A quick question for Americans (Health Insurance)

[Ben Kenobi]

but it's light years ahead of what you people have.

Having lived under both systems, no - no it's not. Canadian health care is great - if you don't need timely surgery. My grandmother needed back surgery - she died before the waiting list of a year and a half got to her.

[Dauphin]

I know this will be looked at as a dumb question, but I really don't understand...

Why would this be best?

In nearly every other industry competition has promoted cost savings and efficiency. Why would removing competition make it cheaper and better?

Wouldn't standardization of filing forms and regulation of coverages be better?

Sorry...don't mean to be dumb, but I just don't get this one.

A monopoly (single seller) pushes prices up, and a monopsony (single buyer) drives it down. In a monopsony the sellers are still competing for the business of the single buyer. In a monopoly you don't need to compete to make sales as you are the only gig in town.

[ZEE]

Only nerds care about health insurance or go to doctors.

Real thugs use the ER and then skip on the bills.

[giblets]

AAHZ could really use some mental healthcare.

[Jon Miller]

Only nerds care about health insurance or go to doctors.

Real thugs use the ER and then skip on the bills.

That is what my sister (who no longer has her kids) does.

JM

[Jon Miller]

I found Obamacare a huge hassle, and I tried to set it up early this year.

But my wife didn't have her GC yet, and my daughter was initially told that she could be on the AllKids program, then after a couple of months told she needed standard insurance. When I tried to set her up on standard insurance, it dropped me off for some reason. About the same time as that happened she got another letter saying that she was accepted into the AllKids.

Since I (we) have healthcare in Chile (where I spend 2 out of every 4 weeks or so) and I didn't want to touch anything that impacted my daughter, we just haven't touched anything. My wife needs insurance now (in the US she could only have travel before getting her GC) but we are just going to try to put our whole family on together during this next period (December).

The fact that it takes weeks/months to get setup properly and can have some error cause a drop is very frustrating.

JM

[Proteus_MST]

I am definitely glad for our german healthcare system.
And meanwhile happy that ~2 decades ago when (under Clinton) I applied for the US greencard lottery, my name wasn't drawn

[Jon Miller]

Only nerds care about health insurance or go to doctors.

Real thugs use the ER and then skip on the bills.

You forgot about going as often as possible (to a new doctor each time) to get your Percocet/etc.

JM
(I think that is the one, although I think people can get injected ones too?)

[Jon Miller]

I should also mention that I had Obamacare for a few months last year too, as I needed a US insurance for my job if I spend more than a month straight in the US (which I did in November 2015 and February 2016, but haven't since February).

And there was a significant increase between late 2015 and early 2016 (more than 40%).

JM
(less than 30 days can be covered by travel insurance)
(I haven't used any health insurance in the US since 2009)

[ZEE]

You forgot about going as often as possible (to a new doctor each time) to get your Percocet/etc.

JM
(I think that is the one, although I think people can get injected ones too?)

oh yeah lol

[Ming]

http://www.forbes.com/sites/robertla.../#3c923cdb5cb4

Pretty good article from Forbes.

So yes, Obamacare is net negative by about 1.2 million.

Yeah... pretty good article. Maybe you should have read all of it.

Let's look at in context with the entire story instead of your cherry picking.

Researchers estimate that from September 2013 to February 2015, 22.8 million Americans became newly insured and 5.9 million lost coverage, for a net of 16.9 million newly insured Americans.

Among those newly gaining coverage, 9.6 million people enrolled in employer-sponsored health plans, followed by Medicaid (6.5 million), the individual marketplaces (4.1 million), non marketplace individual plans (1.2 million) and other insurance sources (1.5 million).

Yes, it clearly states that the Obamacare insurance exchange portion of the Obamacare plan has increased the uninsured by 4.1 million and that 5.9 million lost coverage during the period measured for the study based on the Rand Study during the time frame covered. But you are ignoring that O-care also includes the expansion of Medicaid (6.5 million) and the increases in other non marketplace individual plans (1.2 million) and other insurance sources (1.5 million) which may or may not have been caused by the penalty portion of his plan.

Overall

Insurance coverage has increased across all types of insurance since the major provisions of the federal Affordable Care Act took effect, with a net total of 16.9 million people becoming newly enrolled through February 2015, according to a new RAND Corporation study.

Yes, the link does make a good argument that the Exchange portion of the O-care plan is not living up to it's original projections and that a lot of the increases is coming from increased employee based plans, but it still does say that more people are insured now than before.
And you totally ignored the expansion of Medicaid under O-care.

So another classic example of BK cherry picking the stats in a lame attempt to prove his invalid statement.

More people are insured since O-care... FACT!

[Ming]

The current stats...

The Current 2016 enrollment numbers:
The current enrollment numbers (as of February 2016) are roughly: 12.7 million in the marketplace, and very roughly 20 million total between the ACA between the Marketplace, Medicaid expansion, young adults staying on their parents plan, and other coverage provisions.

The 2016 uninsured rate remains at an all time low with the uninsured rate at 11.9% for Americans 18 – 64 and 8.6% for all Americans. 8.6% is down from 9.1% as of 4th quarter 2015, and 15.7% before the Affordable Care Act was signed into law. TIP: The census says 11.9% for Q1 2016, a Gallup poll featured above says 11.4% Q1 2015, they are different studies looking at the same demographic. Marketplace signups didn’t see a net increase for 2016 (although many re-enrolled for the 12.7 million total enrolled), gains were made in other insurance types.

So yeah, some people have lost their coverage, but overall, O-care, with all of it's problems, has still lowered the number of uninsured.
And while the costs have increased far more than estimated, and there are still tons of problems, at the end of the day, it has made some progress.

[rah]

And Ben's article was over a year old.

[Ben Kenobi]

So yeah, some people have lost their coverage, but overall, O-care, with all of it's problems, has still lowered the number of uninsured.
And while the costs have increased far more than estimated, and there are still tons of problems, at the end of the day, it has made some progress.

Actually, almost all the enrollment gains went to Medicaid, not Obamacare, as both you and the article confirms.

[Ben Kenobi]

A monopoly (single seller) pushes prices up, and a monopsony (single buyer) drives it down. In a monopsony the sellers are still competing for the business of the single buyer. In a monopoly you don't need to compete to make sales as you are the only gig in town.

Uh, no. Single Payer will drastically drive costs upwards as if you have only one buyer, and that buyer is the government, there's no incentive to cut costs or waste.