For someone making less than $100K, $460 a month is not fantastic, and $1800 for a family of 3 likewise total income less than $100K is an obscenity. I wouldn't pay these amounts for a car, why should I consider it reasonable to pay this much for health care? Insurance did not used to be this expensive. This is a product that's losing its usefulness compared to the cost.
And it's wrong to call this insurance. It's not insurance, it's a health care payment plan.
Before ACA I was paying 1/3 the price, and had 1/4 the deductible. These higher rates are basically a tax to subsidize others, which is fine in principle, I just don't like the idea that this is going largely to a massive for-profit private bureaucracy. My problem with ACA is the private insurance industry is shit, and ACA made the expansion of shit mandatory. It should have been single payer, destroy the perversion that is the private insurance industry who have lobbied for all the anti-competitive behaviors they engage in to ensure near monopoly status in the vast majority of counties in the country. But the political capital just wasn't there to see how treacherous the insurance industry has been.
I don't see how the next round of politicians actually fix this though. Preexisting conditions are made feasible by mandates, mandates are made feasible with subsidies, subsidies are made feasible by some people paying more under mandate. So you can't take away any single one of those without the whole system unraveling entirely. Even the insurance companies have said this. They just don't want to say it loud enough that the blowhard in chief gives them a tweetirade.
The US has the highest healthcare costs in the world. There's simply no escape in the US unless the government steps in a regulates medical fees like the rest of the western world.
The US is the only modern country without cost controls. Providers set prices and insurance companies do little other than pass those costs onto consumers.
When will we get cost controls? Likely never. It's very anti-capitalism to restrain free trade. (Yes, there's some sarcasm there. This issue pisses me off.)
There are no cost controls like other nations have. Japan has a single book that details the costs of all medicines and procedures. It is agreed to by both sides, under threat that the government will step in if there is no agreement.
This is what we need in the US. I should not pay a different price if I have insurance or pay cash. People that pay cash are routinely charged far more than people with insurance.
That's misleading. First of all, medicare is set by the government, and healthcare organizations cater service only to what is covered for medicare patients.
Secondly, hospitals charge people with insurance more. Typically if a patient is uninsured and paying cash, the hospital will work out ways to charge them less, because they are personally liable for way more than what insured are. Hospitals still want to get paid, and charging a patient into bankruptcy is not a way to achieve that.
Here's an idea: Democrats agree to any Republican ACA change with a condition that existing insurance company shareholders and bondholders are destroyed and replaced by US citizens as the new shareholders/bondholders inversely proportional to their wealth (not income).
The ACA did, though, limit participating insurance companies to making 20% off premiums. If they have a good year and make more, they have to issue refunds. The insurance industry hated that, and the GOP proposes to get rid of that provision.
And it's wrong to call this insurance. It's not insurance, it's a health care payment plan.
Before ACA I was paying 1/3 the price, and had 1/4 the deductible. These higher rates are basically a tax to subsidize others, which is fine in principle, I just don't like the idea that this is going largely to a massive for-profit private bureaucracy. My problem with ACA is the private insurance industry is shit, and ACA made the expansion of shit mandatory. It should have been single payer, destroy the perversion that is the private insurance industry who have lobbied for all the anti-competitive behaviors they engage in to ensure near monopoly status in the vast majority of counties in the country. But the political capital just wasn't there to see how treacherous the insurance industry has been.
I don't see how the next round of politicians actually fix this though. Preexisting conditions are made feasible by mandates, mandates are made feasible with subsidies, subsidies are made feasible by some people paying more under mandate. So you can't take away any single one of those without the whole system unraveling entirely. Even the insurance companies have said this. They just don't want to say it loud enough that the blowhard in chief gives them a tweetirade.