Ty Webb;563218 wrote:1.No,it was for middle of the road insurance,my deductible was $650

2.Yes,I pay for my cellphone

3.I'm still in college,so therefor I still live at home and pay for a third of the internet bill.

Anymore questions

If you are in your 20's, you can get insurance for much cheaper than what you said earlier. When my company was changing policies last year, I went on my own for several months, and I paid $105/month. I am in my mid-thirties. Don't you think it should be your responsibility to pay for your health insurance before you even think of paying for an extra like a cell phone?

Ty Webb;563218 wrote:1.No,it was for middle of the road insurance,my deductible was $650

At your age your age and I assume good health you should be looking at a $5,000 to $10,000 deductible catastrophic health insurance plan. I am sure you will find those rates more accommodating than the $170/month.

Ty Webb;563218 wrote:2.Yes,I pay for my cellphone

3.I'm still in college,so therefor I still live at home and pay for a third of the internet bill.

Anymore questions

Good. Yes a few more questions. What do you pay for your cellphone service? I think we can find you an affordable health insurance plan. Of course you may have to make a few temporary sacrifices.

My insurance through my parents plan was dropped for a bit because of a paper work snafu. This triggered them to send me a letter telling me that I could still purchase the same plan.

$350 a month.

Al Bundy;562200 wrote:It does after a certain point, and I think a day shy of someone's 27th birthday is well past that point.

Unless someone is working on putting Dr in front of their name, I agree with this

LJ;563632 wrote:Unless someone is working on putting Dr in front of their name, I agree with this

Even if they are working on the Dr. in front of their name there are student insurance plans that can be purchased through their college or university. At some point, it becomes about a person taking financial responsibility for their lives. If someone is almost 27, I believe they are well beyond that point.

I Wear Pants;563625 wrote:My insurance through my parents plan was dropped for a bit because of a paper work snafu. This triggered them to send me a letter telling me that I could still purchase the same plan.

$350 a month.

That $350 would be for the exact same plan that you have. If you are young and in good health, you can purchase a high deductable plan for much less than that.

Al Bundy;563667 wrote:Even if they are working on the Dr. in front of their name there are student insurance plans that can be purchased through their college or university. At some point, it becomes about a person taking financial responsibility for their lives. If someone is almost 27, I believe they are well beyond that point.

And paying interest on it.

Al Bundy;563669 wrote:That $350 would be for the exact same plan that you have. If you are young and in good health, you can purchase a high deductable plan for much less than that.

And then be fucked when I break my ankle playing basketball or something.

I Wear Pants;563776 wrote:And then be fucked when I break my ankle playing basketball or something.

You are not going to be fucked for breaking your ankle. Breaking your ankle is not a catastrophic health care occurrence. No one is going to be screwed for life because of a broken ankle. Set up a payment plan of maybe $10-20 per month with your doctor or hospital. Why should others have to pay for and assume the risk for your chosen activities. If you want them to assume this risk you should expect to foot a higher bill in monthly insurance premiums.

We disagree on the age of when you should be kicked off your parents plan. Not on the fact that people should pay for their health insurance.

LJ;563673 wrote:And paying interest on it.

If someone makes that decision to pay interest on it, that is his/her option. I just disagree with the government saying that everyone has to take on the cost for a 26 year old. If his/her parents still want to pay for the 26 year old, that is the business of their family.

goosebumps;563185 wrote:^^^^ I'd say most people don't want a nanny state telling us what to do and how to do it.

My biggest beef with the healthcare reform is that they are ignoring common sense solutions and trying to do too much.

Start with the FDA and reduce the red tape. Drugs take too long to get to market and they allow way too many "me too" drugs to get by (in europe you not only have to show that a drug works as good or better than current therapies, but also show that it will be economically advantageous to use the medication). We have too many meds being cranked out that cost too much money and the ends don't justify the means.
Also the FDA doesn't allow research done in other countries to work towards an NDA (new drug application). Why not use solid data that was produced in the EU??? its crazy. We could approve drugs much faster and the result would be much cheaper medications.

Medicaid spending is out of control. Generic only formularies need to be the norm and not the exception. There are very few medications that are brand name only that you can't get similar results with a generic product. Ohio medicaid should also limit the number of ER visits that are allowed per year. If you're on medicaid it doesn't cost anything to go to the ER, so when they get a sinus infection on a saturday, where do they go? the ER. Urgent cares are cheaper but if you're not paying anything for it, who cares right?

which brings me to my next point. Medicaid needs copays for everything. Even if its very small. How about 1 dollar for generics and 3 dollars for brand (right now its 2 dollars for brand 0 for generics). MD visits should be 5 dollars, ER should be 50 dollars. Urgent care should be 20 dollars. We need to monetize these services so people don't overuse them just because they're free.

I seriously could go on all day about this stuff. So I'll stop there, but we need to take care of the small things first and then see where we sit.

You bring up many good points. Among them, you've intimated how there is something problematic about persons on medicaid abusing services that are low cost to them which passes more costs onto the rest of us. You've suggested that at least some of this burden ought to be moved back to them. Why shouldn't similar reasoning apply to those of us who are perfectly able to purchase health insurance do not, for whatever reason, and pass that cost onto the rest of us in the form of higher prices. If they don't bear their burden freely with a private purchase, it seems to me they ought to pay back the rest of us through a tax.

CenterBHSFan;563186 wrote:I might be having a moment, but I've read this twice and not sure what you're asking?

I was referring to the mandate within Obamacare that many conservatives now despise and claim to be Unconstitutional which was once lauded a short time ago in the 90's by conservatives to be a free market way to create Universal Healthcare in opposition to HillaryCare.

majorspark;563796 wrote:You are not going to be fucked for breaking your ankle. Breaking your ankle is not a catastrophic health care occurrence. No one is going to be screwed for life because of a broken ankle. Set up a payment plan of maybe $10-20 per month with your doctor or hospital. Why should others have to pay for and assume the risk for your chosen activities. If you want them to assume this risk you should expect to foot a higher bill in monthly insurance premiums.

But see, you've made persuasive arguments in this thread in regards to how many people may be able to afford health insurance even without a big government socialistic bureaucratic mess. I imagine you genuinely believe it not to be within Congress' power to mandate persons pay a tax in the event that they don't purchase health insurance. I disagree, but, with that said...let's suppose that Congress passed a Constitutional amendment to make it that the case that there was no doubt Congress had this power. You said in your other post that you would think it to be "wrong" for our representatives to require us to pay a tax in the event we don't make a private purchase.

But, you've also suggested that there may be something "wrong" with someone choosing not to purchase health insurance and putting that risk on the rest of us in the form of higher prices. If that's true, why wouldn't it be the case that the People at large getting together and demanding individual citizens who don't bear their burden to insure their health, when they can perfectly afford to do so, pay a tax to the people in order to properly place the burden on the individual choosing not to bear it?

Ty Webb;563192 wrote:I have a job asshole....I get 25 hours a week and get paid $8.20 an hour with a car payment of $165 a month...how in the hell do you expect me to be able to afford that plus my insurance with would have cost me 170 a month?? I'm not a fucking leech you prick,I work just as hard as anyone else

1. Why, if you are a college kid, do you need a car that has a $165/mo car payment? When I was in college I drove a beater that I had paid cash for, aka no payment.
2. Not trying to be a prick, but if you are working 25 hours a week you are not technically "working just as hard as anyone else". Most people work 40+ hours a week. Even when I was in college, to cover my expenses I did a double major taking 20+ credits a semester and worked 3 different part time jobs that added up to about 40 hours a week.

Ty Webb;563218 wrote:1.No,it was for middle of the road insurance,my deductible was $650

2.Yes,I pay for my cellphone

3.I'm still in college,so therefor I still live at home and pay for a third of the internet bill.

Anymore questions

Should have just got a high deductable catastrophic plan, dirt cheap for someone your age. Yeah it doesn't cover a regular doctor's appointment, but if you need major surgery you don't go bankrupt.

No way that type of coverage would cost even NEAR $170/mo.

One final thing, to any young person who says they couldn't afford a catastrophic high deductible and afford the deductible.

When I was born my dad had just got laid off from his job and had already found another, but health insurance hadn't kicked in yet. My mom had to have a c-section and so therefore my birth was pretty expensive, for 31 years ago.

They paid something like $30/month for 12+ years to pay off my birth. They probably would have loved to have that money in their pockets, but they paid off their debt.

The funny part was sometime around 12 years old I remember them jokingly saying "hey, we finally paid you off!"

So yes, even if your deductible is $5k or $10k for catastrophic, the hospitals can and will setup a manageable payment plan for your portion.

I agree about the car. A lot of my friends have newer cars and then bitch about not having any money.

jmog;564134 wrote:1. Why, if you are a college kid, do you need a car that has a $165/mo car payment? When I was in college I drove a beater that I had paid cash for, aka no payment.
2. Not trying to be a prick, but if you are working 25 hours a week you are not technically "working just as hard as anyone else". Most people work 40+ hours a week. Even when I was in college, to cover my expenses I did a double major taking 20+ credits a semester and worked 3 different part time jobs that added up to about 40 hours a week.

I think it's one thing to suggest how people might be more responsible but another to ask most people to go above and beyond the call of duty to the point where they are living a joyless life.

If your story is true and you studied engineering at 20 credits a semester....that means you're supposed to be studying 20 hours a week in addition to class time. Add in your jobs and that is 60+ hours a week. You went above and beyond and should be applauded for your self-reliance and work ethic and be proud of your accomplishments, but it sounds to me like Ole Gibby here, although could perhaps crank more work out of his anatomy, as most of us could, is going about things the right way for the most part.

I certainly feel I have better memories from my college years than I would have if I had had your schedule and those are things that I value and I don't think it unreasonable to not expect college kids to work 40 hours a week and go full time. JMO.

Instead of mandating coverages for things many people don't want or need (which raises the costs of premiums), how about completing opening up the insurance markets nationally and allowing companies to offer any type of coverage they want? No mandated mammography, child vaccinations or anything else.

Let the market decide.

If people want those coverages, they can pay for them; if not, well then don't force everyone to pay higher costs being passed on because of these mandates.

If health insurance companies had the freedom to market their products that car insurers do, you'd see much more reasonable products out there, and a lot more affordable, too.

It's probably the most sensible, cost-effective solution to many people not having coverage -- yet it was completely ignored (and shot down) by Democrats when they "reformed" health care.

To be fair we've had a health care problem for a while and neither side opened up the market.

Though I still think that should have been part of this latest bill.

And it is a bit unreasonable to expect everyone in college to go to class full time as well as have a full time job. Do some people do it? Yes. But that doesn't mean everyone can or should be expected to.

^^^

Then they shouldn't bitch and whine about not having any money or that they can't afford their OWN health care, whether they have insurance. or not!

So there is/was no problem with health care in the United States? If you can't afford health care well then too fucking bad right? That's the American spirit.

Writerbuckeye;564192 wrote:Instead of mandating coverages for things many people don't want or need (which raises the costs of premiums), how about completing opening up the insurance markets nationally and allowing companies to offer any type of coverage they want? No mandated mammography, child vaccinations or anything else.

Let the market decide.

If people want those coverages, they can pay for them; if not, well then don't force everyone to pay higher costs being passed on because of these mandates.

If health insurance companies had the freedom to market their products that car insurers do, you'd see much more reasonable products out there, and a lot more affordable, too.

It's probably the most sensible, cost-effective solution to many people not having coverage -- yet it was completely ignored (and shot down) by Democrats when they "reformed" health care.

Even if everything you said is true...Majorspark and Jmog have made arguments suggesting that many people, even under our current health care regime, may be able to afford high deductible health insurance that will not cause them to go bankrupt if they get catastrophically sick. Yet, many people do not willfully choose to purchase health insurance and pass these costs onto us!

The arguments that these folks have made in these threads over the last few months, including yourself, is that if people just got their priorities straight, followed Dave Ramsey's advice about money, lived on pork and beans and worked hard, they could afford insurance already.

Yet, they don't purchase this insurance. A mid twenties waitress who failed out of college is spending her money on clothes, alcohol, perhaps illegal drugs, probably an unnecessary car and maybe, maybe, they have car insurance despite its mandate. They're not putting their money in IRA's or HSA's and the incentives are meaningless to them anyways as they don't pay taxes.

Health insurance is affordable according to Majorspark and Jmog.

People aren't purchasing it.

Why suppose in the world you suggest, that people would be any more responsible? Why think they wouldn't try and be free riders and pass the buck onto everyone else? With tax placed on those who don't insure their healths they cannot pass the buck.

goosebumps;561316 wrote:Aside from an increase in premiums.

I work in a pharmacy. In 2011 HSA accounts can no longer purchase OTC products, but they can purchase prescription products just like they always have. The catch is, they'll pay for OTC products if a doctor writes a prescription for them. SO in addition to filling prescriptions all day long, I'll get to enjoy filling bandaids, sunblock, peroxide, rubbing alcohol, vitamins, supplements, etc. etc. etc. We're fully expecting our workload to increase by 25% after the first of the year as HSA's continue to become more popular.

With this in mind, who in their right mind thinks that not allowing HSA's to purchase OTC health needs a good idea? I mean seriously who comes up with this stuff? not only are they telling you how to spend YOUR money because that what an HSA is, but this adds another 1 to 2 dollars onto these items if patients want to use their HSA to buy them (dispensing fees). How does this decrease healthcare costs or increase its availability???? It does neither, hell it will actually lower tax revenue for the states because when something is processed as an Rx it doesn't get taxed, and neither does an HSA accounts money.

Our goverment is incompitent and Obamacare is flawed. We seriously need to quit expecting politicians to fix our healthcare system and put some people that are actually in the medical field in charge of healthcare. I'm so sick of know it alls like on the hill that think they can fix anything. Newsflash the government has never fixed anything. They only make things worse.

Apologies for the rant, but been kind of building for awhile.

I just want to preface this by saying that I have not read past this opening post, so if I repeat anything that's already been said/discussed, I apologize.

First of all, you can still use money from your HSA to purchase over the counter products, you will just need to pay tax on them. You can spend the money in your HSA however you want, heck, you could buy a cheese burger with it, but you only get to use that money tax free and count it as tax free income if it's used on approved purchases. If you use it for other purchases the money goes back to being regular taxable income. Because OTC's will still likely be cheaper than paying for these items tax free as prescriptions, your work load probably won't increase that much because most people will just pay the tax. Since people who don't have HSA plans (like my parents who are on a PPO) have always had to pay tax on things like Band-Aids and Tylenol, there's no reason that people with HSA's should get them tax free. Either there's no tax on it for anyone or everyone should have to pay tax on it. What they are switching to now is the way the system should have been from the beginning. Besides, I believe that even though people will now have to pay sales tax on over the counter items I believe that money used out of an HSA on these items is still free of federal income tax, so the government isn't telling anyone how to spend their money.

Here's how the new health care bill has/will affect me. Well, it actually will have very little effect on me personally. The one major effect that it does have is in the college finance reform that was part of the health care bill has made it easier for me to consolidate all of my loans, which lowers my monthly payment and interest and saves me money. The person it really affects in my family is my 21 year old sister who was born with a rare blood disease that weakens her immune system. Now she's guaranteed to be covered. Insurance companies can't deny her coverage or cancel her coverage the first time she gets sick like they could have before. The only problem is that since they didn't put a cap on premiums she'll get charged an arm and a leg for insurance, but at least she'll still be covered. Also, she can continue to pay her portion of my parent's medical insurance and stay on their coverage until she's 26, allowing her to be better covered than she could be right now as a newly married individual with a husband in grad school.

And you're right, ending British tyranny, abolishing slavery, implementing civil rights and doing away with separate-but-equal, establishing national parks, and providing public education are all horrible things that the government has done. Clearly they have never fixed anything and only make things worse because black people having equal rights has made this country worse than it was in the 1850's.