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 Peacemaker
Posts: 11220
  
Location: Nebraska | Hubby is considering switching from BCBS to Obamacare for 2018 ?? Naturally I am hesitant, since I have serious health issues due to a life altering horse accident (9 surgeries thus far) For those currently using the ACA, would you please share your likes & dislikes
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 My Heart Be Happy
Posts: 9159
 
Location: Arkansas | Bump |
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Industrial Srength Barrel Racer
Posts: 7265
| Nice to see you on here Sunrise!!
Bumping this up as I've heard nothing but bad about the ACA but I have no personal experience with it (thank God). |
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 Famous for Not Complaining
Posts: 8848
Location: Broxton, Ga | All insurance is literally Obamacare now as in all policies are part of the ACA
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Go Get Em!
Posts: 13503
Location: OH. IO | No advice but so nice to see you:) |
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  Roan Wonder
Location: SW MO | All the insurance companies are dropping out of it. It's crazy none of the big companies are left. Blue Cross is dropping out this year.
So glad to see you HUGS |
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"Heck's Coming With Me"
Posts: 10795
Location: Kansas | CJE - 2017-10-27 9:18 AM All insurance is literally Obamacare now as in all policies are part of the ACA
I think this is spot on. In all circumstances it's expensive unless you're subsidized by the Gov't and the high deductibles make it so that, in my case anyway, you pay for everything anyway until you reach that $8000 mark.
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Peacemaker
Posts: 11220
Location: Nebraska | It has been a while! Thank you all for making me feel welcomed ?? Shane & I were discussing insurance changes before Dec 31st & exploring options hoping to save a little money. I told him I’ll ask the folks on BHW; if anyone knew about this insurance maze; they would! See; I am high risk (heart lung brain left diaphragm spinal cord) currently we have BCBS Nebraska (private company policy) monthly premiums are expensive but it pays 100% after deductible has been met. One surgery along with a 3 week hospital stay exceeds my deductible. However; BCBS is doing away with “this particular Insurance plan” so we are exploring our options which includes Obamacare ?? so please feel free to jump on in this discussion!
Edited to add; the only Obamacare Insurance carrier for 2018 in Nebraska will be “ Medica”. Any thoughts on them? Besides Medica; every other Insurance company has dropped out of Obamacare in Nebr
Edited by sunrisemoney 2017-10-27 2:56 PM
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 Elite Veteran
Posts: 1100
Location: Southeastern Idaho | bump. I am interested in this thread as well. |
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Veteran
Posts: 155
| If your current plan is going away, what plan are they offering as a replacement and what's the difference? Check the deductible and your total out of pocket on any plan you look at. |
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Veteran
Posts: 194
Location: Pittsburg, Texas 75686 | I would never take Obamacare. It's going away anyway. Right now you have insurance even if policy changes. They can't drop you, they already have you. Don't do it. Hang on to BCBS and pray they get health care plan fixed. |
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"Heck's Coming With Me"
Posts: 10795
Location: Kansas | sunrisemoney - 2017-10-27 2:44 PM It has been a while! Thank you all for making me feel welcomed ?? Shane & I were discussing insurance changes before Dec 31st & exploring options hoping to save a little money. I told him I’ll ask the folks on BHW; if anyone knew about this insurance maze; they would! See; I am high risk (heart lung brain left diaphragm spinal cord) currently we have BCBS Nebraska (private company policy) monthly premiums are expensive but it pays 100% after deductible has been met. One surgery along with a 3 week hospital stay exceeds my deductible. However; BCBS is doing away with “this particular Insurance plan” so we are exploring our options which includes Obamacare ?? so please feel free to jump on in this discussion!
Edited to add; the only Obamacare Insurance carrier for 2018 in Nebraska will be “ Medica”. Any thoughts on them? Besides Medica; every other Insurance company has dropped out of Obamacare in Nebr
Most of us oldies remember your trip to India for surgery. What an adventure that was......
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 Accident Prone
Posts: 22277
Location: 100 miles from Nowhere, AR | We bought our plan through the exchange from BCBS. Every state has different plans and rates and what was available on the exchange was the same as buying directly. We are getting a subsidy but will likely have to pay it back when we file our taxes (we farm—no good way to estimate income) . |
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Elite Veteran
Posts: 962
| Since Trump took office, his administration has incrementally weakened the Affordable Care Act starting with confiscating advertising money which had already been allocated for the program, to doing away with funds to pay people to help shoppers with sign up, to the big blow, with the stroke of his executive order pen, this month canceling premium reimbursements to insurance companies. Companies had long known this administration's threat had a high likelihood of coming to pass so insulated themselves by raising insurance prices from 7-38% in most instances. While companies are obligated to give the subsidies to qualifying participants this year, next year will be an entirely different story. What two votes by the Congress couldn't accomplish this year, Trump accomplished in a minute, the implosion of the ACA. So, with his new directives to states, it's back to pre-existing condition outright denial or exorbitant rates in a "high risk" pool, lifetime caps on coverage, junk plans, women paying more than men, and all the other problems insurance companies allowed to drive the bus propagated.
No one ever claimed the ACA didn't have problems that needed fixed, but without all lawmakers on board, it was bound to fail. So now, only time will tell if TRUMPCARE is a dream come true for the nation, "Everyone will have beautiful, cheap healthcare. Everyone will be covered." Remember? The real kicker now, after that executive order, is that insurance rates for everyone are going back up, insured rates have dropped,and it is slated to cost us billions of dollars and jobs, because Trump was elected to destroy anything Obama, to hell with the rest of us.
Obamacare saved my husband's life without bankrupting us after a 4-wheeler accident. But with the new administration's sabotage of the program, if you have insurance now, I would be extremely careful about giving it up for a program that is in the bullseye of The entirely Republican controlled government. |
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Expert
Posts: 1956
Location: Ky | Obamacare or the Affordable Care Act is not insurance. You can't buy OBamaCare or ACA insurance. Never could.
The insurance was always from an insurance company. The ACA is rules. Trump has backdoored many of those rules.
Healthcare is still available from insurance companies. The companies that caused the problems now have rules to deal with. So they will do just about whatever they want.
Is that not what most here voted for? |
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Accident Prone
Posts: 22277
Location: 100 miles from Nowhere, AR | "insurance rates are going back up" implies they ever came down or stopped going up. Premium costs have increased every single year and coverage for the cost has decreased every single year. Without the subsidy, our premium is more than our mortgage for an HSA plan with a $3200/6400 deductible. I filled my deductible this year, so if we have to pay back the subsidy (likely), we will have spent over $16,000 on insurance/healthcare. That's affordable for who? |
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 BHW Resident Surgeon
Posts: 25351
Location: Bastrop, Texas | Nobody on this thread has even come close to hitting on the real reason the oxymoronic "ACA" was conceptualized in the first place.
The ACA was designed to ultimately destroy privately owned health insurance, leaving single payer the only option. The chaos and widespread discontent we have witnessed was all by design.
We have evolved to this stage where we, as citizens, have a dysfunctional concept of the role of insurance in healthcare.
Health insurance, the way it is employed today, will always be unaffordable to a very substantial percentage of the population. The reason it is unaffordable is because healthcare itself is unaffordable.
Over the last 3 decades, healthcare cost has risen exponentially.
Right now, health insurance companies are all lined up at the trough trying to get as much as possible while they still can. Some people are very healthy, while others have healthcare costs that run into 6-figures every year. Under the current system, healthy individuals end up paying exorbitant insurance premiums for something they infrequently, if ever, need. The ACA is a form of wealth redistribution. Couples paying $1500 a month with a combined $13,000 annual deductible are hesitant to go to a doctor because even though they have insurance, most don't see much, if any, insurance coverage for their healthcare needs. Meanwhile, those who pay little or nothing for their insurance use clinics and emergency rooms for things like colds, constipation, work and school excuse slips, and very minor injuries. They don't know what it costs, and they don't care, because they don't pay for much, if anything.
We have two choices. Either a free market based system, or one funded by taxpayers through the government.....so-called single payer. If we opt for single payer, prepare yourselves for the consequences.
One additional caveat that might be a consolation to some is that there will always be at least a two-tiered healthcare system. One will be private healthcare for those who can afford it, and the other for the "commoners". In the latter case, you will never ever receive the promptness or quality of care that the former receives.
I couldn't even begin to recommend, with any degree of confidence, a health insurance company to anyone at this point in time. |
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Expert
Posts: 1956
Location: Ky | Bear - 2017-10-28 4:57 PM Nobody on this thread has even come close to hitting on the real reason the oxymoronic "ACA" was conceptualized in the first place. The ACA was designed to ultimately destroy privately owned health insurance, leaving single payer the only option. The chaos and widespread discontent we have witnessed was all by design. We have evolved to this stage where we, as citizens, have a dysfunctional concept of the role of insurance in healthcare. Health insurance, the way it is employed today, will always be unaffordable to a very substantial percentage of the population. The reason it is unaffordable is because healthcare itself is unaffordable. Over the last 3 decades, healthcare cost has risen exponentially. Right now, health insurance companies are all lined up at the trough trying to get as much as possible while they still can. Some people are very healthy, while others have healthcare costs that run into 6-figures every year. Under the current system, healthy individuals end up paying exorbitant insurance premiums for something they infrequently, if ever, need. The ACA is a form of wealth redistribution. Couples paying $1500 a month with a combined $13,000 annual deductible are hesitant to go to a doctor because even though they have insurance, most don't see much, if any, insurance coverage for their healthcare needs. Meanwhile, those who pay little or nothing for their insurance use clinics and emergency rooms for things like colds, constipation, work and school excuse slips, and very minor injuries. They don't know what it costs, and they don't care, because they don't pay for much, if anything. We have two choices. Either a free market based system, or one funded by taxpayers through the government.....so-called single payer. If we opt for single payer, prepare yourselves for the consequences. One additional caveat that might be a consolation to some is that there will always be at least a two-tiered healthcare system. One will be private healthcare for those who can afford it, and the other for the "commoners". In the latter case, you will never ever receive the promptness or quality of care that the former receives. I couldn't even begin to recommend, with any degree of confidence, a health insurance company to anyone at this point in time.
Fear tactics much?
Medicare is single payer. Try to take that away and see how much people hate it. You are correct that insurance companie have caused this mess. We don't have a healtchcare problem in this country. We have an insurance problem.
Even Medicare is not completely single payer now. W gave the gift of the MMA to the insurance companies for Medicare Advantage, Part C, and PDP's, Part D. That privatized Medicare. The bill of goods was that private carrier could manage Medicare better and provide more benefits. They created "lok in" so a person could bail on a bad choice except for once a year. MMA was passed in 2003. Coming into being in 2006. 11 years later MA plans cost the taxpayers 15% more than original Medicare.
National healthcare will never be viable with insurance companies running it.
If you are for disbanding all govenment social programs then I get it. Do you want SS gone? The whole Medicare system gone? Every man for himself?
Or are you selective on what programs are OK? |
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BHW Resident Surgeon
Posts: 25351
Location: Bastrop, Texas | jd&ez - 2017-10-28 6:02 PM
Bear - 2017-10-28 4:57 PM Nobody on this thread has even come close to hitting on the real reason the oxymoronic "ACA" was conceptualized in the first place. The ACA was designed to ultimately destroy privately owned health insurance, leaving single payer the only option. The chaos and widespread discontent we have witnessed was all by design. We have evolved to this stage where we, as citizens, have a dysfunctional concept of the role of insurance in healthcare. Health insurance, the way it is employed today, will always be unaffordable to a very substantial percentage of the population. The reason it is unaffordable is because healthcare itself is unaffordable. Over the last 3 decades, healthcare cost has risen exponentially. Right now, health insurance companies are all lined up at the trough trying to get as much as possible while they still can. Some people are very healthy, while others have healthcare costs that run into 6-figures every year. Under the current system, healthy individuals end up paying exorbitant insurance premiums for something they infrequently, if ever, need. The ACA is a form of wealth redistribution. Couples paying $1500 a month with a combined $13,000 annual deductible are hesitant to go to a doctor because even though they have insurance, most don't see much, if any, insurance coverage for their healthcare needs. Meanwhile, those who pay little or nothing for their insurance use clinics and emergency rooms for things like colds, constipation, work and school excuse slips, and very minor injuries. They don't know what it costs, and they don't care, because they don't pay for much, if anything. We have two choices. Either a free market based system, or one funded by taxpayers through the government.....so-called single payer. If we opt for single payer, prepare yourselves for the consequences. One additional caveat that might be a consolation to some is that there will always be at least a two-tiered healthcare system. One will be private healthcare for those who can afford it, and the other for the "commoners". In the latter case, you will never ever receive the promptness or quality of care that the former receives. I couldn't even begin to recommend, with any degree of confidence, a health insurance company to anyone at this point in time.
Fear tactics much?
Medicare is single payer. Try to take that away and see how much people hate it. You are correct that insurance companie have caused this mess. We don't have a healtchcare problem in this country. We have an insurance problem.
Even Medicare is not completely single payer now. W gave the gift of the MMA to the insurance companies for Medicare Advantage, Part C, and PDP's, Part D. That privatized Medicare. The bill of goods was that private carrier could manage Medicare better and provide more benefits. They created "lok in" so a person could bail on a bad choice except for once a year. MMA was passed in 2003. Coming into being in 2006. 11 years later MA plans cost the taxpayers 15% more than original Medicare.
National healthcare will never be viable with insurance companies running it.
If you are for disbanding all govenment social programs then I get it. Do you want SS gone? The whole Medicare system gone? Every man for himself?
Or are you selective on what programs are OK?
Actually, I find it incredibly rich that you heap so much blame on the insurance companies, given that you sell health insurance.
What I posted was not a scare tactic, but if you want to hear a few horror stories, I have several of them that I accumulated from my experience in the British NHS when I was in Oxford.
Want some more fairy dust to sprinkle on your snowflake cookies?
Try this on for size. California's single payer proposal came with a $400 Billion annual price tag. They figured the federal and state government would cover about $200 Billion, with the remainder coming from a 15%, across the board payroll tax. Colorado and Vermont had to scrap their plans for single payer healthcare within their states. It's not going very well for those states trying to convert to single payer, but maybe there is hope. Rumor has it that Jerry Brown is promising every citizen their own personal unicorn if they manage to get the proposal up and running.
Bernie's single payer system, AKA "Medicare for all" comes with an estimated $14 trillion price tag over 10 years. Guess what that would mean.
A also disagree with your remark, "We don't have a healthcare problem in this country. We have an insurance problem." I submit we have problems in both areas.
Of course there are some ways we can trim the fat. Just ask one of the chief architects of ObamaCare, Ezekiel Emmanuel about some of his solutions on healthcare solutions for the elderly. |
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"Heck's Coming With Me"
Posts: 10795
Location: Kansas | Bear, I remember an earlier thread about health care and your experiences in the UK. The "quiet room" stuck with me.
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Expert
Posts: 1314
Location: North Central Iowa Land of white frozen grass | What we have is an out of control cost program from the medical industry .No one wants to talk about that because there is too many people including politicians that are getting wealthy on the medical industri . |
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BHW Resident Surgeon
Posts: 25351
Location: Bastrop, Texas | Frodo - 2017-10-29 8:15 AM
Bear, I remember an earlier thread about health care and your experiences in the UK. The "quiet room" stuck with me.
Yes, that was the elderly, but previously healthy, grandmother who came in with severe, acute abdominal pain and fever. Her abdomen was rock hard because of peritonitis. She was in her 70s.
I scheduled her for the OR and then called the intensivist who ran the ICU, telling him she would need to be there post op.
He asked me, "How old is she again?" Then he said, "And she has diabetes and hypertension?" I replied, "Yes but that's all and it's been well managed." Here was his bottom line, which I will remember for the rest of my life: "Look mate, this isn't bloody America. We simply cannot afford to provide intensive care and expensive surgery to everyone who comes through the door. We have a strict budget in the NHS. She's probably not going to make it anyway. She doesn't need surgery and an ICU bed. She needs dimorph (basically heroin) and a quiet room." He went on to point out how they had to prioritize and people who were no longer productive members were not a high priority. At that time, nobody over the age of 65 was allowed to have open heart surgery or transplants.
The thing is, I went back to tell the family that she probably wouldn't survive without the ICU, etc..... They just accepted these facts. She lingered in that quiet room on IV heroin for two days until she passed away with peritonitis and eventually septic shock.
This is a true story. I has several encounters like this. On the other hand, I learned how to be very frugal in my later practice. I loved the British people, but when it came to matters like this we had huge differences. |
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Nut Case Expert
Posts: 9305
Location: Tulsa, Ok | BS Hauler - 2017-10-29 8:27 AM What we have is an out of control cost program from the medical industry .No one wants to talk about that because there is too many people including politicians that are getting wealthy on the medical industri .
BINGO!!! The senators and represenatives elected to represent the people of this nation are securely in the pockets of big pharma, the health care and health insurance industries. We the people will therefore continue to be screwed by the every raising cost of health care in this country. The majority of people are locked into a network by the insurance they are scared spitless to be without, so a free market system is not likely to ever happen. |
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Miracle in the Making
Posts: 4013
| the politicans do not have obama care nor do they want it if they did it would change
?my sister preimum have gone for her and hubby 1400 a month to now 3200 a month how do you afford that
but i am also say if you get helth care you need to take care of yourself
?f |
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 I Prefer to Live in Fantasy Land
Posts: 64864
Location: In the Hills of Texas | The insurance companies are making billions and ACA gives subsidies to them. That is beyond ridiculous. I went from a Cadillac $400.00 policy to a $450.0 policy with a $6,000.00 deductible. So I went from having great insurance to catastrophic medical insurance. I'm now on Medicare and they keep taking coverage away each year. I would love to go back on my $400.00 Cadillac plan. |
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BHW Resident Surgeon
Posts: 25351
Location: Bastrop, Texas | Nevertooold - 2017-10-29 2:16 PM
The insurance companies are making billions and ACA gives subsidies to them. That is beyond ridiculous. I went from a Cadillac $400.00 policy to a $450.0 policy with a $6,000.00 deductible. So I went from having great insurance to catastrophic medical insurance. I'm now on Medicare and they keep taking coverage away each year. I would love to go back on my $400.00 Cadillac plan.
Yes, and for that Medicare is what Bernie lovers want us to pay $14 trillion over 10 years. Let's not forget that half of the people on Medicare still pay $200-300 a month for supplemental. |
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I Prefer to Live in Fantasy Land
Posts: 64864
Location: In the Hills of Texas | Bear - 2017-10-29 3:52 PM Nevertooold - 2017-10-29 2:16 PM The insurance companies are making billions and ACA gives subsidies to them. That is beyond ridiculous. I went from a Cadillac $400.00 policy to a $450.0 policy with a $6,000.00 deductible. So I went from having great insurance to catastrophic medical insurance. I'm now on Medicare and they keep taking coverage away each year. I would love to go back on my $400.00 Cadillac plan. Yes, and for that Medicare is what Bernie lovers want us to pay $14 trillion over 10 years. Let's not forget that half of the people on Medicare still pay $200-300 a month for supplemental.
United Healthcare hasn't posted what the news premiums are going to be for 2018. We now pay $356.00 for both of us and that doesn't include Medicare and our drug plan. |
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Peacemaker
Posts: 11220
Location: Nebraska | Anyone have any experiences with “Medica” ? If so please share
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Obamacare