Your health care coverage

[Callen]

Are you asking about medicare, or people with insurance through their employer, or?

Matters not. Just curious what Americans pay for their health insurance and what the limitations and extras might be.

 

[ttwtt78640]

Slightly OT.....but what do you folk pay for your healthcare premiums? Based on income as a couple we pay about $1,500 total, a year for both of us. That covers all doctors, hospitals, specialists, diagnostics etc with zero restrictions or copays. Does not include glasses, prescriptions, cosmetic procedures ,chiropractic services or dental. Our employer insurance, no charge as we are retired, covers that.

As noted in post #7, I pay about $47/month in premiums.

 

[Tender Branson]

Here in Austria, all insured (99.9% of the population) get a so-called „e-card“, a health insurance card, which is suitable for a card-reader.

You carry it with you for a doctor or hospital appointment, your medical data is stored on it, such as medical examinations from specialists, prescribed drugs, surgeries, vaccinations etc.

 

[post]

Medicaid is one of those things I tend to forget about. In Ohio, you have to have an individual income at or below $17,131 and either be pregnant, have a dependent under the age of 18, have a disability, or be 65 or older. It’s kind of amazing that 3 million people (25% of the population) qualify for that.

Why is it "kind of amazing"? The MSM attempts to appeal to the broadest possible audience of households with sufficient wealth to spend to the satisfaction of MSM's advertisers. Covering the actual state of conditions in the U.S. is a "turn off" both to advertisers and to RWE, so MSM is not incentivized to emphasize that medicaid paid the medical expenses of delivery of 43 percent of babies born in the U.S. in 2018 and that an astonishing number of the youngest and the oldest in the U.S. are living in poverty.

Medicaid's Role for Women | KFF​

https://www.kff.org › medicaids-role-for-women
Mar 28, 2019 — "Maternity Care: Medicaid is the largest single payer of pregnancy-related services, financing 43% of all U.S. births in 2016. In five states and DC, ..."

Medicaid pays for 43% of births in the U.S. - Axios​

https://www.axios.com › Health
Sep 1, 2018 — "Medicaid is the primary source of insurance in 43% of childbirths, and that percentage is much higher the younger the mother is, according to ..."

The numbers don't lie, it is simply that there is no focus on the fact the U.S. economy is a failed system. The collapse of the Texas power grid resulting in more than 600 direct fatalities, huge financial losses, and an immediate 50 cents per gallon spike in motor fuel price per gallon was reacted to by Texas governing majority with an all out push to further restrict voting eligibility and opportunity, along with legislating that RWE majority's perogitive to overturn any future election result it does not approve of, instead of addressing the power grid's vulnerabilities and the crony capitalism that caused it.

Electric Reliability Council of Texas - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

"...During the February 2021 storm, it emerged that a third of ERCOT's board of directors live outside of Texas; this includes the chair Sally A. Talberg, who lives in Michigan, and the vice chair Peter Cramton. This revelation drew considerable anger from the public as well as elected representatives, and the board members' names and photographs were temporarily removed from the ERCOT website due to death threats. The board was also criticized for its meeting days before the storm: though the meeting lasted more than two hours, the members spent less than a minute discussing storm preparations and readiness. On February 23, ERCOT announced the resignation of five out-of-state board members effective the end of the board meeting the following day. .."

Wealth gap grows as rising corporate profits boost stock holdings controlled by richest households ​

Two Federal Reserve economists have recently examined the evidence and concluded the gap is getting even wider.

www.cnbc.com

Aug 27, 2020 While the top 1% have always controlled 70% to 80% of stock market value since record-keeping began in 1989, this is the highest level of ownership ever, other than the fourth quarter of 2019 ...
The Fed - Distribution: Distribution of Household Wealth in the U.S. since 1989

The Federal Reserve Board of Governors in Washington DC.

www.federalreserve.gov

 

[Tender Branson]

Slightly OT.....but what do you folk pay for your healthcare premiums?

It depends on the wage you earn ...

If you earn 2000€ net a month, the employer pays a gross wage of 3.800€.

1.800€ are deducted each month, of which 600€ are employer social insurance payments and 600€ employee ones. The rest is income tax and other taxes.

An employee in Austria gets his wage 14x per year.

 

[Patriotic Voter]

My vote is for Other because I get coverage from Medicare and a private company.

 

[Greenbeard]

Medicaid is one of those things I tend to forget about. In Ohio, you have to have an individual income at or below $17,131 and either be pregnant, have a dependent under the age of 18, have a disability, or be 65 or older. It’s kind of amazing that 3 million people (25% of the population) qualify for that.

Medicaid expansion means raising the income threshold for Medicaid eligibility up to 138% FPL (the ~$17K for a single person figure you quote) and extending eligibility to anyone who falls below that threshold, regardless of whether they fit into any of the historical Medicaid eligibility categories you mention.

Since Ohio expanded Medicaid, people don't have to fall into one of those categories, they just need to fall below the income threshold.

https://medicaid.ohio.gov/wps/portal/gov/medicaid/families-and-individuals/coverage/who-qualifies/who-qualifies

 

[MaryP]

Medicare with the cheapest advantage plan.
I need to look into that WellCare plan twtt mentioned.

 

[trixare4kids]

I have Medicare with an advantage plan (WellCare) which pays me (increases my Social Security by) $95/month.

Sounds similar to mine but not quite. Mine is Scan Medicare, and my provider is Scripps Healthcare.

 

[Demon]

Matters not. Just curious what Americans pay for their health insurance and what the limitations and extras might be.

I pay $118.60, and Cigna pays $30, so the total would be $148.60 (I think that's what medicare is now), and my husband pays the same for his.

 

[Demon]

Medicare with the cheapest advantage plan.
I need to look into that WellCare plan twtt mentioned.

It's only in like 17 states.

 

[post]

Since they removed the individual mandate things have gotten MUCH better. When Obamacare first hit my premiums doubled while my benefits were cut in half.

Obamacare--like the man it's named after--f_cK!ng sux.

The purpose of the individual mandate is vital in a system reformed to remove financial penalties to become immediately insured with pre-existing conditions. Trump & RWE politicians aligned with him effed the taxpayers by eliminating the individual mandate, a fine for having the financial ability to pay for health insurance coverage but being selfishly unamerican enough not to purchase health insurance coverage until a perceived immediate need for medical treatment!

No individual mandate encourages "free riding" an antisocial, unamerican behavior. With no free riders paying the individual mandate, the increased costs to all insurers of those who don't purchase health insurance coverage until they can take the insurer for thousands in treatment costs while paying only hundreds to the insurers, are passed along to all other purchasers of insurance coverage and to government paying for expanded medicaid coverage!

Facts? Links supported facts?

How Repeal of the Individual Mandate and Expansion of Loosely Regulated Plans are Affecting 2019 Premiums

How Repeal of the Individual Mandate and Expansion of Loosely Regulated Plans are Affecting 2019 Premiums | KFF

In health insurance systems designed to protect people with pre-existing conditions and guarantee availability of coverage regardless of health status, countervailing measures are also needed to ensure people do not wait until they are sick to sign up for coverage (as doing so would drive up...

www.kff.org

"The Affordable Care Act (ACA) included a variety of "carrots" (e.g., premium tax credits and cost-sharing reductions) and "sticks" (e.g., the individual mandate penalty and limited ..."

Affordable Care Act - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

"...The ACA's major provisions came into force in 2014. By 2016, the uninsured share of the population had roughly halved, with estimates ranging from 20 to 24 million additional people covered.[5][6] The law also enacted a host of delivery system reforms intended to constrain healthcare costs and improve quality. After it went into effect, increases in overall healthcare spending slowed, including premiums for employer-based insurance plans.[7]

The increased coverage was due, roughly equally, to an expansion of Medicaid eligibility and to changes to individual insurance markets. Both received new spending, funded through a combination of new taxes and cuts to Medicare provider rates and Medicare Advantage. Several Congressional Budget Office reports said that overall these provisions reduced the budget deficit, that repealing ACA would increase the deficit,[8][9] and that the law reduced income inequality by taxing primarily the top 1% to fund roughly $600 in benefits on average to families in the bottom 40% of the income distribution.[10]

The act largely retained the existing structure of Medicare, Medicaid and the employer market, but individual markets were radically overhauled.[1][11] Insurers were made to accept all applicants without charging based on preexisting conditions or demographic status (except age). To combat the resultant adverse selection, the act mandated that individuals buy insurance (or pay a fine/tax) and that insurers cover a list of "essential health benefits".

Before and after enactment the ACA faced strong political opposition, calls for repeal and legal challenges. In National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius, the Supreme Court ruled that states could choose not to participate in the law's Medicaid expansion, but upheld the law as a whole.[12] The federal health insurance exchange, HealthCare.gov, faced major technical problems at the beginning of its rollout in 2013. Polls initially found that a plurality of Americans opposed the act, although its individual provisions were generally more popular.[13] By 2017, the law had majority support.[14] President Donald Trump rescinded the federal tax penalty for violating the individual mandate through the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017, starting in 2019.[15] This raised questions about whether the ACA was still constitutional.[16][17][18] The Supreme Court upheld the ACA a third time in a June 2021 decision.[19] .."

 

[HIP56948]

Private insurance, here in the states. . Universal public health insurance program in Australia. (Betcha' can't guess which one is way more expensive)

 

[Waddy]

In other countries that have some type of universal coverage every citizen pays into the system. Not the same in the US. Here we pay a payroll tax so the old people can have Medicare, but not enough that everyone could be covered.
I would like to have universal healthcare. To pay for it everyone, the employed, retirees, the unemployed.....in short everyone should pay into the system. No exemptions. Then we could afford universal health care. Only half of working Americans pay any federal income tax. We can't ask this relatively small group to pay the total cost of universal care. They already pay for almost everything else.

 

[Checkerboard Strangler]

Fortunately, being Canadian, I get health care coverage without having to "enroll" anything, just being a citizen is enough.

In the U.S. there are now 31 million people on Obamacare and the number keeps rising, as well as enrollment in Medicaid is way up:

Obamacare Enrollments Hit Record High

Over 2 million more people have signed up for Affordable Care Act coverage during this year's special enrollment period.

www.courthousenews.com

After Supreme Court upholds Affordable Care Act, here's how many people would have lost Obamacare

The high-stakes court decision ended in a 7-2 vote.

www.marketwatch.com

Also:
It has been found that health insurance is not owned by around 44 million adults in the US, while 38 million do not have adequate health coverage.

Uninsured Americans Stats and Facts 2021 | Policy Advice

policyadvice.net

Poll question today is, how do you get your health care coverage?

I am very very lucky.
I am not the veteran, I am the six foot growth attached TO the veteran.



She is a 100% service connected disabled Navy vet, so her healthcare is 100% covered by the VA, who does a spectacularly good job.
The VA has saved her life at least eight times in twenty years.
Because I am the six foot growth who married her, I am also her primary caregiver and I am currently enrolled in CHAMPVA, the Civilian Health and Medical Program of the Department of Veterans Affairs.
That is both my primary and other health insurance for now.
Next year when I turn 65 I will be on Medicare, and my CHAMPVA coverage will become the "gap insurance" that covers the 20% that Medicare does not pay.

 

[post]

In other countries that have some type of universal coverage every citizen pays into the system. Not the same in the US. Here we pay a payroll tax so the old people can have Medicare, but not enough that everyone could be covered.
I would like to have universal healthcare. To pay for it everyone, the employed, retirees, the unemployed.....in short everyone should pay into the system. No exemptions. Then we could afford universal health care. Only half of working Americans pay any federal income tax. We can't ask this relatively small group to pay the total cost of universal care. They already pay for almost everything else.

"No exemptions" flies in the face of reality.

$8: The Complicated Story Behind One Of The Most Repeated Statistics About Boston

It's one of the most mentioned statistics in Massachusetts politics. A 2015 study found the median net worth for white households in Greater Boston was a quarter million of dollars. For Black families, it was just $8. But few people know the full story behind the numbers.

www.wbur.org

 

[ttwtt78640]

"No exemptions" flies in the face of reality.

Yep, it’s hard to tax a 6 year old or a disabled person enough to cover the cost of even an annual checkup.

 

[post]

Yep, it’s hard to tax a 6 year old or a disabled person enough to cover the cost of even an annual checkup.

The bottom quintile (20 percent, 66 million residents) have negative household net worth.
Senate Trump party members reject the concept of safe affordable childcare for parents attempting to seek employment
being an infrastructure issue requiring federal spending for the goal of "freeing up" increasingly needed workforce participants in a country in which Trump-cult has scapegoated immigrants and immigration.

What other over-developed nations are not burdened with is a cult of intensely indoctrinated crazies committed to punishing the poorest and sickest to indoctrinate as many as possible into resenting those with the least to divert the attention away from the RWE oligarch oppressors controlling political thought and policies in those "hurt locker" states.

Feds Say Kentucky To Spend $272 Million On Matt Bevin's ...​

https://insurancenewsnet.com › oarticle › feds-say-kent...
Oct 14, 2019 —" Critics of Bevin's Medicaid proposal, called Kentucky HEALTH, pounced on ... Medicaid programs will cost taxpayers even more than they presently do by creating large bureaucracies to monitor recipients' work hours, collect ..."

Federal appeals-court judges hear appeal but indicate doubt ...​

https://www.nkytribune.com › 2019/10 › federal-appea...
Oct 13, 2019 — "Matt Bevin's campaign to add work requirements to the Medicaid program, ... of Medicaid, which is to ensure health coverage to the nation's most ... Medicaid rolls would have 95,000 fewer people with the rules than without them, ... The federal government pays 90 percent of the expansion's cost, and about ..."

Kentucky Report - 2020 - Talk Poverty​

https://talkpoverty.org › state-year-report › kentucky-2...
"Population: 4,326,675 Number in Poverty: 703,627 ... Percentage of children under 18 in related families who had incomes below the poverty line in 2019 ..."

The Fed - Distribution: Distribution of Household Wealth in the U.S. since 1989

The Federal Reserve Board of Governors in Washington DC.

www.federalreserve.gov

 

[Demon]

I remember the good old days back in the 1990's sometime. My employer was paying something like 70% of my family's BC/BS insurance that had an out of pocket hospitalization cost of $100.00. You could go in for a transplant and all you were going to pay was that $100.00

 

[mike2810]

Through work even though I am retired.
Federal Employee Health Benefit Program and Medicare Part A only.

 

[ttwtt78640]

The bottom quintile (20 percent, 60 million residents) have negative household net worth.
Senate Trump party members reject the concept of safe affordable childcare for parents attempting to seek employment
being an infrastructure issue requiring federal spending for the goal of "freeing up" increasingly needed workforce participants in a country in which Trump-cult has scapegoated immigrants and immigration.

What other over-developed nations are not burdened with is a cult of intensely indoctrinated crazies committed to punishing the poorest and sickest to indoctrinate as many as possible into resenting those with the least to divert the attention away from the RWE oligarch oppressors controlling political thought and policies in those "hurt locker" states.

Feds Say Kentucky To Spend $272 Million On Matt Bevin's ...​

https://insurancenewsnet.com › oarticle › feds-say-kent...
Oct 14, 2019 —" Critics of Bevin's Medicaid proposal, called Kentucky HEALTH, pounced on ... Medicaid programs will cost taxpayers even more than they presently do by creating large bureaucracies to monitor recipients' work hours, collect ..."

Federal appeals-court judges hear appeal but indicate doubt ...​

https://www.nkytribune.com › 2019/10 › federal-appea...
Oct 13, 2019 — "Matt Bevin's campaign to add work requirements to the Medicaid program, ... of Medicaid, which is to ensure health coverage to the nation's most ... Medicaid rolls would have 95,000 fewer people with the rules than without them, ... The federal government pays 90 percent of the expansion's cost, and about ..."

The Fed - Distribution: Distribution of Household Wealth in the U.S. since 1989

The Federal Reserve Board of Governors in Washington DC.

www.federalreserve.gov

View attachment 67343009

You can’t have it both ways here. Making the CTC available regardless of whether one works or not is insane - that amounts to simply paying folks not to work.

 

[post]

You can’t have it both ways here. Making the CTC available regardless of whether one works or not is insane - that amounts to simply paying folks not to work.

No! What is insane is eliminating the individual mandate penalty on those who can afford to purchase ACA marketplace insurance policy but choose not to until they are certain they can obtain more money from a private insurer than they pay the insurer in medical insurance premiums, and of course, this.

Do you have the slightest idea, or any concern, for that matter, about how much federal tax revenue went uncollected because
the GOP created a disinfo Op to demonize the IRS? Do you think you thought up the concept of worrying about how much the poorest were getting away with while buying the RWE false narrative, hook, line, and stinker?

The IRS Tea Party Scandal, Explained – Mother Jones​

https://www.motherjones.com › politics › 2013/11 › irs...
Nov 21, 2013 — Speaking to a group of tax lawyers, the IRS official, Lois Lerner, who ... “That was absolutely incorrect, insensitive, and inappropriate,” she said.

After Four Years, IRS Finally Confirms There Was No ...​

https://www.motherjones.com › kevin-drum › 2017/10
Oct 6, 2017 —

"After Four Years, IRS Finally Confirms There Was No Targeting of Tea Party Groups"​

You've been conditioned to focus resentment on those with literally nothing while you venerate the RWE oligarch class financed by the Mercers, for example, and fronted by Trump-Bannon.

Conservative groups mount opposition to increase in IRS budget​

https://www.washingtonpost.com › business › 2021/07/07
8 days ago — "They are preparing a letter that warns Republicans should not ... Over the past decade, persistent budget cuts have hurt the IRS's ability to conduct audits, ... though the agency did eye some liberal nonprofit groups as well."

The "scandal" described above did not happen! It was proved a disinfo Op in GOP service to wealthiest, "tax averse" donors.

Conservatives Using Obama IRS 'Scandal' to Defund Tax Police​

https://nymag.com › intelligencer › article › irs-infrastruct...
8 days ago — "Conservatives are organizing to prevent new funding for the IRS in the ... Preventing the IRS from enforcing any of its laws hardly addresses the problem, ... and never bothered to learn that it was false, is strong evidence that ... the IRS scrutinized conservative groups for abusing tax-deductible donations."

The benefit of the entire state of Kentucky resulting from repeatedly reelecting McConnell, the senate minority leader who only seems to manage to serve the financial interests of his wealthiest political donors.

Kentucky Report - 2020 - Talk Poverty

Kentucky Report – 2020

talkpoverty.org

 

[The Baron]

The purpose of the individual mandate is vital in a system reformed to remove financial penalties to become immediately insured with pre-existing conditions. Trump & RWE politicians aligned with him effed the taxpayers by eliminating the individual mandate, a fine for having the financial ability to pay for health insurance coverage but being selfishly unamerican enough not to purchase health insurance coverage until a perceived immediate need for medical treatment!

The government does not exist to protect my health but to protect my rights.

Affordable Care Act - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

"...The ACA's major provisions came into force in 2014. By 2016, the uninsured share of the population had roughly halved, with estimates ranging from 20 to 24 million additional people covered.[5][6] The law also enacted a host of delivery system reforms intended to constrain healthcare costs and improve quality. After it went into effect, increases in overall healthcare spending slowed, including premiums for employer-based insurance plans.[7]

And yet with the introduction of Obamacare premiums skyrocketed and benefits were cut in half.

Conclusion: It doesn't work. Sadly, this was all predicted prior to implementation.

The increased coverage was due, roughly equally, to an expansion of Medicaid eligibility and to changes to individual insurance markets. Both received new spending, funded through a combination of new taxes and cuts to Medicare provider rates and Medicare Advantage. Several Congressional Budget Office reports said that overall these provisions reduced the budget deficit, that repealing ACA would increase the deficit,[8][9] and that the law reduced income inequality by taxing primarily the top 1% to fund roughly $600 in benefits on average to families in the bottom 40% of the income distribution.[10]

Please, the CBO is a political arm not an independent organization. It can determine whatever cost it want to tell whatever story the politicians need it to tell.

 

[Moderate Right]

Fortunately, being Canadian, I get health care coverage without having to "enroll" anything, just being a citizen is enough.

In the U.S. there are now 31 million people on Obamacare and the number keeps rising, as well as enrollment in Medicaid is way up:

Obamacare Enrollments Hit Record High

Over 2 million more people have signed up for Affordable Care Act coverage during this year's special enrollment period.

www.courthousenews.com

After Supreme Court upholds Affordable Care Act, here's how many people would have lost Obamacare

The high-stakes court decision ended in a 7-2 vote.

www.marketwatch.com

Also:
It has been found that health insurance is not owned by around 44 million adults in the US, while 38 million do not have adequate health coverage.

Uninsured Americans Stats and Facts 2021 | Policy Advice

policyadvice.net

Poll question today is, how do you get your health care coverage?

So far, 1 out of 35 people are on Obamacare. I can certainly understand why. I was on it in the past for two years, the two years it cost me the most for healthcare due to the high premiums and out of pocket costs. Obamacare sucks, even the Democrats apparently think so. They want either nationalized insurance or have reduced the age for Medicare. Why do that if Obamacare is so great? One out of 35.

 

[ClaraD]

Slightly OT.....but what do you folk pay for your healthcare premiums? Based on income as a couple we pay about $1,500 total, a year for both of us. That covers all doctors, hospitals, specialists, diagnostics etc with zero restrictions or copays. Does not include glasses, prescriptions, cosmetic procedures ,chiropractic services or dental. Our employer insurance, no charge as we are retired, covers that.

I pay $50 a month, $5 to see a specialist, $0 for prescriptions that are generic