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Old 10-18-2015, 03:51 PM   #61
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I'm due for a colonoscopy but have decided to postpone it to January since I haven't used up any of my deductible this year. May as well get a start on the 2016 deductible.

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Check your policy. Some colonoscopy's are covered 100%, no deductible. I was surprised when my second 5 years later was covered 100%. I did not think it would. Pleasant sunrise for a change.
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Old 10-18-2015, 04:20 PM   #62
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As for food prices, the BLS actually has stats on all these items and you can see exactly what the price last year was for a myriad of items. Dairy is down, pork is down, chicken and beef is up. Its kind of a mixed bag depending on what you buy.

People have to remember its YoY so they take the 3 summer months and avg them from YoY to determine if it has gone up or down. They also break it down by region. Granted I've bought more pork and fish lately because that's been what was on sale, but just this week there was a lot of beef roasts on sale so I stocked up again.
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Old 10-18-2015, 04:30 PM   #63
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Check your policy. Some colonoscopy's are covered 100%, no deductible. I was surprised when my second 5 years later was covered 100%. I did not think it would. Pleasant surprise for a change.
No, mine will be diagnostic because they've found minor nasties before. I plan to use colonoscopyassist.com, which has been recommended here and will refer you to board-certified specialists at a reasonable, all-in cost.
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Old 10-18-2015, 04:50 PM   #64
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I have no idea how the BLS compiles its data. Mine comes from the local supermarket trenches and reflects what is on (or not on) my receipts. I pay the water (up dramatically) and the PG&E bills. Insurance is up a few percent overall. Despite Prop 13, taxes are up, thanks in part to all the special assessments as well as the automatic two percent increase in base value. My personal COL is up significantly, except for gasoline.
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Old 10-18-2015, 05:43 PM   #65
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as much as folks like to blame the government for all their ills
Not all, but a lot.

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Don't get me wrong, I'm not putting any faith in the bozos in Washington, they are the very definition of Murphys law, if they can screw it up they will
Death, taxes and very frequent Washington screw ups. Probably the top three things you can depend on in life.
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Old 10-18-2015, 05:43 PM   #66
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No, mine will be diagnostic because they've found minor nasties before. I plan to use colonoscopyassist.com, which has been recommended here and will refer you to board-certified specialists at a reasonable, all-in cost.
That is what mine was, but it was covered. Don't know if things changed or it was a mistake, but I was not going to argue. It was a 5 year follow up. Maybe those are covered, maybe not. You are close enough to end of year next year will not matter if you put it off til then. But if it is covered , why not.
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Old 10-18-2015, 06:12 PM   #67
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What a bunch of #$%#%$. Rents are up, food is up, medical is up, and we have no inflation!
But energy is down. That helps balance out the calculation.
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Old 10-18-2015, 06:14 PM   #68
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I've switched to cheaper booze too.
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Old 10-18-2015, 06:36 PM   #69
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My personal COL is up significantly, except for gasoline.
Frankly it doesn't really matter if any one individual's COL is up or down. Government adjustments don't work at that level. They attempt to find the average and they use that.

Someone will always benefit and someone will always get the short end of the stick.

This year, you lost...
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Old 10-18-2015, 08:12 PM   #70
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No, they misrepresent and obfuscate, because that's what governments do. I spent many years watching the show, although at a more local level.

My guess is most folks that really need Social Security to survive are not big consumers of gasoline. The older they are, the less they drive. They pay housing costs, utilities, taxes of various kinds, food, medicare and/or other health insurance plus co-pays, some clothing costs, and entertainment. Those people are the ones that really suffer in this situation.
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Old 10-19-2015, 05:43 PM   #71
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Yeah, its only happened 3 times in 40 yrs. and I have been lucky enough to endure all 3.
Me too
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Old 10-19-2015, 06:26 PM   #72
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I hear ya Sheehs. At your price including deductible you are in effect paying $13,000 before you get a penny of insurance assistance. Really in effect the policy is a subsidy for others. I haven't consumed $13k of medical use including my delivery charges at birth.
My pre-ACA insurance required me to be out more than $17K each year before they paid anything ($10K deductible + monthly premium). I had the policy for 7 years and got nothing for it, then boom, it suddenly cost them a couple of hundred $K. They paid everything that the hospitals, clinics, doctors, and surgeons submitted. Never had to call or write them. Good insurer, they are.

So, I now stop complaining that I am subsidizing for others.

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I never go either. I have reverted back to the 1970s mentality... "I got a baseball sized knot growing on my head, I guess I better go to the doctor and check it out."...
Yes, by that time it will cost your insurance fistfuls of money. That will teach them.
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Old 10-19-2015, 06:44 PM   #73
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Yes, by that time it will cost your insurance fistfuls of money. That will teach them.
I guess that is the saying "penny wise and pound foolish" (waiting until the tumor has grown from the weight of a penny to a pound).

But hey, whatever makes you sleep better at night.
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Lower gas prices means no Social Security increase next year
Old 10-19-2015, 07:30 PM   #74
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Lower gas prices means no Social Security increase next year

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I guess that is the saying "penny wise and pound foolish" (waiting until the tumor has grown from the weight of a penny to a pound).

But hey, whatever makes you sleep better at night.

My apologies, I need to specifically state "hyperbole" when implying it. But yes high deductibles as several posters state will inhibit some usage, mine included... But the main point I will explicitly make is this...It still gets to the point 20% of the population consume about 80% of all healthcare costs. The bottom half consume about 3%. If the cost of high deductibles become too great with no perceived benefit for the purchaser in relation to disposable dollars one has available, the risk/reward ratio will tilt to the side of foregoing the payments.
Now that I have been more precise with my comment, I will sleep well at night.


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Old 10-19-2015, 08:12 PM   #75
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....The family deductible/max OOP is tricky. I was pretty horrified when I found that we had to absorb twice the per-person deductible in one year even though it was all due to DH's expenses, in order to meet the family deductible. ....
What we did to avoid that was to just get separate policies so coverage kicks in earlier especially since the premium for a couple is 2 times the single premium.
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Old 10-19-2015, 08:14 PM   #76
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Check your policy. Some colonoscopy's are covered 100%, no deductible. I was surprised when my second 5 years later was covered 100%. I did not think it would. Pleasant sunrise for a change.
+1 mine was even though I had a HDHI plan.. they consider it preventative.
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Old 10-19-2015, 10:29 PM   #77
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My apologies, I need to specifically state "hyperbole" when implying it. But yes high deductibles as several posters state will inhibit some usage, mine included... But the main point I will explicitly make is this... It still gets to the point 20% of the population consume about 80% of all healthcare costs. The bottom half consume about 3%. If the cost of high deductibles become too great with no perceived benefit for the purchaser in relation to disposable dollars one has available, the risk/reward ratio will tilt to the side of foregoing the payments.

Now that I have been more precise with my comment, I will sleep well at night...
I knew you were exaggerating about waiting until a baseball tumor grows out of you.

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Yes, by that time it will cost your insurance fistfuls of money. That will teach them.
What I meant was that you don't know such a tumor will grow out of you or not, but one thing is sure that if it does, it will cost the insurer a lot of money. Up until my life-threatening diagnosis, my doctor commended me for having such good health. I did not take any daily medicine, and at the previous annual checkup, my doctor commented that my blood test results were "the best he had seen in a long time". Well, it may not mean much when I looked around his waiting room and saw all the real geezers in there. But the point was that I thought I was giving money away to my insurer for nothing, up until I recouped all that money and then some.

My research convinced me that the treatment I got was the best money could buy, and that a billionaire with the same conditions would not get a better treatment. In fact, some treatments that I got were unavailable or limited in other developed countries!

So, I am not complaining about the cost of health insurance anymore. For decades, I used very little healthcare, and then I suddenly "made up" for it. I do not wish to be getting out more of health insurance than I pay in (What? You want to be really sick?). If being healthy makes you a loser for not getting out as much as paying in, I want to be a loser. Being a "winner" for 2 years caused me much physical pain and suffering and mental anguish, plus I now carry big surgery scars to remind myself of what I went through. Plus, I could be pushing daisy too if I was more unlucky.

Would I wish for healthcare costs to be lower? Yes. But I no longer blame insurance companies for the high cost.
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Old 10-20-2015, 05:03 AM   #78
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I knew you were exaggerating about waiting until a baseball tumor grows out of you.



What I meant was that you don't know such a tumor will grow out of you or not, but one thing is sure that if it does, it will cost the insurer a lot of money. Up until my life-threatening diagnosis, my doctor commended me for having such good health. I did not take any daily medicine, and at the previous annual checkup, my doctor commented that my blood test results were "the best he had seen in a long time". Well, it may not mean much when I looked around his waiting room and saw all the real geezers in there. But the point was that I thought I was giving money away to my insurer for nothing, up until I recouped all that money and then some.

My research convinced me that the treatment I got was the best money could buy, and that a billionaire with the same conditions would not get a better treatment. In fact, some treatments that I got were unavailable or limited in other developed countries!

So, I am not complaining about the cost of health insurance anymore. For decades, I used very little healthcare, and then I suddenly "made up" for it. I do not wish to be getting out more of health insurance than I pay in (What? You want to be really sick?). If being healthy makes you a loser for not getting out as much as paying in, I want to be a loser. Being a "winner" for 2 years caused me much physical pain and suffering and mental anguish, plus I now carry big surgery scars to remind myself of what I went through. Plus, I could be pushing daisy too if I was more unlucky.

Would I wish for healthcare costs to be lower? Yes. But I no longer blame insurance companies for the high cost.

I was assuming you did, NW. That is why I did not respond to your post.[emoji6]
I was trying to side step your post because I knew where you were going was not where I was going. FWIW- I agree 100% with everything you said. Unfortunately that was not my point or source of discussion. I am not an insurance basher either. They are just the conduit. In fact they are probably one of the few sources of attempted cost containment in healthcare costs.
My main point was when a healthy person is faced with insurance costs that impose a huge stress on their income, there will come a point where they would drop it. I don't see healthy people who do not consume medical dollars selling their house and moving to an apartment or sell their car in order to ensure payment of their monthly insurance premium. And some I presume would drop it if it blew up their discretionary monies.This will be a problem people may face in coming years that are over the cliff.
I am more fortunate though. I could marry my longtime GF, and get on her plan for less than $200 with a $150 yearly medical deductible if costs become too onerous and then have someone else subsidize me. That is not our plan, but we have both agreed it is there if needed.



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Old 10-20-2015, 07:33 AM   #79
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No, they misrepresent and obfuscate, because that's what governments do.
And sometimes (all too often) they just don't tell the truth.
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Old 10-20-2015, 07:44 AM   #80
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I hear ya. I have a similar deductible and when I had a chronic cough checked out a year ago, the doc offered to do an X-ray although he said it would likely be negative. "No", I said. I've got a $6 thousand deductible. I don't want to pay for a negative X-ray." In retrospect, it was likely a seasonal allergy. It disappeared on its own.

The family deductible/max OOP is tricky. I was pretty horrified when I found that we had to absorb twice the per-person deductible in one year even though it was all due to DH's expenses, in order to meet the family deductible. That was my previous employer and I believe it was $1,250 per person/$2,500 family. I'd like those deductibles back, please!

I try to live in the moment but I'm really looking forward to being eligible for Medicare in a couple of years. DH has it already.
I do the same thing atehna53. When I went to my ENT for those antibiotics they wanted to scope me. From previous experience I knew they billed $500 to stick that thing up my nose (the diagnosis code is "surgery" - really) and that I would have to pay it. So…I asked to be diagnosed based on symptoms telling them, I have a $6000 deductible on top of my monthly premiums.
My dentist this year took the X-rays for "free" when I told him this. Bless him!

I have 5 years to Medicare, am crossing my fingers that they do not move the age! No telling though how much that will cost once there!

It is a government known fact that the private, individual market is a bust but yet they do absolutely nothing about it. They need to put us all "in a group" and price it like employer based coverage - even that would be better than the current pricing. Truth be told, we are in a group…but we are priced individually.
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