discrimination based on  preexisting condition becomes prohibited in 2014.
September 23, 2010: Extends coverage to your children until the age of 26.
September 23, 2010:  FREE PREVENTATIVE CARE!!!
September 23, 2010: End to the practice of dropping coverage due to errors on patients health histories.
September 23, 2010: new appeals process that includes an external review process.
September 23, 2010: Eliminating lifetime limits on insurance coverage.
September 23, 2010: Stricter limits on settings for annual limits.
September 23, 2010: PROHIBITION ON DENYING COVERAGE of CHILDREN BASED ON PREEXISTING CONDITIONS.

Take the time to go and read the timeline;
http://www.healthcare.gov/law/timeline/index.html



 

 Thanks So Much! The timeline was very helpful and I appreciate the link!

No problem HonneeLove. I've had to go and look recently myself to see what it is all about.

"That's funny...our premiums have gone up every year for the past 30 years or so...I didn't know it was a NEW thing."

Ours went up about 20% last year, before reform was seriously negotiated.  Guess that was Obama's fault, too, eh?

For the record some HMOs are killing people. They limit or prevent them from getting the care or sometimes the quality of care that they need. For instance, my sister and BIL have a TERRIBLE HMO that is basically denies any service other then the basic physical or ER services. They should be illegal.

Scott

No disagreement from me that some (most?) HMOs are lousy...which is why I have a PPO.  However, having a PPO is no guarantee that you will get what you need either.  I spend, on average, about an hour a week on the phone with my insurance company correcting errors they have made.  (These are the same people who PRE-APPROVED my DS and then after the fact, decided they didn't mean that...I should just pay for it myself.)

I think "the horrible" is just universal now.