Welp, now I can go buy healthcare

Wow. I'd move to Canada too if that were the case.

 

Why did you specify "private" citizens? I feel your eluding to something I'm missing

What's cracken mofrackin? You guys on shift all night too??

 

no one knows that part is on page 3,467 of the health care law that no one read before it was passed

 

Just in the case of the story of the chick getting treated in the US and it being paid for up here. I've got another one. A guy I used to work with had a heart attack in florida, it ended up being cheaper to charter a medically staffed jet to bring him back to Canada and treat him here then it was for the insurance to just pay his treatment in the US.

 

Are you serious, well no wonder, a 3467 page document only gets to be that long when its written by someone who doesn't understand wtf it is their trying to say.

“If you can't explain it simply, you don't understand it well enough”

Albert Einstein

 

I'm going to reply to this and hope people can recognize it as non-political. Otherwise, this could go from zero to shitstorm in record time.

Wrong on point #1. Starting in 2014 US citizens will be required to have SOME form of health insurance OR pay the tax penalty. It's not both, it's one or the other. The penalty rises until I believe in 2016 it's $2085 per year or 2.5% of household income, whichever is higher. The idea is to incentivize people to get in the insurance pool to keep insurance companies from going broke. The tradeoff is that, now that everyone has to have insurance, the insurance companies are not allowed to screw people for profit. No more caps. No more pre-existing conditions. They must spend at least 80% of their annual revenue as reimbursement for care.

Free Protip: All americans who purchase healthcare services now already pay for the care of everyone. This is because of EMTALA. If you want to read about EMTALA, see good ol' wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergency_Medical_Treatment_and_Active_Labor_Act

EMTALA essentially states that emergency rooms MUST treat people with a need regardless of their ability to pay for those services. If you're uninsured and have negative net worth and come in from a car wreck needing $150,000 of emergency trauma surgery to save your life, they have to give it to you. Federal Law.

Later, when the bill comes due, this person cannot pay, regardless of if they want to. How does the hospital recoup the costs?

Well, everyone else's price goes up. This is part of the reason healthcare costs so much in the US. This is also why getting coverage to as many people as possible will lower costs per procedure. Hospitals can (and will be forced to) return to billing the actual, lower cost of the procedure because they know they will be paid.

Wrong on point #2. There is no "Obamacare coverage". There are still only the private insurance companies we have now as well as Medicare and Medicaid which we have now. Medicaid will expand in many ways.

Do people really not realize that PPACA doesn't create any new insurers, just regulates the existing ones differently than current laws? It's kind of scary to my mind. Most of the people I've met who have very strong opinions about PPACA have no idea whatsoever what it does. How can people be riled about something they don't understand?

 

i think it was actually like 2800 pages...

 

i embellished a little it seems to be around 2080 pages. introduced a period of weeks before it was voted on. i just worry about what other health related will be regulated by tax. i for one cant afford the two grand right now nor a health care plan. hopefully my situation will turn better soon. but this health care regulations worries me.

 

Worry would be a prudent response if you're not sure what it does. May I suggest reading a solid primer on the effects of the act, such as this one here:

http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlike...i5_what_exactly_is_obamacare_and_what_did_it/

And, once fully informed, get back to us on whether or not you remain worried.

Here, I will quote the text as well for everyone's ease:

 

I think if I replied it would become political there are some fundamentals outlined here that I don't agree with.thanks for the post of bullet points.it would be a nice debate with posters like
yourself

 

Alarmist derp derp

 

I'm not sure what most people were crying about in terms of not affording healthcare. I get the pre existing argument , but when I was 17 I went out on my own and got my healthcare plan. People that cant afford it need to prioritize their shit.

 

There's nothing to agree or disagree with...those ARE the effects of the law. Now if you don't like them, that's your prerogative. Just be informed before you make whatever decision you're going to make. That's all I'm saying.

As for if you want to discuss things further but aren't sure you can do it on the open forum, I offer PM.

Mmmm....it can be complicated. Some people want to work full time but can't find a position in the current economy, and are working two part time positions instead, neither of which make them eligible for health benefits. If those positions don't pay terribly well ($8.00/hr, say) the person could very well not have enough left over to purchase insurance after basic living expenses.

Careful about judging. Not everyone had the opportunities you (or I) had. They may have been better or worse, but they were almost certainly different.

 

"effects" can only be thoroughly stated by mentioning the massive expansion in federal bureauocracy and centralization of power, esp. in the dept. of HHS..

 

This ^^ PPO to boot!

 

That remains to be seen. No one knows exactly what staffing additions will be needed at HHS and CMS to implement the provisions of the new law.

For what it's worth, healthcare in the US is already entirely dependent upon government money. From the previous wikipedia article regarding EMTALA:

The main difference of the new regs is that they seem to limit how much insurance companies are allowed to profit from private health insurance, and how they are allowed to garner such profit through their business practices.

Again, trying to keep this mostly informational.

 

not me, i chose not to pay the 235 a month that's offered at my place of employment ..plus all of the various co-pays for each ER visits, regular appointments, and regular appointments and what not

 

I don't know you

 

And this is an interesting point. If you look at this topic:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medical_debt

It becomes apparent that private health insurance as it currently stands in the US may not be effective at covering care costs:

I know more and more people recently that have been seeking cash-pay providers who don't file insurance and deal only directly with the patient. I think the argument could be made that for the young, healthy, and young and healthy, it makes the most sense from a math perspective, as the costs of out-of-pocket care would be less for most individuals than the annual cost of a premium for a health insurance policy that...might not cover your needs.

Now, the only sticking point there is catastrophic illness or injury costing 10s of thousands of dollars or more. That has to be either viewed as a risk or addressed with a low premium/astronomical deductible plan of some kind. Or being born into a rich family.