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11-29-2016, 09:29 AM
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#21
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Give me a museum and I'll fill it. (Picasso) Give me a forum ...
Join Date: Nov 2010
Location: Sarasota, FL & Vermont
Posts: 36,361
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Bamaman
I was reading online today. The ACA gets cut, and so may Medicare be done away with. Says the gov't. may rebate older and sicker adults and send'em to private plans. ...
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And we all know that everything that we read online is accurate.
__________________
If something cannot endure laughter.... it cannot endure.
Patience is the art of concealing your impatience.
Slow and steady wins the race.
Retired Jan 2012 at age 56
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11-29-2016, 09:32 AM
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#22
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Give me a museum and I'll fill it. (Picasso) Give me a forum ...
Join Date: Apr 2013
Posts: 11,078
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Quote:
Originally Posted by pb4uski
And we all know that everything that we read online is accurate.
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Yep.
I'll frequently find two different articles from the same Web site where the authors say the exact opposite on the same subject.
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11-29-2016, 10:39 AM
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#23
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Thinks s/he gets paid by the post
Join Date: Aug 2014
Location: Red Rock Country
Posts: 1,928
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Quote:
Originally Posted by travelover
Here is a link to the Ryan plan, which is probably the most thought out alternative.
A Better Way
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Yep. The voucher approach. That's the easiest way to reduce government outlays. When you read the details, it's clear that the whole idea is to force future seniors into Medicare Advantage plans, specifically HMO type plans. I considered an MA plan when I signed up for Medicare but didn't like the limited networks so went with traditional Medicare and a Medigap plan that I'm very happy with. The "CouponCare" replacement for Medicare allows for grandfathering but without new folks entering the traditional Medicare pool, I can't imagine that would remain viable for long.
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11-29-2016, 01:26 PM
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#24
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Give me a museum and I'll fill it. (Picasso) Give me a forum ...
Join Date: Jun 2014
Posts: 7,045
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Here my friends are in a medicare advantage plan that they are all thrilled with. Basically it is the same plan I am paying for as a state retiree except I am paying more then double what they are. Looking forward to being 65 )
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11-29-2016, 01:34 PM
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#25
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Thinks s/he gets paid by the post
Join Date: Apr 2005
Location: Midwest
Posts: 2,968
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My mother has had MA plan I guess as long as they've been available. Altho I'm sure she's had to come up with some money somewhere along the way it must have been small stuff. Heart attack, Bypass, long time diabetic, eye surgeries, spinal surgeries. I saw the bills. At the end of all the sums and tallies "Patient Cannot be Charged" clearly printed.
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11-29-2016, 01:58 PM
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#26
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Full time employment: Posting here.
Join Date: Dec 2012
Posts: 751
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Until/unless my mega corp retiree insurance is no longer available (co could stop offering it anytime they wish is my understanding), I'm somewhat on the sidelines on this issue, except as it affects extended family and friends. I do check what is available in both exchange and off exchange each year, and so far the price (no subsidy for me with pension , etc) is the same or higher but the doctor networks are quite restricted, to the point of being unacceptable to me. So, any change will be of interest, be it a tweak or a replacement. The one fly in the ointment I do wonder about is the pre-existing condition issue. I looked into individual ins some yrs ago when considering becoming a consultant, and what is considered uninsurable astonished me at the time. My easily controlled with medication (cheap medication at that) thyroid deficiency was enough to make it impossible to get coverage. This was 15 yrs ago, approx.
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11-29-2016, 02:32 PM
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#27
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Give me a museum and I'll fill it. (Picasso) Give me a forum ...
Join Date: May 2008
Posts: 7,436
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Saw an interview this morning on CNBC with a Republican senator from Wyoming. He was praising the choice of Tom Price to be Health and Human Services Secretary.
He said the last bill they passed to repeal the ACA, which was vetoed by Obama, envisioned a 2-year transition period.
Tom Price, a former orthopedic surgeon, has been pushing something called the Empowering Patients First Act. The wiki page notes these criticisms:
Quote:
Critical reaction[edit]
While the Act has not been assessed by the CBO, former CBO director Douglas Holtz-Eakin, in a review for the conservative American Action Network, estimated that the bill would yield a net savings of $2.3 trillion over ten years, and would increase the number of insured individuals by 29% by 2016. He writes that the bill "will lower premiums in all categories of insurance except high deductible health plans in 2016. But due to slowing of premium increases, high deductible health plans will be 6 percent cheaper by 2023" and that it "will yield substantially lower premiums than current law in all insurance product categories with savings up to 19 percent for single policies and up to 15.1 percent in savings for family policies".[1]
Writing in the Washington Post, Ezra Klein said that the bill had some good ideas but that it would not work. In particular he said "its version of the health insurance exchanges will collapse pretty quickly because the bill contains
no individual mandate ensuring that the pool includes both healthy and sick individuals
no insurance market regulations stopping insurers from cherrypicking
no risk adjustment rebalancing the scales when they do."
He said "In other words, this looks much like the reforms that collapsed in Texas, and in California. Price isn't learning from past policy mistakes, and so he means to repeat them." The good elements, he said, were its proposal for automatic enrollment (of employees in employer health care schemes) and the extension of tax exemption on the purchase of private insurance by buyers in the individual insurance market currently enjoyed by the employed. These, however, would be capped at "the average value of the national health exclusion for Employer Sponsored Insurance (and not at the true cost). He pointed out that this tax exemption amounts to a huge tax increase, but said that "(Tom) Price won't call it that".[2] Presumably this is because the exemption is not specifically tax funded but would increase the deficit and would have to be paid for from taxes eventually.
The medical journalist Maggie Mahar has criticized the bill for the suggestion that people with pre-existing conditions should be moved into high risk pools run in each state. She points out that existing state-based high risk pools can’t provide affordable coverage for nearly enough of the medically needy who have no other option, and that others have noted how "high-risk pools have been around for over 30 years and currently exist in 35 states, but they only cover about 207,000 Americans. The biggest barrier to enrollment is cost. High-risk pools are inevitably expensive because all of the enrollees have medical conditions that could potentially result in costly medical bills, which means the pools cannot spread costs across low-risk and high-risk individuals. Despite attempts to cap premium rates, the coverage is still unaffordable for many. In fact, a recent study found that premiums for high-risk pools are unaffordable for about one-third of eligible individuals."[3]
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empowe...ents_First_Act
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11-29-2016, 02:55 PM
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#28
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Give me a museum and I'll fill it. (Picasso) Give me a forum ...
Join Date: Feb 2013
Posts: 9,358
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Looks like it might be time to start learning Portugese or Spanish since moving is our Plan B.
__________________
Even clouds seem bright and breezy, 'Cause the livin' is free and easy, See the rat race in a new way, Like you're wakin' up to a new day (Dr. Tarr and Professor Fether lyrics, Alan Parsons Project, based on an EA Poe story)
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11-30-2016, 07:28 AM
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#29
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Give me a museum and I'll fill it. (Picasso) Give me a forum ...
Join Date: Jul 2008
Posts: 35,712
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Well, the US passport is all that I have, so I have to tough it out here.
Still have my motorhome to go live on NM state land if all my assets go to pay for healthcare. And then, there's no healthcare out there in the boondocks, so that's the end of me.
Quote:
Originally Posted by daylatedollarshort
Looks like it might be time to start learning Portugese or Spanish since moving is our Plan B.
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__________________
"Old age is the most unexpected of all things that happen to a man" -- Leon Trotsky (1879-1940)
"Those Who Can Make You Believe Absurdities Can Make You Commit Atrocities" - Voltaire (1694-1778)
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11-30-2016, 07:45 AM
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#30
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Moderator
Join Date: Oct 2010
Posts: 10,723
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Quote:
Originally Posted by daylatedollarshort
Looks like it might be time to start learning Portugese or Spanish since moving is our Plan B.
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No need to move. Go without insurance, go to the ER if you need to, and take a trip if your health issue isn't an emergency. You can self-insure since the prices abroad are reasonable. And you simply don't pay for the domestic ER (at the insane 'charge master' rates) unless they reduce the charges to the Medicare level pricing.
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11-30-2016, 07:57 AM
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#31
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Thinks s/he gets paid by the post
Join Date: Feb 2014
Location: Williston, FL
Posts: 3,925
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Quote:
Originally Posted by nun
My vision of an ACA repeal is that it will take a couple of years so that people have time to switch over. Provisions like "pre-existing conditions" will be kept, but I've heard the insurance companies are lobbying to loosen that up if someone one changes plans. Competition across state borders will be the main attempt at cost control as well as lowering the coverage requirements. This will be good if you stay healthy and with catastrophic care if a young person gets cancer they won't pay the whole bill......but out of pocket costs when you are ill will be even higher than with the ACA.
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From what I have read, there will be no pre-existing condition limitation, assuming you do not have a lapse in coverage. That is like a self-enforcing individual mandate, much better than today. With today's ACA plan, there is no real individual mandate. You do not pay a fine unless you have a tax refund coming. And the penalty is much cheaper than insurance.
Staying healthy is a key piece of any puzzle, pre or post ACA. I suspect that a reason other countries healthcare is cheaper is that those citizens are indeed healthier. I think the USA is the most obese country in the world.
Cost sharing will be a good thing, up to a point. Let the younger people pay more to help share the cost of us older people...
__________________
FIRE no later than 7/5/2016 at 56 (done), securing '16 401K match (done), getting '15 401K match (done), LTI Bonus (done), Perf bonus (done), maxing out 401K (done), picking up 1,000 hours to get another year of pension (done), July 1st benefits (vacation day, healthcare) (done), July 4th holiday. 0 days left. (done) OFFICIALLY RETIRED 7/5/2016!!
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11-30-2016, 09:35 AM
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#32
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Moderator
Join Date: Apr 2012
Location: San Diego
Posts: 14,211
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We have two threads on the same topic. This thread is being closed and we encourage you to go to the other thread here.
Please remember that there is currently NO active legislation in front of congress or the President (elect)... so this entirely speculative. While political speculation is interesting - it is not a topic we encourage on a non-political forum like er.org.
__________________
Retired June 2014. No longer an enginerd - now I'm just a nerd.
micro pensions 6%, rental income 20%
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