Aetna to exit nearly 7 in 10 Obamacare plans

[Theodarzna]

I won't be surprised to see SS phased out for this very reason, and some cut off date applied and everyone after that date gets nothing, and everyone between those dates gets some prorated payments.

Our current government? I am sure that is the direction they would rather go. There will be some emergency, they will give power over SS funding to some "technocrat," who will phase it out, since in general that is what the DC consensus already wants to do.

[waitwutt]

Mhmm, nothing exactly wrong with a global economy. Trade tends to bring peace and prosperity, whereas nationalist isolationism tends to bring conflict... of course, if you're lowly educated, you're shit out of luck, because you can easily be replaced by an asian that does your work twice as good for a tenth of the cost.

so globalism is bad for the lowly educated and the economies they are located in because without the jobs they will need more in welfare which will up the taxes of everyone else?

[petej0]

I won't be surprised to see SS phased out for this very reason, and some cut off date applied and everyone after that date gets nothing, and everyone between those dates gets some prorated payments.

I would agree with you. I think you have to replace it with something though. Older people will need some sort of income because they will still have bills that need to be paid and they will have diminished capabilities to work. I would imagine an Elderly Pension would be the way to go. A system that pays retired people a living wage. But then you are basically just renaming Social Security, hahah.

[Caolela]

You seem to be having a reading comprehension problem. I never said treasury notes paid 12-13%, as that would obviously make them a great investment. The very simple point that you missed, is that "losing all your money" in the stock market never happens, and when we have had the biggest declines in the market historically, it would have only taken 10 years of 12-13% gains (any solid mutual fund) to off set a 40% loss and be ahead of the person who put their money in a "safe" investment like treasury notes.

But yeah, call me a liar and all that because that shows intelligence. If you are not smart enough to follow the argument, just call the person a liar. Seems legit.

Fine. You go ahead with losing your ass every decade or so at the whim of the Wall St. gamblers and hucksters and trying to recoup it before the next economic disaster, and keep repeating that loop. That shows a lot of "intelligence". Others will take their money elsewhere.

That also doesn't mean that a successful program like S.S. should be abandoned. There is a reason it's roped off from the likes of the Jamie Dimon's and Lloyd Blankfein's.

We can imagine what would have happened if for example, Bush would have had his way in 2005 and privatized S.S. They had to know the crash was coming shortly, and S.S. retirees would have been wiped out. But it went over like a lead balloon and the American people rejected the scam. Rightly so.

At any rate, I was only replying to someone about what S.S.'s income sources were until you jumped in with the "brilliant Wall St. math" and went on a tangent. But no matter how much you try to polish a turd, it's still a turd.

[petej0]

They had to know the crash was coming shortly, and S.S. retirees would have been wiped out. .

They didnt know, there were only a few people out there saying that a bubble was about to burst. Nobody wanted to listen because housing was the most "stable" thing possible. Home prices only went up, nobody could fathom values would plummet. Anyone who claimed otherwise was labeled a DoomSayer and laughed off the panel as a kook.

Having said all that, privatizing SS was a dumb idea by someone trying to do something about a collapsing system. What they need to do, is just get rid of the SS tax and raise income taxes or implement a National Sales tax that is used to pay a living wage for the Retired and Disabled.

[Saucerian]

I think we can do better than both courses everyone seems stuck on. I don't want the current system of sky-high costs and crony mega-insurers who pay as few benefits as possible, or a socialized system of dis-incentivized health habits, everyone on insulin, and sick people dying while waiting for care. There's got to be a better option.

I think people should heed opinions of retired doctors on how health care worked here decades ago. Insurance was much more true insurance, i.e. all plans were more like the "catastrophic" plans that ACA has now forbidden. Much, much more care was simply paid for out of pocket and prices were lower due to that and to the fact doctors weren't compelled to order every kind of expensive test for fear of being sued.

Anyhoo, enough internet debate for now.

[Caolela]

They didnt know, there were only a few people out there saying that a bubble was about to burst. Nobody wanted to listen because housing was the most "stable" thing possible. Home prices only went up, nobody could fathom values would plummet. Anyone who claimed otherwise was labeled a DoomSayer and laughed off the panel as a kook.

Having said all that, privatizing SS was a dumb idea by someone trying to do something about a collapsing system. What they need to do, is just get rid of the SS tax and raise income taxes or implement a National Sales tax that is used to pay a living wage for the Retired and Disabled.

I'm talking about the people in charge of changing the policies, from back to 1999 with Clinton and Rubin and some Repubs which is where it started when they got rid of Glass-Steagall. They knew then that it would only be a matter of time before it would implode, because it has to once the restrictions are removed and you let Wall St. run amok. The Bush crew and Hank Paulson knew it too.

Meanwhile, get in there and grab what you can, then when it blows up you can run to the taxpayers to bail you out in the biggest redistribution of wealth rip-off in human history -- and no one goes to jail or is held accountable, unlike during the S&L scandal of the 80s. The Bush crew even threatened some Congress members with martial law if they didn't get the initial $700. billion Paulson wanted.

It was socialism for them (which they hate until they need it), but "capitalism" for everyone else.

[alexw]

I think it's a clear "No Shit" moment here. The insurance companies are only in it to make money. When there are more people in their system actually using it, they're not going to be seeing profit and they're going to head for the hills to avoid paying as much as possible.

Had a similar experience myself after talking to my mom. She had broken her ankle and had to have it cast. Her insurance, which is Aetna, paid for everything, but tried to argue over the cast. The doctor decided due to the location of her break, all they needed to do was a hard plastic cast instead of plaster. The insurance tried to claim she owed almost $3,000 for the cast and visit to the doctors as they don't cover that type of cast. She argued it and they dropped it.

After that, the doctors put her in physical therapy. Her doctor told her that she was going to be in physical therapy for a month, three times a week, so 12 visits. After that month was up, he ordered another month as he wasn't happy with her range of motion and swelling. The insurance refused, saying someone can only have 20 physical therapy visits a year, because that's all they cover. That meant she could only do 8 visits, or twice a week. After that time was up, the doctor still wanted her to go for another two weeks, but she couldn't because her insurance wouldn't pay for it.

Likewise, during her physical therapy, she got a letter from Aetna claiming that she was okay to go to physical therapy, but here is a list of things they don't cover. In that list were electric stimulation, therapeutic manipulation, and ice packs. Yes, ice packs. I'm not sure how many of you out there have had physical therapy, but manipulation and ice packs are almost core to physical therapy. Therapists need to manipulate your injured limbs to make sure they are mobile enough to get back to a day to day functioning level. Also, ice is almost always used to help prevent swelling. Her insurance though, straight up said "Nah, we're not going to pay for that."

At the end of the day, her insurance basically paid for her to go inside the physical therapy building, but once inside, anything they actually did to help with her physical therapy was no longer covered.

When all is said and done, her insurance should be better. She gets insurance through the state via retirement, and pays nearly $1,250 a month for it. It was good insurance until Obamacare came into existence. I told her it's time to start shopping around, because Aetna has clearly gone down hill. Obamacare needs to go, and we either need to go to a single payer, government controlled system, or we need a 100% open market that forces insurance companies to compete, not just go the way of entertainment with their Oligopolies.

IMO this is a perfect example of why the cost is so much. Think of all the effort and thus money going into them trying to reduce the care provided. Now multiply that up for every single patient that gets treated and you get a great whacking overhead that ends up reducing the amount of healthcare provided instead of increasing it while forcing up the cost.

[Ghostmcghosty]

I think we can do better than both courses everyone seems stuck on. I don't want the current system of sky-high costs and crony mega-insurers who pay as few benefits as possible, or a socialized system of dis-incentivized health habits, everyone on insulin, and sick people dying while waiting for care. There's got to be a better option.

I think people should heed opinions of retired doctors on how health care worked here decades ago. Insurance was much more true insurance, i.e. all plans were more like the "catastrophic" plans that ACA has now forbidden. Much, much more care was simply paid for out of pocket and prices were lower due to that and to the fact doctors weren't compelled to order every kind of expensive test for fear of being sued.

Anyhoo, enough internet debate for now.

I think there is a lot of truth in this. Rather than treat the symptoms (Affordable care act. Socialized healthcare, More govt subsidy and control) we should figure out why this current generation of Americans cannot afford anything.

-We can't afford college.
-We can't afford a car
-We can't afford a house.
-We can't afford basic health care.

Yet most of our parents would have been able to get by fine without ever really needing to take out a loan of any sort.

Rather than have big daddy govt step in and have us 100% reliant on them to survive, I rather have the govt do what I expected them to do in the first place, and not allow shit to get this out of hand in the first place. When your parents paid their way through college via a part time job, but you still need two full time jobs to live comfortably post graduation, something is seriously fucked.

[Logwyn]

So... go ahead and look into it.

You stated that no one is Canada or Europe dies to due being poor. All I need to find is one instance and your wrong. Simple as that. I wasn't arguing anything about your rant on Obama care. That has nothing to do with dying to being poor.

http://notrickszone.com/2016/03/29/e....UueiTTgg.dpbs

"In 2014 in Europe there were about 40,000 winter deaths because millions of people were unable to pay for their electric bills – the so-called energy poverty currently impacts about ten percent of all Europeans. In the past 8 years the price of electricity in Europe has climbed by an average of 42 percent.” - See more at: http://notrickszone.com/2016/03/29/europe-lets-its-citizens-to-freeze-to-death-40000-dead-in-winter-2014-as-energy-poverty-explodes/#sthash.UueiTTgg.dpuf"

Oh my.. You mean the poor died in Europe due to not being able to pay for electricity.

Oh wait
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...ing-bills.html

Another one?

https://www.thestar.com/opinion/comm...very_year.html

Hmm about Canada.

https://diablogue.org/2013/11/01/soc...ath-in-canada/

Low Income..... Death... ugh..

[Zan15]

Actually, S.S. is one of THE most efficiently run programs ever, public or private:





I'd like to see anything in the private sector insurance or health care rackets...I mean industries...get anywhere close to that.


https://www.ssa.gov/oact/STATS/admin.html

Helps when their entire billing system is covered under IRS budgets/expenses.

- - - Updated - - -

Nah bruh, take a few hundred billion from the defense budget, stop world policing, and take care of our own. Easy peasy, not socialism. Public works. learn the fucking difference.

- - - Updated - - -



They make that much because you have 2 workers making between 10-15 an hour. or the person making 15 an hour works 60+ hours a week. good luck making that in a non-manufacturing environment w/o going tens of thousands in debt for a degree. even then you arent guaranteed. Best bet? Go to vocational school, learn a trade, and work for yourself. No limit to how much you can earn then.

Take it 2 steps foward.

Cut the military budget in half.

Cut these pensions/lifetime healthcare for all govt/state employees.

just between those two you will be able to fund the hell out of healthcare for everyone with the tax dollars we already are putting into the system.

you can also throw in farm subsidies, corporate welfare, tax loopholes (apple) and stop funding cheap drugs for every other country that price controls drugs while we pick up the tab.

[Caolela]

Helps when their entire billing system is covered under IRS budgets/expenses.

How does that change the fact that S.S. administrative expenses are one percent or less of combined expenditures from the trust funds for the last 27 years?

[KyrtF]

All working as intended.

Crash healthcare, make the common idiots beg for single payer, aka .gov healthcare. = full blown socialism/control incoming. '

I HATE Globalists/Leftists.

Would you then advocate privatising the police? The army? The Fire Service?

There are some things government does better...things that government should do. Private enterprise is important...but that doesn't make it the best solution for every problem.

The US spends a huge amount of money of healthcare each year. And if you can afford it, the results are excellent. But if you can't....

As it is, other nations get a lot more value for their money. Other healthcare services are more efficient. The UK spends about 40% per head as the US....but its NHS system is a lot more efficient, and achieves results almost as good and spreads that benefit over the entire population as opposed to those who can afford it. People don't go bankrupt in the UK for getting sick.

On the other hand, they don't spend a lot of money making the patient feel special. If you can't turn up for an appointment when the doctor is free, obviously you aren't that sick anyway. The food is bad, the "service" is poor, overcrowding is rife, doctors and nurses are arguably overworked...and yet life expectancy in the US is just a few years more than in the UK. Despite the vast difference in resources the US pours into health.

Not everything that is leftwing is bad and not everything that is right wing is good. Nor does government sponsored healthcare equal socialism. Again - the UK. I'd hardly call it a Socialist nation but it still has the NHS.

[Huehuecoyotl]

There are some things government does better...things that government should do. Private enterprise is important...but that doesn't make it the best solution for every problem.

I would state it quite simply; anything that could go bankrupt and the result would be people saying "oh, x is closing down? That's a shame" can be run privately. If it fails, it fails. Anything that can go bankrupt and the result would be the government having to step in and take over, has to be publicly owned and publicly run. So that's health, public transport, education, amenities (power, water etc.)

Otherwise you are creating the situation where private companies take profits, under-invest, pay themselves too much in salary and dividends, then walk away when they have milked it dry. Leaving the tax payers to have to rebuild it, reinvest and repair until it is strong enough to sell off (cheaply) to private industry, who will do exactly the same thing again. Capitalism for the profits, socialism for the losses.

If society cannot afford for something to fail, society has to own it. End of story.

[Shadowferal]

How does what you just said conflict with my statement that insurance rates did NOT go down under enforced obamacare?

double negative...tricky.

[petej0]

I'm talking about the people in charge of changing the policies, from back to 1999 with Clinton and Rubin and some Repubs which is where it started when they got rid of Glass-Steagall. They knew then that it would only be a matter of time before it would implode, because it has to once the restrictions are removed and you let Wall St. run amok. The Bush crew and Hank Paulson knew it too.

Meanwhile, get in there and grab what you can, then when it blows up you can run to the taxpayers to bail you out in the biggest redistribution of wealth rip-off in human history -- and no one goes to jail or is held accountable, unlike during the S&L scandal of the 80s. The Bush crew even threatened some Congress members with martial law if they didn't get the initial $700. billion Paulson wanted.

It was socialism for them (which they hate until they need it), but "capitalism" for everyone else.

Yeah, I am not gonna rehash this, because this isnt the right thread. Believing that is akin to believing 9/11 was an inside job.

I think there is a lot of truth in this. Rather than treat the symptoms (Affordable care act. Socialized healthcare, More govt subsidy and control) we should figure out why this current generation of Americans cannot afford anything.

-We can't afford college.
-We can't afford a car
-We can't afford a house.
-We can't afford basic health care.

Yet most of our parents would have been able to get by fine without ever really needing to take out a loan of any sort.

Rather than have big daddy govt step in and have us 100% reliant on them to survive, I rather have the govt do what I expected them to do in the first place, and not allow shit to get this out of hand in the first place. When your parents paid their way through college via a part time job, but you still need two full time jobs to live comfortably post graduation, something is seriously fucked.

This is because the prices of these things have skyrocketed due to government interference.

-We can't afford college. Thanks to government subsidies (school loan programs)
-We can't afford a car. That is just inflation and the endless features that they have placed in cars. Plus some government involvement.
-We can't afford a house. Thanks to government subsidies (home loan programs, fannie/freddie
-We can't afford basic health care. Thanks to government involvement

[Shadowferal]

This is because the prices of these things have skyrocketed due to government interference.

No.
Wages never kept pace with inflation.
Letting pharms set prices as high as they want (Thanks for nothing Shkreli. I hope you get the beating you deserve in prison)
And then there's all those middle class jobs going away...ok. We can blame the government there for encouraging that by giving fat tax breaks to companies that fuck over US manufacturing...

There's just so much to go over. But calling it "government interference" without calling out the big business that encourages "pay-to-play" politics is either disingenuous, ignorant, or blatantly stupid. If you have some sort of narrative that prevents you from being objective then it may be all of the above. Multinational companies pushed and helped frame the government's free-trade policies (our current president still mouths "free trade."). And it was easy. To gain access to those that write the trade regulations, foreign interests simply buy the services of former government officials (i.e congresspersons) that did the job. Look at Barney Frank; former Rep for MA, and former chairman of the House Financial Services Committee and was a leading co-sponsor of the 2010 Dodd–Frank Act, a reform of the U.S. financial industry. What's he doing now? On the Board of Directors for Signature Bank. And it's the same for every industry. After all, the Health Insurance lobby helped write Obamacare.

[ItachiZaku]

there's absolutely no first world nation where national healthcare systems work right? Oh right, it's pretty much all of them except the US . . .

Freedom isn't free. Can't afford to police the world AND offer health care to our own.

[petej0]

No.
Wages never kept pace with inflation.

Is that the reason why 2k sqft homes go for $300k now? No its because banks hand out all this money to home buyers because they can just package the loans and sell them. Or because the the government guarantees the loans via Fannie/Freddie.

Letting pharms set prices as high as they want (Thanks for nothing Shkreli. I hope you get the beating you deserve in prison)

It isnt just pharms its all health care, from drugs, equipment to hospital services. All because patients have been removed from seeing the price of services. Again thanks to government being the reason why employers offered health care and doubling down on making health care deductible.

And then there's all those middle class jobs going away...ok. We can blame the government there for encouraging that by giving fat tax breaks to companies that fuck over US manufacturing...

No, thanks to government signing shit ass trade deals allowing manufacturing to skip country.

There's just so much to go over. But calling it "government interference" without calling out the big business that encourages "pay-to-play" politics is either disingenuous, ignorant, or blatantly stupid. If you have some sort of narrative that prevents you from being objective then it may be all of the above. Multinational companies pushed and helped frame the government's free-trade policies (our current president still mouths "free trade."). And it was easy. To gain access to those that write the trade regulations, foreign interests simply buy the services of former government officials (i.e congresspersons) that did the job. Look at Barney Frank; former Rep for MA, and former chairman of the House Financial Services Committee and was a leading co-sponsor of the 2010 Dodd–Frank Act, a reform of the U.S. financial industry. What's he doing now? On the Board of Directors for Signature Bank. And it's the same for every industry. After all, the Health Insurance lobby helped write Obamacare.

Yes, big business has a role to play, but government (or politicians) has helped big business. Screw everything over. Government is full of good ideas to solve problems that end up fucking things up even worse. The road to hell is paved with good intentions.

[Shadowferal]

Yes, big business has a role to play, but government (or politicians) has helped big business. Screw everything over. Government is full of good ideas to solve problems that end up fucking things up even worse. The road to hell is paved with good intentions.

Giving a pass to big business while condemning government that simply followed big business' money tells me you have a narrative that doesn't really accept objectivity.

I suspect if money was taken out of politics you'd be really pissed...at government again for reasons. But at least big business wouldn't be making them "fuck things up."