I’m so glad that I don’t have to get involved in the health side of the insurance. I’ll stick to the P&C side of things since it’s pretty cut and dry.
If we follow the money trail it really leads back to campaign contributions, the Pharma/Med crew has stuffed the coffers on both sides of the aisle. The thing I find so sadly comical is the bleeding hearts seem to truly believe the government will bite the hand that feeds. The problem with healthcare has always been price, has the government EVER injected itself into anything and brought prices down? So they aren’t improving the problem, they are making it worse, albeit in the shadows.
They have touched cost…they are just spreading those costs out over more people and flattening the premium curve
Ya think that will work out well for the economy? Stripping even more disposable income from the most crucial class that works & has money to spend will almost certainly backfire. My point about touching cost was meant in context of the overall burden, not about playing a redistribution game with a rapidly growing cost.
I meant haven’t touched cost…sorry
I agree it won’t do anything to impact the factors driving costs up. They talk a lot about uncompensated care for those showing up at the ER and skipping out on the bill… But that cost as huge as it is only represents 1.6% of all healthcare costs…certainly not a big driver of cost increases
I gotcha now, I was confused by the clash. So 1.6% of the costs are failure to pay, that’s it? Do you have a site/source for breakdown on stats…I’d be very interested to see where the increase actually is coming from.
uncompensated care is typically stated as being around $41 billion in the past couple of years- a very big number. total healthcare expenditures is approximately $2.7 trillion for the same period. so somewhere around 1.5-1.6%…in any case less than 2%.
it seems like most figures regarding the growth in costs in various segments of the health care industry are greater than 2%…so it seems hard to believe that something that represents less than 2% of the total could possibly be driving growth in cost of 4, 5 or 6% in other areas.
most of the stats can be found on CMS.gov or from the AHA
This one hit me too, but to the tune of $300/month I believe. I dumped my spouse from the plan and she is getting her coverage through the VA. This was a big “gotcha” for people taking the $0/month, maximum out of pocket plan because that would total almost $12,000 if you chose it and had a spouse who could get insurance elsewhere.
Your comparing uncompensated care at hospitals to total healthcare expenditures. That’s not a terribly accurate measure since there’s a huge volume of healthcare spending outside of hospitals(more than 2/3’ of that 2.7trillion). Total Hospital expenditures were only $850 billion for the period referenced on the 2011 report
That puts uncompensated care costs closer to 5% for hospitals.
When you consider the average margin for hospitals is around 7%, the nearly 5% uncompensated care number is a far bigger issue.
Oh so less than 1/20th of less than 1/3rd of healthcare expenditures are causing costs to grow wildly…now I get it…thanks for clearing that up
It’s not the only cause, and I never suggested it was. I’m simply pointing out that the numbers you used are misleading.
exactly. it is not the only cause of increasing costs…in fact it may be a very minor cause (as indicated by the numbers posted)…although (and to my original point) it is made out to be a substantial driver of costs by supporters of the ACA that can only be combated by expanding coverage…which is the only way the major mechanisms of the ACA actually do reduce a cost in the hospital system. it reduces the uncompensated costs to hospitals by transferring those costs to everyone else.
the (formerly uncompensated) care still happens, the costs still exist…it is only a matter of who is paying for it. to stop increasing costs the law makers should be concentrating on actually eliminating costs, not simply transferring them from one place to another.
5% in an industry with average 7% margin is fairly significant. It amounts to an 70% more income, but I digress.
Eliminating reimbursed care is hardly the sole purpose of the ACA. To me, it just seemed like a silly point to be attacking, with incorrect/misleading information. It’s a simple cost reduction in the single largest portion of healthcare spending. There’s plenty of other aspects of the ACA to justifiably attack.
Just got mine yesterday; 7% increase for my plans, which are the best ones offered. Not bad IMO; $345/mo for medical, dental, and vision for the family plan I’m on. (That’s an 20/80 split for the true cost of the plan; employee 20%, company 80%).
So I guess small business is getting hit twice as hard based on the numbers I am seeing. THANKS OBAMA!
Either pay the hiked insurance rate or lobby & pay to get out of paying the increase. Sounds to me like you’re trying to be a capitalist in a crony capitalist society/regime. 8/
The numbers are not incorrect. And 5% in an industry of mega-sized “not for profit” players with a 7% margin… Talk about misleading
lol, ok chief. Have a good one.
Now people are fighting in here too. THANKS OBAMA!
THANKS OBAMA!