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'A full-blown crisis': Americans brace for a surge in healthcare costs

ft.com

21–30 of 269 posts

Re: 'A full-blown crisis': Americans brace for a surge in healthcare costs

#21

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You don't need it until you need it, and needing it often comes in the form of a lightning strike from blue sky. The counterargument is that having everyone pay a higher amount makes it feasible to actually have this coverage available, when needed, without bankrupting the insurance companies, because the rare astronomically expensive care is covered by the premiums paid by the vast majority of people who are relatively healthy and are unlikely to need it.

Now whether the on-paper prices for medical care in this country actually have any relationship to objective reality is an entirely separate question of course. In general coming from an outside perspective, combining healthcare and for-profit motives in a single system seems particularly likely to lead to all kinds of perverse incentives, but, it's the system that exists, and it seems unlikely to change any time soon.

Re: 'A full-blown crisis': Americans brace for a surge in healthcare costs

#22

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> laundry list of

That’s a meaningless statement, look for an actual percentage here.

Healthcare costs have been spiraling for decades in the US, the ACA didn’t impact the long term trends to a noticeable degree. Actual healthcare reform could drive down costs massively, but that would mean a fuck load of people in medical billing getting laid off. Instead you’re paying for your doctor to talk with your insurance provider often for longer than they spend working with you, that’s the ultimate issue with US healthcare costs. Inflation adjusted “healthcare” spending is up from 2,100$/person in 1970 to 14,570 in 2023.

https://www.healthsystemtracker.org/chart-collection/u-s-spe...

Re: 'A full-blown crisis': Americans brace for a surge in healthcare costs

#23

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That’s how insurance works. You pay for a plan you likely don’t need so everyone older than you is reasonably covered.

If young people elected to get a barebones plan while in good health, who would subsidize them when they grow older?

Re: 'A full-blown crisis': Americans brace for a surge in healthcare costs

#24

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The main point of health insurance is to cover things that most people don't need. Prior to the ACA, most health plans had lifetime coverage limits which could leave patients with serious conditions financially ruined or unable to access care. The ACA removed those limits so naturally coverage is now more expensive.

Re: 'A full-blown crisis': Americans brace for a surge in healthcare costs

#25
post #7
post #3

>Allen is herself a casualty. While she used to pay $487.50 a month, her new healthcare plan, with reduced coverage, has monthly premiums of $1,967.50. Brutal. Meanwhile the White House calls it all "fake news".

It's always cost ~$2k a month, the only difference is the previous administration thought everyone else should be "temporarily" paying for her plan. I feel like we need a perpetual PSA here that moving money from person A to person B obviously doesn't make anything cheaper.

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Re: 'A full-blown crisis': Americans brace for a surge in healthcare costs

#26
Mine has tripled, but last year, I was actually getting some govt help. Not this year. I am fortunate to be able to afford it, but it’s just less than my mortgage.

This month is when all hell breaks loose, because people will get their first invoice at the new rate. They already know how much, but seeing it in the form of a demand, will drive it home.

Obamacare is like the NHS, in the UK. Everyone likes to bitch about it, but woe unto the politician that messes with it.

Re: 'A full-blown crisis': Americans brace for a surge in healthcare costs

#27

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This is factually incorrect and in fact the opposite of what a Cadillac plan means.

Obamacare plans are actually the opposite: they are high deductible with limited networks.

Obamacare plans typically have deductibles between $5,000 to $9,000, with a narrow selection of networks, and high premiums if unsubsidized.

This is the opposite of what a a Cadillac plan is (or used to be).

Re: 'A full-blown crisis': Americans brace for a surge in healthcare costs

#28

I read healthcare now amounts to buying a new car every year. (Except, of course, nothing new in your driveway, nothing to resell, etc.)

This is misleading.

Health insurance premiums cost about as much as buying a new car every year. Healthcare is generally on top of those premium payments.

Re: 'A full-blown crisis': Americans brace for a surge in healthcare costs

#29
post #19

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Have you been on an ACA bronze plan? I wouldn’t consider it a Cadillac plan nor did I find it covering lots of unnecessary things.

Bronze plan is shitty catastrophic insurance at like 5x the actuarial cost to try to fund risk pool and all the mandated benefits thst the o/p alluded to

Re: 'A full-blown crisis': Americans brace for a surge in healthcare costs

#30

[flagged]

That’s how insurance works. You pay for a plan you likely don’t need so everyone older than you is reasonably covered. If young people elected to get a barebones plan while in good health, who would subsidize them when they grow older?

[flagged]
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