Has Your Health Insurance Been Cancelled by Obama?

[Ben Kenobi]

The point you're missing is that a lot of people can't afford even basic healthcare costs when they are unexpected. (And expecting all of them to somehow magically become excellent actuaries and be able to make reasonable expectations about the future costs of their non-catastrophic healthcare means you're one of those people with unreasonable expectations too ...)

How exactly is care for chronic conditions 'unexpected'? That's the point here - aeson. Reoccuring costs are a huge portion of healthcare expenses, and the model of catastrophic insurance won't work well for covering these things, not without the massive increase in premiums.

Anything that you need to take care of on a regular basis is best covered out of pocket rather than through insurance. How exactly do poor people pay 300/month with a 1500 deductable help with any of this stuff?

[Ben Kenobi]

Glad you see the point that any insurance based system is totally terrible for people like you Ben.

Ben serves down the line, returned by Mike H.


Which is why hearing aids (as well as glasses), aren't covered by Canada's single payer system. Like I said, if I'm gonna be screwed, I'll be screwed someplace where I can actually get timely care.

[MikeH]

Another win for the NHS then.

[Ben Kenobi]

Another win for the NHS then.

Single payer is actually worse, btw. They are still trying to get me to pay for services not rendered. I've got a bill collector trying to pick up on my 'unpaid coverage', despite the fact that I no longer live there and the law explicitly bars them from charging folks who aren't resident.

I'm not exactly seeing the merits of single payer that doesn't cover what I need and harrasses me for not paying when I'm not even entitled to collect anything!

[MikeH]

NHS is single payer, and would cover you.

[Ben Kenobi]

NHS is single payer, and would cover you.

What's your payee rate for National Insurance? I see you permit private coverage which makes your system 1000 percent less socialist than Canada. Do they also require people to pay?

[MikeH]

National Insurance in the UK doesn't pay for healthcare it nominally goes toward pensions. NHS is paid for out of general taxation. The average cost is £1500 per person, per year. Low income earners contributions are much lower than that. Someone on a salary of £25k would pay about £1000 a year in tax towards the NHS.

[MikeH]

You can't opt out of taxation, so you can't opt out of NHS. Most people with private care will mix and match NHS and private care, you can literally change back and forth at any point in treatment. The NHS is much better at private at some things due to scale so it can make sense.

[Ben Kenobi]

The average cost is £1500 per person, per year. Low income earners contributions are much lower than that. Someone on a salary of £25k would pay about £1000 a year in tax towards the NHS.

Ouch. Expensive. Seeing as a hearing aid itself costs about 2k for the pair and the annual cost is 200 or so per year, I'd still save with pay as you go. 300/month bammy care is a much worse deal than the NHS. So say, including glasses, that would be about 100 bucks every couple years for tests plus a new frame, I'd say healthcare would work out to 300/year total for me. So about 1/7th the cost of the NHS.

[The Mad Monk]

You can't opt out of taxation, so you can't opt out of NHS. Most people with private care will mix and match NHS and private care, you can literally change back and forth at any point in treatment. The NHS is much better at private at some things due to scale so it can make sense.

This is something I could get behind.

Of course, this was probably worked out over time by a large number of people who made sure each piece would work going in.

[kalepe]

They are still trying to get me to pay for services not rendered

[The Mad Monk]

That's deep.

[Ben Kenobi]

I'm disappointed that the bot wasn't selling Obamacare. Why can't Poly attract a higher class of spambot?

[Aeson]

How exactly is care for chronic conditions 'unexpected'?

Hint ... when someone says "unexpected", expect they are referring to "unexpected", not "expected".

[SlowwHand]

No, you can't switch back and forth. For instance, a retired military member that is covered by Tricare signs up for Obamagate. The retiree has just screwed up because Tricare is now a secondary provider.