The Politics Thread (PLAY NICELY!)

For comparisons:

This is before Obamacare which has significantly increased US healthcare related spending.

Anyhow using ACA website (I am using random numbers that don't directly related to me):
Single, Man, 23 years old, $45,000 yearly income (33,000 disposable after tax income) does not qualify for a tax break.

Medical Insurance: (no bronze or gold plans where I live) Silver plans cost 584 per month ($7,008 per year)
That is 21% of DI.

Also, this is with a $3000 deductible or a $8000 out of pocket max (I think not out of pocket but in-network max didn't want to read the ins manual to find out). Basically you need to pay an additional $3000 before your health insurance pays any medical expenses. ACA has expected medical expenses for the year between $8,000 (24% of DI) and $12000 (36% of DI).

This does not cover dental or vision.

Before ACA people who didn't have insurance went to the hospital and the hospital was forced to treat them for their illness (by law). So the joke is we use to have healthcare and now we have health insurance hooray .

What does in-network mean?

And do I understand correctly that this 3000-8000 means that unless you get really badly sick, causing very significant costs, you will basically have to still pay everything yourself?

Yes to question 2. Question 1 is complicated.

You pay dollar-for-dollar up to your deductible amount. After that you pay a percentage (generally 60-90%) of your medical bills until you reach your out-of-pocket max. The idea is to reduce healthcare cost so you don't go hog wild and get a bunch of needless stuff done.

The in net work out of net work is strange. It kinda revolves around contracts but it doesn't at the same time. Employees of a hospital can be out of network for example but the hospital can be in network. I don't know explain it well. Here's a link which basically states it's expensive and common.

https://www.google.com/amp/www.cnbc...cy-rooms-study.html?client=ms-android-verizon

[1] [citation needed]
[2] [citation needed]

[1]

Data from the chart dates to 2014 or "latest available", and was compiled in 2016. So, after the ACA was introduced.

Nevermind the point that premiums are pushed upwards when people fail to buy-in. It's something to do with the risk pool and other concepts that Google could probably explain far more credibly than I ever could.

Want to know why the healthcare costs in the UK are so low? Because everybody contributes by dint of taxation and this funds the NHS for everyone.

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[2]

http://time.com/money/4503325/obama-health-care-costs-obamacare/

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...macare-study-projects/?utm_term=.ec712a58f944

I agree with cogiarmy, US should either go all the way single payer or not at all. Their mixed system just makes things worse and the fact that obamacare forces people to pay out of pocket for not having insurance is just perverse.

Obviously I believe a free market system is best and it'd be nice to have more people following the switzerland model, but even fully single payer socialised medicine is better than what they have now.

Switzerland is actually very socialist by your standarts

And how do you know what my standards are?

They don't artificially restrict competition by carving out zones of control (aka states in the US) for their private friends? They don't provide a public healthcare system. They don't across the board restrict profits in the health industry with something stupid like the obamacare 80/20 rule.

The only thing they do is require mandatory basic health insurance of some sort. Then recognising how their intervention puts exploitative market power in the hands of suppliers, they then say no profit can be made on only the basic healthcare plan. No-one is subsidised below cost. Everything else beyond basic is free market.

Also, people sometimes focus too much on US healthcare costs and not on what causes it. One of major causes is obesity and diabetes, which funnily enough were caused by the US government advocating for low fat high sugar diets. Remember the food pyramid?

More intense health issues might be part of the problem as well, yeah.
Although it mainly reads like the health care system in the US is a pretty bad clusterfuck of a wanna-be free market that ended up being controlled by purely profit driven private companies.
So far I thought that if you're insured that even in the US you actually are ... insured and don't have to worry about medical costs anymore. That's what I have grown up to understand as "health insurance". Basically a health-care flatrate.
Seems that isn't even the case.

Hard to fix such a thing without really just throwing it all out of the window, which probably is hard to get through.

I just recently read some article on how this works out in Germany, were people can in fact go visit a doctor all the time if they feel like it without having to pay for it. Ends up with a few % of the people who probably are a bit hypochondriac who go see a doctor all the time, but the vast majority of people have better things to do than go see a doctor when there is no need. Few people like doctor-visits after all.


That "network"-stuff sounds like a pretty bad issue as well. When I visit an ER my least concern should be how it will be paid for, as my health >>> my money and when I need the ER my health probably is in very immediate high risk.

I dunno what to say about all those problems. It seems to me like basically every discussion about obamacare that went on to be about "is it good or bad to force people to be insured" basically misses the point entirely. Forcing people to be insured isn't the problem. Everything else is...

Wasn't that because some big "sugar-companies" decided to make sure people think "fat is evil, sugar is fine" for quite some time somehow? Is the US government itself really advocating "high sugar diets"?

You advocating a government institution to screw with the free market? I am surprised

Yup, that is definitely a very big problem in the US. Because they aren't fully single payer or more fully free market, they're in this lukewarm spot where crony capitalism is rampant. e.g. the restrictions on insurance companies not being able to compete across state lines - basically they legislate themselves into monopolies or cartels.

yea, what happens is private insurance will have an excess as part of the way the actuary is done. If i remember correctly, medicare (the public healthcare coverage) can also have an excess if the doctor decides to charge you more than what medicare is willing to reimburse you for.

I like the OCED for international comparisons. OCED seems like a good source. They only do this study every other year. 2016 will be released in June or July of 2017, I think. Also the source is on the graph. Do I need to repeat it?

Also x2, obamacare isn't saving America $2 trillion. And a study that doesn't explain it's reasoning because it's based of a CBO report. Yes, Medicare will have better contracts with hospitals? Maybe... how does that save us money 2 trillion? CSM basically provides this explanation... it can't keep going up so it wont... fin. I don't find that a perticular strong arguement. I imagine an evil insurance company ceo sitting in his office laughing and say "yes we can (evil laugh)".

Edit: the cost saving mechanism are not working. Reinsurance and risk Corradors haven't worked so far. Why would they work in the future? Cadillac tax is dead so that won't help. I'm not seeing anything to reduce cost. The only way this is correct is if they simply overestimated the cost originally and now think they got it right. Not exactly saving Americans money.

I just felt like adding, that George Takei tried posting this (he posts EVERYTHING anti-Trump), and I posted in the comments that he had no business using this reference after what he did to the election since before the DNC. He was a massive influence in appeasement to his party's major mess-up. "Vote Blue No Matter Who"... Even if they're red, corporate, and could care less as long as they're comfy. Didn't even MARCH for the women's march, but BERNIE did! He backed HILLARY, so SHAME ON HIM for EVEN UTTERING BERNIE'S NAME.

This is after, he cites an anti-Trump source from a Pence supporter. THAT WAS JUST INFURIATING. If Trump is impeached, I hope he cheers, then the very next day Pence revokes marriage equality including existing unions, and he finds himself filing "single" on his taxes again, because he totally deserves it for citing god-damned Pence supporters. What kind of muppet liberal social justice warrior, cites a source supporting Pence ffs?

Bottom line, if you're of ANY political affiliation, you don't go dumpster-diving for evidence to support your already-decided stance! You own up to it, you use sources that themselves support the character of your appeal. This is how Alt-Facts start, by "seeking evidence that supports your already pre-established conclusion".

I'm glad you're starting to understand this. It HAS been 118 pages of us relentlessly trying to get that idea through to you mered and elodea.

...

Trump standing there with a printout of a breitbart article claiming that since breitbart wrote it it has to be somehow important and real.

He really exists in a parallel universe.

Honestly, I would have voted for ivanka over Hillary or Donald. Make America beautiful again!

Warren's looking like a sure-win for the next election, already 4 years in advance. It's ridiculous that she wasn't the ******* candidate this last election.

On a separate note, check this **** out. Found it in the comments section of a Takei post. This **** screams "conspiracy theory", "fact-crafting", "everyone on the internet is a professional", "nobody on the internet is a professional", "AltLeftFacts", "page-vanguarding", "Social Justice Paladins", ect....