Aetna CEO Threatened Obamacare Pullout If Feds Opposed Humana Merger • Hacker News Board

Re: Aetna CEO Threatened Obamacare Pullout If Feds Opposed Humana Merger

#351

Post by ende » Fri, Aug 19, 2016, 6:22 PM UTC

danielweber wrote: post #340

ende wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder how many people would trade individual mandate for public option.

You can't get rid of the individual mandate without completely destroying the whole law. It's the unpopular part of the law. But pretty much anything that works is going to have some unpopular component that needs to be swallowed in order for the whole thing to work. When Republicans talk about getting rid of the individual mandate, it's because they are, in actuality, trying to kill the law. When Democrats talk abou…

Sure, but not really what I meant. Adding public option and subtracting individual mandate would basically be a step towards having single payer with secondary private market.

Re: Aetna CEO Threatened Obamacare Pullout If Feds Opposed Humana Merger

#352

Post by dragonwriter » Fri, Aug 19, 2016, 6:27 PM UTC

ende wrote: post #351

danielweber wrote: post #340

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can't get rid of the individual mandate without completely destroying the whole law. It's the unpopular part of the law. But pretty much anything that works is going to have some unpopular component that needs to be swallowed in order for the whole thing to work. When Republicans talk about getting rid of the individual mandate, it's because they are, in actuality, trying to kill the law. When Democrats talk abou…

Sure, but not really what I meant. Adding public option and subtracting individual mandate would basically be a step towards having single payer with secondary private market.

> Adding public option and subtracting individual mandate would basically be a step towards having single payer with secondary private market.

I don't see how it would be, unless by "subtracting individual mandate" you mean "replacing an individual mandate backed with a fee/tax/penalty for failure to comply with a universal tax, an option to select a private option with the tax refunded as a subsidy, and a default of using the public option if no private option is selected". Which, really, is retaining the individual mandate, but making it impossible to break rather than penalizing breaking it.

Re: Aetna CEO Threatened Obamacare Pullout If Feds Opposed Humana Merger

#353

Post by DashRattlesnake » Fri, Aug 19, 2016, 6:38 PM UTC

danielweber wrote: post #343

Jhsto wrote: post #303

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cannot speak for the cause, but the prices are distorted. I was taken to ER a couple of months ago and x-ray of chest cost $3500 and CT of chest $5500. The equivalent prices at the private sector of my home country would have been $70 and $120 and I could have gotten those done just as quickly as in ER in US.

In most places in the US, you can't even get list prices. Calling up providers for quotes gets you hung up on. Singapore, which has a significant market portion to their health care industry, mandates posting of prices.

I've actually found that you can get list prices from hospitals. The problem is that they're distorted and sky-high and not necessarily very reflective of what you will have to pay if you have insurance, because the insurers have negotiated their own rates. Those rates are treated as top secret by everyone involved (that is, until you get a bill).