What are your health care plans re: insurance
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free skin care · Wed Oct 30, 2013 12:04 pm

This whole Obamacare fiasco is scaring me. So far my health care plan hasn't been affected but we all know that everyone's rates will go up and who knows what will even be covered in the future or if there will be enough doctors or months long waiting lists?

So I am making a list of tests and checkups that I want to get done NOW before the end of the year, even if it means taking vacation time to do fun things like a colonoscopy!

If you have no insurance are you planning to sign up with Obamacare or will you wait to see what happens, since no one seems to know anything. Confused

free skin care · Fri Nov 01, 2013 9:50 pm

SoftSkin wrote:

This whole Obamacare fiasco is scaring me. So far my health care plan hasn't been affected but we all know that everyone's rates will go up and who knows what will even be covered in the future or if there will be enough doctors or months long waiting lists?

So I am making a list of tests and checkups that I want to get done NOW before the end of the year, even if it means taking vacation time to do fun things like a colonoscopy!

If you have no insurance are you planning to sign up with Obamacare or will you wait to see what happens, since no one seems to know anything. Confused

I am a self employed individual who is paying for my insurance. So far, my $3,000 deductible is going up to $5,600 meaning that I will be paying for ALL of my medical costs out-of-pocket. (I rarely, if ever, see the doctor or need medical care.) I'm sure my premiums will either go way up OR I'll be cancelled, like so many others.

free skin care · Sat Nov 02, 2013 3:57 pm

Something quite unexpected -- not all hospitals will take all insurance. They need to scrap this whole system and start over. Just put people who can't afford good insurance plans on Medicare for catastrophic illness and let them pay out of pocket for most health needs otherwise, which would be ultimately cheaper for most.

free skin care · Wed Nov 06, 2013 4:22 pm

I gotta say it... I worked in the insurance industry. The company I worked for brokered medical insurance for small to med. sized companies.

All the problems the country is seeing now with crazy rate increases, and less medical options, the loss of plans, (Yes, I fall into one of the 900,000 Californians whose plan was tossed to the wayside... a promise we knew could not possibly be kept)... It was all very much expected.

There was no way around it.

If you are lucky enough right now to have a low deductible, or your close to meeting it... YES... max your benefits now. Fill every possible RX... get 3 month supplies... If you can. Some insurance co's are likely to only allow a 2 month supply at this time.

In the mean time... beef up your resume and get a job that pays better... or get a 2nd job... or a job with better benefits.

'Cause unlike the gov't. It's illegal for us to print money to pay our debt...

free skin care · Sat Jan 04, 2014 8:45 pm

I heard that some people who went to the emergency room saying they'd signed up with Obamacare were turned away because they had no insurance card. Oops! Guess they forgot to issue any cards! Bad Grin

free skin care · Sun Jan 05, 2014 5:27 pm

My deductible jumped from 0 to $1500. Thanks Obama!!!! I really appreciate signing up for coverage that I do not want or need.

free skin care · Mon Jan 06, 2014 9:37 am

Yes, we are self-employed and our deductible is so large it is just paying out of pocket anyway. We try to stay healthy but that's about it. Our rates went up anyway and we are looking to have it triple by the end of this year. Crying or Very sad

free skin care · Mon Jan 06, 2014 3:56 pm

The moral of the story "There is no free healthcare". Someone always! has to pay. Best bet - stay healthy.

free skin care · Tue Jan 07, 2014 7:41 am

... but CYA for emergencies. They do happen even to healthy people.

free skin care · Tue Jan 07, 2014 9:43 am

fawnie wrote:

... but CYA for emergencies. They do happen even to healthy people.

oh yes. of course.

The obamacare situation is complicated and is likely to make things difficult in untold ways - affecting jobs as well as healthcare opportunities... so take care of what you can to lesson your need on the system. Our part time employees who teach 4 credit hours will no longer teach 12 credits due to the fact that it would cause the college to pay high insurance rates for each of them. They can only teach 11 hours which does not work with our system. Employees who are used to getting paid for 12 hours can only get 8 hours of work. This is a big hit for everyone and we have to sacrifice very skilled workers.

The system is going to become more burdened. Those who pay into insurance already will be paying more, no matter what your health situation.

At my work they told us about 5% of people use over 80% of the healthcare dollars the rest put into our insurance system. Topping the health issues are things like ; Obesity, diabetes, issues related to smoking... things that usually can be managed or deleted by a healthy lifestyle. The elderly are going to be 'managed' more as to what services they can access. Big changes ahead for the American worker.

Tue Jan 07, 2014 11:07 am

fawnie wrote:

... but CYA for emergencies. They do happen even to healthy people.

Yes, absolutely! I was a seemingly healthy 22 year old when I got diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes (the autoimmune one, not related to Type 2.) I was invincible no more.

free skin care · Tue Jan 07, 2014 12:50 pm

Sis,

actually it is a biggest disinformation I have ever seen.

In reality no one questions why the actual cost of the healthcare is so huge comparing to other developed countries (such as Germany or France, etc.). Why a simple visit to ER is thousands of dollars, or each day of hospital stay is tens of thousands, while it is not the case every where else.

While the actual professional fees may be on the higher end (aka doctor's fees, nurses, etc.) it is the hospital "room and board" fees that are astronomical. At the same time they are the major employers of so many bureaucrats and paper pushers, who are well unionized and protected; whose predecessors worked in factories that no longer exist and whose college education and desire for a better live coupled with disappearance of factories and manufacturing jobs leaves us with no choice - either support that insane situation or face 50% unemployment.

Just to illustrate the point - our coworker caught SARS on a trip to Germany; had to stay for 4 days in ICU, total 1 week in a hospital; total bill - $1,500; here it would have been over 100K.

free skin care · Tue Jan 07, 2014 1:12 pm

I agree Sigma - It's ridiculous. Out of hand. The big question is how to get it under control, turn things around to make it a strong, worthwhile system. There doesn't seem to be a cohesive thought process among the powers that be to tackle that. What we have now is adding more to the mess and red tape potential with no addressing of costs. It can't continue and be sound.

free skin care · Sun Jan 12, 2014 12:49 pm

If people will be paying thousands of dollars out of pocket every year, I predict medical tourism to Mexico and other countries for elective surgery. A friend's wife had a gall bladder attack in Mexico City and was rushed to a luxury suite in the hospital. Doctors were all US trained. She was there for a week, I think. Total cost of EVERYTHING was $11,000.

If hospitals in the US lose enough business, they will have to lower their prices. Problem now is that consumers cannot see what itemized charges will be before they go into the hospital. I heard that hospitals charge radically different prices for no discernible reason. We've all heard of the $1 cotton swab! It's like the Federal government.

I think as a result, the population at large will get fitter, slimmer, healthier, and turn to alternative medicine which is often cheaper.

free skin care · Sun Jan 12, 2014 9:08 pm

Our insurance is through my husband's job and about 2 years ago it all changed (the letter sent to us from his company stated it was due to Obamacare). All our co-pays went up, deductibles, and we are only covered for generic meds. If a drug does not come in a generic form, we have to pay full price.

My husband has to get medical tests each year now at work to keep our health insurance costs down and we try very hard to eat right, stay fit. I think they call it a "wellness program" at his job.

free skin care · Sun Jan 12, 2014 9:52 pm

Yep - they call it a wellness program. We have the same thing. Just like social security is now called an "entitlement". Doesn't that just burn ya.

This is an email I received:

Obamacare defined--To insure the uninsured, we first make the insured uninsured and then make them pay more to be insured again, with less coverage, so the original uninsured can be insured for free.

free skin care · Mon Jan 13, 2014 3:27 am

SoftSkin wrote:

We've all heard of the $1 cotton swab!

I once temped for a few days in an American health company in London. I was pricing pharmacy products for billing. Using a guide chart of base prices, I had to increase them for billing patients. The every-day medications such as aspirin, codeine etc were staggeringly inflated - when I started, I thought I was working it out wrongly from the chart - but I wasn't... This was over 20 years ago, so heaven knows how much they make from medications nowadays.

free skin care · Mon Jan 13, 2014 7:06 pm

I wonder if they'd let you bring your own q-tips, aspirins, basins, toilet paper, etc and save a few thousand on your hospital stay. Laughing

free skin care · Thu Jan 23, 2014 11:42 am

There was an article a week or so ago about a woman who signed up for Obamacare but hadn't paid yet because she wasn't billed. In the meantime she got a job with great health insurance. She tried to unenroll at the government website and couldn't. Spent days I think and then they took the money from her account. Good luck trying to get that back!

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