The insurers get a subsidy so they can hold down deductibles? Wow.
I have exactly one patient who bought a silver plan, the rest of them newly insured under the ACA have bronze plans. That’s a $3,000 deductible for the silver, and $6,000 for the bronzes. So, without the subsidies, their deductibles would be what, $12,000?
Not that it matters, because not one of my patients newly insured under the ACA has $3,000, or $6,000, or $12,000 lying around available to be used meeting a deductible. None of them have any insurance that actually helps them meet any medical expenses. Their deductibles could go up to $12,000,000 and they would be no worse off, because even a $3,000 deductible means that they have no insurance.
The ACA was never anything but a gift to the insurers. Whatever other disaster results from the idiot winning this election, at least it will have this good effect. The idiot and his party will be responsible for either the end of this gift to the industry, or to its survival. Bon appetit!
So, are you doing your work for free for your patients? How do you expect them now to pay, giddy at the prospect of not having insurance, especially when there are so many drugs to shove down their throats or referrals to your buddies for extra grifting?
Glad your not my healthcare professional, if you even are one at all.
Whatever happens, it will be a bunch of insurance company lawyers making the call, because Drumph is too dumb to know what the hell they are talking about.
I just don’t understand the idea that the Republicans have to “appease the base” by repealing the ACA. I mean, does the base really care that much about this? Do they dream about it at night?
Fact is, most of them hardly know what “Obamacare” is except that it is associated with Obama, and once Obama is gone, who cares? Seems to me that the Republican leadership could divert the base’s attention to other things pretty easily.
I would think as a medical professional you’d realize that even with deductibles insurance plans have co-pays and discounted rates that bring down the cost of medical care from dollar one, not just after the deductible has been maxed out.
Well, that’s the debate between high-deductible and low-deductible plans, that is really a separate question from the ACA. Many people prefer to save money on a high-deductible plan and take the risk of having to absorb several thousand in expenses. But they still have the protection of coverage at the high end if a major medical incident results in hundreds of thousands, or even millions, which is a big difference from $12,000.
Actually, I do see them for free. I’m retired and I volunteer.
A suggestion. Don’t waste your time responding to a post unless you’ve at least skimmed it. What you failed to glean from what I wrote is that my patients with ACA insurance have no actual insurance. They have $6k deductibles they have to pay out of pocket before their insurance pays the first dime. None of them have $6k in their pockets. They already don’t have insurance.
Bronze and silver plans are for low-income people. These people don’t have room for preferences. They were pressured into buying something, and all that they cold afford were plans that do them no good at all, because they do not have $6k lying around to meet the deductible. They don’t have $500/month lying around to afford something without that deductible. They’re screwed. They were screwed before the ACA, they’re screwed under the ACA and presumably will still be screwed after the ACA.
Maybe a bronze plan gets you a discount on insulin, whereby you only have to come up with $500 a month instead of $600 a month. But if you don’t even have $500 a month to spare, your insurance has done you no good at all.
The Silver plan was the plan that was originally included in the ACA. It is basically the same as the majority of plans that employers provide to their employees, and it is very good coverage with (1) a lot of that coverage provided for free, outside of any deductible; (2) almost all other coverage provided with only a small co-pay, without regard to any deductible; and (3) actual premiums being very affordable because of the federal income-based subsidies.
The Bronze plan - of which you complain - was only added to the ACA after Republicans - and other non-health care geniuses - decided it was politically necessary in order to entice the “young invinceables” to buy into the ACA. The theory was that these young adults who - in the fever swamps of their Bernie Sanders imaginations - never got sick and only needed catastrophic injury coverage to set their broken bones after skiing accidents at Aspen or the Taos Ski Valley.
So, it looks like you have a lot of “Young Invinceables” in your practice, or other folks who didn’t exercise even a modicum of good sense in selecting their ACA plan. Lucky for them that they can rectify their mistake during this year’s open season. Before folks like Donald Trump, Paul Ryan and you take away their health insurance for good.
Things were just as bad before Obamacare, but no one seems to remember that.
We had plans through our employer (carrier was changed every year to get the cheapest insurance the company could get away with) which had at least a $3000 deductible. When I had surgery invariably the insurance company would decide that the doctor, hospital, drugs cost too much, so we got hit for anything over the small amount the insurance covered.
People talk as though things were so wonderful before Obamacare. They seem to have forgotten that things were actually terrible and that is why we needed the ACA.
Actually, you don’t seem to know the first thing about insurance and how it works. The bronze plan covers a lot…I know as I have used a Cigna bronze plan from the exchange and it saved my bacon financially. And from what you keep saying, it looks like you don’t know the difference between max out of pocket and a deductible, or you are confused about the different types of insurrance. “Pay out of pocket before insurance pays the first dime” actually describes a health savings account (HSA), which is a totally different thing.
"…orderly way of undoing an Affordable Care Act and moving to a Republican alternative.”
Oh, yeah, about that alternative…
It’s grotesque to even pretend that other than “dying in the streets penniless” that there exists ANY “Republican alternative”. Frankly, isn’t that their alternative to everything?
