Aetna to exit nearly 7 in 10 Obamacare plans

[petej0]

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."

I didnt give a pass to big business at all. It takes two to tango, it seems you dont want to blame government at all? Who is more to blame, big business who gave money for preferential treatment or the politicians who took that money and crafted and voted for legislation that gave preferential treatment?

[Maerad]

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.

I think you should think about the term socialism. Socialism has so many ways, it's not only the chinese etc. system.

IMHO there are some things a gov. needs to run by itself for the benefit of all - one of them general health care. In Germany you are automatically insured and to drop out of that, something really have to go the wrong way. Also, if you are above a special salary, you are free to choose a private insurance.

And what's there to control? Does a system with thousands of insurances have less control from the state? Do you really think, they couldn't watch you?

I like the idea to being secure, even if my life won't turn out how it should be. Lets say you are 40 years old and fit like no other. Now a hearth condition gets diagnosed, you need operations and regeneration for like 6 month at least, your employee fires you and all your savings for the old age get used up + you need to take some credits. Too far away? Not really, we had one father of 2 kids in our sport community and that happend to him. Lucky, he didn't go bankrupt, because the gov. insurance paid for anything.

As a community, I think it's really important how we thread the weakest link in our mid. Sure, there might be some ppl that misuse or try to misuse the system for their own benefit, but most of them aren't. I'm really glad I live in a country were a sickness won't bankrupt me and if I lose my job, there will be a save net that helps me find another and pay for my invoices. Sure, I don't get as much money from the gov., but it's enough to keep my current live standard. You won't get homeless here, if you don't decide you want.

It's not the perfect system, but I guess there is no perfect system out there. Funny thing is also, that countrys with the highest taxes and social payments are also those, the ppl are most happy. Even IF they have to pay more.

A full socialism is bad, but so is a full capitalisitc. The true path is in between. A free market with some limits and the gov controlling a bit. Greed can destroy much, and that's something that's happening right now

[Jinpachi]

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

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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.

I wanna buy you a fucking drink

[Poopymonster]

I wanna buy you a fucking drink

Roofies?

/10char_being_literal

[Varaben]

(source)

The best argument for a single-payer health plan is today’s decision by giant health insurer Aetna to stop participating in Obamacare health exchanges in all but four states. If follows a similar move by UnitedHealth Group, the nation's largest insurer. Both say they’re not making enough money because too many people with serious health problems are using the exchanges and not enough healthy people are signing up.

It all proves that a healthcare system run by giant for-profit firms is a system designed to avoid sick people.

Meanwhile, giant health insurers are consolidating into two or three behemoths. Aetna itself is trying to buy Humana. So the real choice for the future is either a public single-payer system or a hugely-expensive for-profit single-payer monopoly that will try to avoid people who need health care.

What do you think?

It just seems to me that if there were any industries that should never be for profit it would be healthcare and education. Now, does that mean the government should run healthcare? Who the fuck knows if that would ever work.

But holy shit there is so much waste in the healthcare industry. Try to figure out how much a procedure costs. Go ahead, try. You ask Humana or whoever if it's covered. Well it depends on your plan. Are you high risk for XYZ? How old are you? Which doctor are you going to use? Seriously, I just want to know how much it will cost. They can't tell you.

It's ludicrous. But one thing's for sure: if anything is immoral, it's companies profiting off healthcare and education. I don't really see how this is debatable, though I'm sure there are good arguments on the other side.

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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.

Doctors are so crazy with tests these days. Wife goes in for a check up. Found something that has a 10% chance of being a problem. Better run another test. Two weeks later. Well that wasn't a problem, but we might see something else. Better run another test. Two weeks later. Nope, nothing is wrong, go home.

2 grand later, nothing was wrong and we're stressed out for a month worrying about something that was nothing. Thanks Doc.

Edit: Oh yeah, how much will those tests cost? No idea. Are they covered? Maybe. Ok, if they aren't how much does it cost? No idea. Thanks health insurance, you've been an enormous help with all the lack of transparency and unnecessary tests.

[Caolela]

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.

Since Glass-Steagall was explicitly designed to prevent just such a thing from occurring again, which it did well for 67 years until Clinton repealed it and less than 10 years later we had the '07-'08 crash, I'd say your silly and misguided opinion is similar to the government's coincidence theory on 9/11. So I'm not surprised.

Remember that Bob Rubin had spent 26 years at Goldman-Sachs and also had been a top exec at Citigroup. As Clinton's Treasury Sec'y he oversaw the loosening of financial industry underwriting guidelines which had been intact since the 1930s.

If you don't think they (including the Repubs that helped write and co-sponsored the Gramm–Leach–Bliley Act) knew exactly what they were doing and what the consequences would be, PM me. I have some nice derivatives and sub-prime mortgages to sell you.

[Bollocks]

Since Glass-Steagall was explicitly designed to prevent just such a thing from occurring again, which it did well for 67 years until Clinton repealed it and less than 10 years later we had the '07-'08 crash, I'd say your silly and misguided opinion is similar to the government's coincidence theory on 9/11. So I'm not surprised.

Remember that Bob Rubin had spent 26 years at Goldman-Sachs and also had been a top exec at Citibank. As Clinton's Treasury Sec'y he oversaw the loosening of financial industry underwriting guidelines which had been intact since the 1930s.

If you don't think they (including the Repubs that helped write and co-sponsored the Gramm–Leach–Bliley Act) knew exactly what they were doing and what the consequences would be, PM me. I have some nice derivatives and sub-prime mortgages to sell you.

Glass Steagal's removal was not related to the 07 and 08 crash.

[Caolela]

Glass Steagal's removal was not related to the 07 and 08 crash.

Your first mistake is listening to anything "Helicopter Ben" has to say. Of course he's going to spin that lie, because his policies fell right in line with the big bank bailouts and the theft of the People's Treasury through Quantitative Easing - to the tune of $85 billion per month for many months.

[Vynny]

The United States worked as it has due to the states and their autonomy. Problem is, as we've grown in power, so has our Federal Government. This makes experimentation and local-level tailoring much more difficult to do. It also, over time, makes the populace increasingly dependent on the central body taking care of them which in turns consumes more resources unto itself that could've been reserved for local governments.

No government, no matter how large, can contend with the scope of a landmass and peoples like that of the United States. It simply can't function at high-efficiency that way. The Feds should instead be acting as a check/balance to the states but not as an absolute ruler as it is rapidly now becoming.

Yes, it will mean some states are shittier than others. Guess what? Nothing is perfect but at least you as an individual have more say and more opportunity to seek out a home that is sufficient for you. This is what will help keep differing ideologies from going at one another's throats and produce more results/data for everyone to review and consider.

I like the idea of the states acting as constant experiments for democracy. Without them doing so we don't advance nor evolve ourselves. We become like any other power destined for collapse.

However, you still need the federal government to do a bit of standardization in order to keep the states cohesive in one nation. You can't just allow states to become blocs of ideologically opposed people because you would end up with tensions rising between states and all of a sudden they want to secede which just causes chaos. On top of that, many people (mainly on the right) claim that they view states as the laboratories of democracy, but when the results come in and very left leaning states with high taxes on the rich such as California succeed to the extent of having an economy equal to some of the richest nations in the world they then refuse to take any of that on board. I mean, that's just disingenuous to it's core, and they're just saying let the states test things out so they can forestall the reality that some left wing policies are actually improvements upon what we know to work well already.

Also, I'm not inherently against the right wing. I think that the left and right wing have different roles in the country based on their political philosophy, but that both need to be strong in order for a country to work. The way I see it is that left wingers value prosperity above all else and will try new (and sometimes ill thought out) ways to increase the total amount of prosperity for the country; whereas, right wingers focus on stability and stick to methods that are already proven to work rather than introducing instability by trying new things regardless of the possible gains. If I had to make a metaphor for this, I would say that a country is like a person walking their dog, the dog is the left, the collar/leash are the right, and the person is the people of the country. The dog if left unchecked will run rampant and cause all sorts of problems, the collar if applied too much will harm or kill the dog, and the person is the one deciding how much slack to give the dog and how much force to pull on the collar with.

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The 85% of Americans who get insurance through their employer like being able to get an MRI or CATSCAN in a couple days versus waiting several months like you. You think America has an opioid epidemic now, wait until every redneck can walk into a doctor's office at no cost.

"I think I have a malignant mole"
"Sir, that's a coffee stain on your shirt"
"Better biopsy it anyway, it's free!"


Thanks, but no thanks.

And we'd need tort reform before this ever happened. Heroin junkies suing hospitals for not identifying birth defects in appointments they never appeared for is a real problem.

Except that even with insurance through our employers, we don't get MRI's and CAT scans for weeks. I hurt my shoulder at work and the doctor gave me an X-Ray and couldn't find any damage to the bone, so he had me do some physical therapy, but it turns out that I tore some soft tissue and that drained into a cyst which would've shown up on an MRI had they given me one and was made worse by the physical therapy. Why didn't they give me an MRI you may ask? Because the insurance company wouldn't approve it until all other possibilities were looked into so they wouldn't pay for the MRI (which I paid money out of my paycheck in order to be able to afford) until after I went through the physical therapy that made it worse because that makes perfect sense. Anyways, they then did the MRI, found the cyst, and then I had to get surgery to repair the damage and it took almost a full year before I was fully recovered and could resume working at full capacity (which my employer was not very happy about). All in all, private insurance doesn't guarantee that you're going to get the treatment or care that you as a paying customer deserve because at the end of the day, all that matters to the people running the insurance companies is there bottom line, so if I have to choose between being able to use my vote and have a say in fixing problems with the insurance service and being beholden to greedy money grubbers who don't give a shit about me or the fact that I paid good money expecting good service then I'll go with the former over the latter.

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More like drug costs, costs of oxygen, costs of emergency room, cost of toilet paper etc have raised the health care cost extremely high. All insurance does is they pay a certain amount and YOU cover the rest.

Not exactly, Insurance companies pay out money that has already been paid to them by you. This is why there's usually a waiting period between when you start a new policy and when you can use it because they're sure as hell not paying it forward and counting on you to repay it. The problem with this system is that it gives the company really fucked up incentives because if I pay an insurance company x amount of dollars over a year and they pay out x amount of dollars in that same year then they make no money, so the incentive an insurance company has is to collect as much as possible while paying as little as possible in order to maximize profit. They're ideal business plan is to literally price gouge their customers to the brink of where they would refuse to use said service and then do the absolute minimum required of them when providing said service and use any justification possible to stick the customer with the bill. On top of that, that's not all insurance does, sometimes they're willing or even obligated by contract with you to pay for the cost of let's say an MRI, but they set conditions that must be met before they approve paying the money that you've already paid them in order to get healthcare, so many customers find themselves arguing with insurance companies because the company is contractually obligated to pay for your MRI, but refuses to pay out for it until all cheaper alternatives are exhausted; meanwhile, you're waiting several weeks to months for either one of those cheaper diagnostic tests to pan out or for the insurance company to finally approve the MRI all the while you're in pain or suffering from whatever's ailing you all because the insurance company would rather pay for an X-Ray, an EEG, a brace, weeks of physical therapy, etc. before paying out for an imaging diagnostic test that can actually view soft tissue such as an MRI or CAT scan.

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No that is what those places charge. It has jack shit to do with insurance companies. I know people like to get high on believing a few evil corporations are behind the cost of healthcare when in reality insurance companies aren't the ones setting the prices. They just figure out if they can reasonably cover it or not. They cover their part they agree on and again YOU cover the remainder.

Except that's not true. The price isn't just set where it's at which is why the UK with their NHS can get better quality healthcare (because more people have access to healthcare thus raising their average, but they still use the same medical technology as us) at 1/3 of the price that the average person in the USA pays. Prices are partially determined by what a customer is willing and able to pay, and insurance is a system where people pay money over time with the expectation that in the future, the insurance company will pay a portion or even a majority of it in one lump sum to a hospital in exchange for medical care. This artificially inflates the potential prices for healthcare because all of a sudden, sums of money in the 10's of thousands that hardly anyone would have sitting in their bank accounts actually become a price that can be realistically paid. The point is that you don't seem to understand economics. No hospital could sustain itself by charging such high amounts in contrast to what people are reasonably able to pay because only very few could reasonably afford it, and the upside of this artificial inflation is that it speeds up the progress and growth of the medical industry because there's more money circulating in and out of it than there otherwise would be without insurance artificially inflating prices.

[roahn the warlock]

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..

You argue about as well as Donald Trump. In the real world, people don't over analyze the exact Grammar used in a sentence. IF anything it makes you look stupid. Since anyone with half a brain knows I mean that a statistically significant difference in mortality rates exist between America and single payer countries, specifically in the poverty levels. But I suppose you need shit spelled out for you.

But let's be real, the only reason you pulled that childish "Well I gotta find one case" is because I presented an argument you couldn't fight.

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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.

Except that doesn't happen in Canada, a country literally right above us. So? Real world example > Your opinion.

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How does someone pay for several hundred thousand dollars of medical care, exactly?

You're paying for everyone else even in an insurance based system.

^ Fucking this, but people aren't taught basic reasoning in school. Or at least in whatever backwards ass school these people went to.

Think about the free market for a moment. When a company makes something awesomesauce they make tons of money, and everyone is happy, generally that company then keeps making awesome stuff.

But, when an insurance company makes significant earnings. What... What exactly is the payoff? Insurance can't "Improve" That's why every insurance company blows ass from customer service to actually providing any care. Even if we completely opened it up to complete free market, we'd basically have car insurance for people. And Car insurance companies don't do anything for you either.

So why is it such a radical concept to take healthcare and make it not-for-profit. Because that is all a single payer system is. Overall prices will drop, negotiations for payments can happen more reasonably, and quicker. The consumer gets better options since they are no longer shoehorned into a specific system of hospitals or doctors, Pharmacies no longer need to jack up their prices to actually make money (We can have mom and pop pharmacies again), and pharmacies/hospitals will actually need to compete because you can go to any one you want.

Honestly, it's not even the insurance company's fault. Consider a moment you have a card, and you only use it to buy Bread. And you pay 5 dollars a month for that card that gets you free bread. you -need- bread. So, every month you buy bread from 1 bread company. The bread company knows you only can buy their bread, and they know you pay only 5 dollars a month. So what does bread do? They make their bread cost $100 a loaf, doesn't effect you, you only pay 5 a month.

This is how Drugs work, people. I'd rather our government negotiate the price of the drugs, like every other country does. And that isn't so radical an idea, any government contract was negotiated. Fucking Epi-pens dont need to cost 1,500 dollars.

[Logwyn]

You argue about as well as Donald Trump. In the real world, people don't over analyze the exact Grammar used in a sentence. IF anything it makes you look stupid. Since anyone with half a brain knows I mean that a statistically significant difference in mortality rates exist between America and single payer countries, specifically in the poverty levels. But I suppose you need shit spelled out for you.

But let's be real, the only reason you pulled that childish "Well I gotta find one case" is because I presented an argument you couldn't fight.

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Except that doesn't happen in Canada, a country literally right above us. So? Real world example > Your opinion.

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^ Fucking this, but people aren't taught basic reasoning in school. Or at least in whatever backwards ass school these people went to.

Think about the free market for a moment. When a company makes something awesomesauce they make tons of money, and everyone is happy, generally that company then keeps making awesome stuff.

But, when an insurance company makes significant earnings. What... What exactly is the payoff? Insurance can't "Improve" That's why every insurance company blows ass from customer service to actually providing any care. Even if we completely opened it up to complete free market, we'd basically have car insurance for people. And Car insurance companies don't do anything for you either.

So why is it such a radical concept to take healthcare and make it not-for-profit. Because that is all a single payer system is. Overall prices will drop, negotiations for payments can happen more reasonably, and quicker. The consumer gets better options since they are no longer shoehorned into a specific system of hospitals or doctors, Pharmacies no longer need to jack up their prices to actually make money (We can have mom and pop pharmacies again), and pharmacies/hospitals will actually need to compete because you can go to any one you want.

Honestly, it's not even the insurance company's fault. Consider a moment you have a card, and you only use it to buy Bread. And you pay 5 dollars a month for that card that gets you free bread. you -need- bread. So, every month you buy bread from 1 bread company. The bread company knows you only can buy their bread, and they know you pay only 5 dollars a month. So what does bread do? They make their bread cost $100 a loaf, doesn't effect you, you only pay 5 a month.

This is how Drugs work, people. I'd rather our government negotiate the price of the drugs, like every other country does. And that isn't so radical an idea, any government contract was negotiated. Fucking Epi-pens dont need to cost 1,500 dollars.

Nah dude. You made a statement. I found something to refute it. You fail to acknowledge the facts presented. You said something to the effect that poor people aren't dying in Canada or Europe simply to do being poor. Facts found to refute your statement.

Its not my fault that you want to resort to childishness in name calling and bashing now. That Sir is tactic generally used by the side that has their statement refuted and they want to back pedal and not acknowledge facts.

[Ghostmcghosty]

You argue about as well as Donald Trump. In the real world, people don't over analyze the exact Grammar used in a sentence. IF anything it makes you look stupid. Since anyone with half a brain knows I mean that a statistically significant difference in mortality rates exist between America and single payer countries, specifically in the poverty levels. But I suppose you need shit spelled out for you.

What? This is totally and demonstrably false. Also, they do this to Trump all the time. (they meaning Democrats and the media). And there is nothing wrong with that.

You made a claim. A silly claim at that. And someone proved it false. That is it. End of story.

And now you return to try and handwave them proving you wrong and saying that reading your words, understanding, and then providing proof of your statement false makes them look stupid? Sorry, but only one person looks stupid here. You have lost and now you are resorting to a pathos based argument with no basis in reality and hoping to appeal to peoples feelings for some reason. Like you are the poor victim for having someone actually understand your claim and take the time to investigate if it is true or not.

Don't say what you don't mean. It is not up to us to parse your sentences and decipher whether a claim was just some wild hypothetical example or a statement of fact. Also, there is lots of proof that people will clamp on to some irrelevant part of a person's post and argue that and not the point. The person you are angry at actually argued your main point, Which was that people don't die in Canada or Europe from being poor, and this is somehow a U.S. exclusive thing.

You were wrong.

[Deleted]

You argue about as well as Donald Trump. In the real world, people don't over analyze the exact Grammar used in a sentence. IF anything it makes you look stupid. Since anyone with half a brain knows I mean that a statistically significant difference in mortality rates exist between America and single payer countries, specifically in the poverty levels. But I suppose you need shit spelled out for you.

But let's be real, the only reason you pulled that childish "Well I gotta find one case" is because I presented an argument you couldn't fight.

Actually, you fought and lost.

You should take losses less personally, he just wanted to prove your claim wasn't true.

A wise man would just walk on now.

[Deleted]

Let's burn Obamacare down already. And any plans for socialized medicine with it.

[Shadowferal]

Let's burn Obamacare down already. And any plans for socialized medicine with it.

Yeah, let a Republican demand that Medicare be burned down...lets see that happen and then see how long s/he stays in office.

[Jinpachi]

Roofies?

/10char_being_literal

Perv. Your name herbert? or cosby, perhaps?

[Deathcries]

I'm so sick of the ghost of Joe McCarthy constantly coming back to screw Americans out of much needed healthcare changes (among other things.)

OH NO TEH SOSHULISMS! Because 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 . . .

But hey, I don't mind either being a broken leg away from being bankrupt or for paying expensive premiums just to get basic coverage. It's cool. As long as we're not socialists right?

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The fact that you're calling Obama a communist (top kek) tells me you don't know what communism is.

Fuck socialist, and fuck communist.

[Shadowferal]

Fuck socialist, and fuck communist.

Good neither truly exists...

[Poopymonster]

Perv. Your name herbert? or cosby, perhaps?

That was the first and easiest "fucking drink" I could think of. Probably cheapest too.

[Jinpachi]

That was the first and easiest "fucking drink" I could think of. Probably cheapest too.

Holy shit how did i let that one get past me. lol well played