A quick question for Americans (Health Insurance)

[Ben Kenobi]

Go to an auction (or eBay) where you are one of many bidders, and one where you are the only bidder. According to your logic you will try and outbid yourself and make it more expensive in the latter scenario.

Terrible example.

Would people sell to E-Bay if they could only get one bidder and they had to sell to that bidder?

If not, why would you expect doctors to do the same?

[Ben Kenobi]

Recently got my notice, and my cost is up about 25% (national average) for 2017. It's a huge chunk, but getting things like my wife's mammo folded in is a significant benefit.

I'm amused that folks are defending a law that just increased their costs by 25 percent in a year.

[Ming]

I'm amused that you still won't admit your mistake/lies/BS

[Ben Kenobi]

Uh, because what you consider a lie is the truth. I don't see why I should admit the same. What more can I do?

[Ming]

Admit that you pulled it out of your ass... cherry picked as usual, changed the argument once proven wrong, and that you were wrong in the first place.

Something all us here know you do all the time.

[Ben Kenobi]

Admit that you pulled it out of your ass... cherry picked as usual, changed the argument once proven wrong, and that you were wrong in the first place.

I don't think I've made any secret of my antipathy towards Obamacare. You asked for proof, I provided a reliable source. How many people here do that?

[notyoueither]

It's threads like this that make me appreciate Canada's single payer system. It isn't perfect by a long shot, but it's light years ahead of what you people have.

And light years behind everywhere else thanks to the fascination with the American system as a comparison.

**** yeah, we rock!

Yeah, but what about those other places?

Shut up. We rock!

[notyoueither]

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.

Not necessarily. In Canada the monopsony has been captured by organized labour backed by the political establishment.

We're getting the **** sandwich of both systems. It ain't pretty with people having to win supreme court cases to get treatment they could pay for out of pocket, but they can't buy because the regulatory system does not allow private providers to charge for service when the government has the service on their schedule, or some fvcking stupid thing like that.

Any attempt to change things leads to bellows about the how bad the Americans have it.

It is well and truely fvcked up.

Welcome to Canada!

[notyoueither]

Actually, it isn't really a monopsony. There is only one payer (the government) and only one buyer (union controlled hospitals). They don't compete.

The system treats us all as part of the herd. The government pays union staffed, publicly controlled hospitals to treat us. There is no option for a truely private hospital to offer the full services needed and be paid by the single payer (government). Any time anything like it is proposed or tries to establish itself it it rapidly shut down after large and loud union backed protests.

Yes, there are private doctors practices. They need privileges at a public hospital to help patients. They are a part of the cost to the system, but they effectively have unions too so their costs are on an escalator up as well.

[Ming]

I don't think I've made any secret of my antipathy towards Obamacare. You asked for proof, I provided a reliable source. How many people here do that?

And your own reliable source proved you wrong. And then you changed your argument because you were proved wrong.

[Ben Kenobi]

Great posts, NYE!

[-Jrabbit]

I'm amused that folks are defending a law that just increased their costs by 25 percent in a year.

All I did was respond to the OP. Stating the facts of my health insurance does not equate to defending the ACA.

You are, as always, a deceitful, lying cur.

Also, and I know it may be inconvenient, but please use all the facts. Example: the rate of health insurance cost increases under GWBush vs Obama.

The average employer-sponsored family premium has gone up by $4,154 under Obama, from 2008, before he took office, to 2014, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation’s annual employer survey conducted with the Health Research & Educational Trust. That’s an improvement compared with the growth in premiums before Obama took office.

Under Bush, the average family premiums (including both what employers and employees pay) went up $4,677 in his last six years in office, from 2002 to 2008, an increase of 58 percent. That $4,154 growth under Obama is a 33 percent increase. If we look at Bush’s first six years, the discrepancy gets even bigger: From 2000, the year before Bush was first inaugurated, to 2006, the average family premium went up $5,042, or an increase of 78 percent.

Clearly, the overarching problem lies with Big Health - doctors, hospitals, pharma, and insurance - much moreso than the ACA. Sorry if that doesn't fit your political narrative.

Please refrain from commenting further until you've paid for your family's medical needs across multiple decades without carrying insurance.

[KrazyHorse]

How about we remove the requirement to file certificates of need before building hospitals, take licensing responsibilities away from boards of medical practitioners and accredit 20 new medical schools a year. Then come back in 20 years and see how things have shaken out?

[KrazyHorse]

Removing barriers to entry > demand management. Always.

[Aeson]

... except with nukes