4 ms·

Comparing to my "free market" insurance before the ACA was passed, I had much more coverage (it was real insurance: eg: pay in advance against a risk, rather th

by MCRed 11y ago

Comparing to my "free market" insurance before the ACA was passed, I had much more coverage (it was real insurance: eg: pay in advance against a risk, rather than covering pre-existing conditions which violates the definition of insurance, since you're not pooling money against risk, but paying for current liabilities.) ..... and not only did I have more coverage, but my deductibles were 1/5th what they are now and the costs were 1/5th as well. Effectively obamacare is 25X more expensive for me (and this is comparing plans in two different states since I recently moved.) AND! On top of that-- rather than just getting insurance when I needed it (Eg: you just sign up and buy it) you have to have enrollment periods and all kinds of arbitrary limitations and a 60 minute application process on a "marketplace" that really gives you minimal information about the plans, and demands to know far more about you than you really ever had to give up before to get insurance. One thing about insurance-- and Warren Buffett has made a lot of money on this-- is that they invested the proceeds between when they were paid premiums and had to pay out claims-- and so insurers paid out more than %100 of their premiums, because some of the investment returns would be spent on claims. This allowed them to keep premiums low, and they still made a profit. Obamacare basically made this illegal because now instead of selling insurance (or good insurance which was demonized as "cadillac plans" during the "Debate") you're selling "programs" -- so the incentive is to not buy until you get injured then sign up for insurance (and just claim you have a life change to get around the limited enrollment periods.) Which means the economics are on its ear and its completely unsustainable. And when it totally collapses-- I predict that people will be claiming its because "insurance companies are too greedy" After all, they complained about "greed" when insurance companies were paying out MORE in claims than they were getting in premiums (can you name any government program that has provided more benefits than it costs-- effectively negative overhead? Hell, as I understand it welfare spends %75 of its budget on overhead and only distributes %25 as benefits.) No matter how much government screws up this situation, they will blame industry and use the utter failure as "proof" that they need even more power (and even more intrusions into our lives) and even more money to "fix" it. None of this is a surprise- it was all predicted by those opposing the ACA. Fortunately, the asian countries are developing first rate hospitals and medical tourism industry. The only question is, will I be able to accumulate enough to retire to Thailand or somewhere before I get hit with a serious medical condition? Looking at how things have turned out in other countries (eg: New Zealand where if you're "old" you're just not covered and you have to leave the country for basic things like dialysis, even though there are dialysis machines in the country)... I've got a ticking clock.

zrail 11y ago
What was the lifetime cap on your pre-ACA insurance? Could you get it if you had been sick before applying? Here's a sadly common scenario: you have a baby born prematurely and they end up in NICU for a month because of a heart condition. They exceed their lifetime cap after two weeks because NICU has always been atrociously expensive. Because they have a heart condition, they are never able to get insurance on their own. Basically, your pre-ACA insurance was an implied one-shot deal. You have one chance to get sick and get better, because after that you'll never have insurance again.
- MCRed 11y ago
  $2M IIRC, and yes. The reason that NICU is so expensive is government has driven up the costs astronomically by intervening in the market place over the past 100 years. The ACA is not reversing that, but accelerating that. If the lifetime cap for infant care was $1M, the effect of this intervention is $961,583. Or put another way, that baby would cost %96 less or about $40k for the stay in the NICU. This is according to the study done by Milton Friedman in the 1970s showing government interventions drove up costs 26fold, and drove down availability. (So, there's probably 30 years more of impact not accounted for in that 26x figure, its probably 50x now.) Not true about never having insurance again, and anyway the reason pre-existing conditions were excluded is that plans that specifically targeted people with those pre-existing conditions (all diabetics need insulin, right? why not buy it in bulk?) were illegal. So, government is the cause of the problem in the first place.
  - zrail 11y ago
    NICUs were not very common until the mid-1970s so this component of care probably wasn't covered in Mr Friedman's study. Prior to that time premature babies with congenital issues typically just died. And medical underwriting was a thing because people that have been sick before are bad bets. There's no need to imagine some kind of conspiracy here, it was just business. But hey lets just make up some more numbers to fit the narrative.
bdcravens 11y ago
> just claim you have a life change to get around the limited enrollment periods. How stringent are they on proving this? Do they just take your word?

by MCRed 11y ago

zrail 11y ago

What was the lifetime cap on your pre-ACA insurance? Could you get it if you had been sick before applying? Here's a sadly common scenario: you have a baby born prematurely and they end up in NICU for a month because of a heart condition. They exceed their lifetime cap after two weeks because NICU has always been atrociously expensive. Because they have a heart condition, they are never able to get insurance on their own. Basically, your pre-ACA insurance was an implied one-shot deal. You have one chance to get sick and get better, because after that you'll never have insurance again.

MCRed 11y ago
$2M IIRC, and yes. The reason that NICU is so expensive is government has driven up the costs astronomically by intervening in the market place over the past 100 years. The ACA is not reversing that, but accelerating that. If the lifetime cap for infant care was $1M, the effect of this intervention is $961,583. Or put another way, that baby would cost %96 less or about $40k for the stay in the NICU. This is according to the study done by Milton Friedman in the 1970s showing government interventions drove up costs 26fold, and drove down availability. (So, there's probably 30 years more of impact not accounted for in that 26x figure, its probably 50x now.) Not true about never having insurance again, and anyway the reason pre-existing conditions were excluded is that plans that specifically targeted people with those pre-existing conditions (all diabetics need insulin, right? why not buy it in bulk?) were illegal. So, government is the cause of the problem in the first place.
- zrail 11y ago
  NICUs were not very common until the mid-1970s so this component of care probably wasn't covered in Mr Friedman's study. Prior to that time premature babies with congenital issues typically just died. And medical underwriting was a thing because people that have been sick before are bad bets. There's no need to imagine some kind of conspiracy here, it was just business. But hey lets just make up some more numbers to fit the narrative.

bdcravens 11y ago

> just claim you have a life change to get around the limited enrollment periods. How stringent are they on proving this? Do they just take your word?