Average Health Insurance premium....true for you?

[Canoeyawl]

What is that 5% number in dollars?

...

[John Smith]

I agree he had to compromise, with one of three institutions: doctors, big pharma, or the insurance industry. Ashame he chose the easy way out and sold out to the worst of the three, the one that provides no added value and is just a big sucking parasite.

Is that one of the three worse now than it was before?

[John Smith]

I think you might be blinded a bit by partisanship as well as the bone the Affordable Care Act threw you and your wife, to be able to recall just how ineptly and ineffectually Obama guided that legislation to and through Congress and how poorly he shaped public perception of the Affordable Care Act, both then and now. . .

It was pathetic.

I think you should look in the mirror. The Republicans shaped public opinion with misinformation. They predicted a lot of really nasty things that, so far, haven't happened.

[Todd D]

My wife and I pay $199.80 per month for the two of us. We have a !40 deductible for outpatient services (doctors visits) and then the insurance pays 80% of the balance. For hospital care we each have a $1,156 deductible and the everything is covered. We don't have prescription drug coverage for out of hospital drugs, but our total perscription bill is $40 per year.

[Paul Pless]

I think you should look in the mirror.

What am I supposed to be seeing?

[Canoeyawl]

.5% number does NOT matter ... in raw numbers ... insurance companies are NOT very profitable!

I disagree.
They are the most ruthless business model in the country. If they were "not very profitable" they would quit in a heartbeat, bankrupt. That's a no-brainer.

Hypothetical -
Say 300 million people in the US
Maybe 1/3 have coverage = 100 million
each person pays 200/ month
that's 240 - 100 million
Now 5% of that is, wait... 1.2 Billion Dollars

Seems like real money to me... A tidy little profit

[JMAC]

Todd D, who is your provider? I'm self-employed and feel singled out for the highest premiums...

[Peter Malcolm Jardine]

Come on over and hang about in north Winnipeg. Your odds of getting shot will be greatly increased.

Randy

I went through that stage of my life I'm kindler and gentler now.

[Todd D]

JMAC - Medicare - we are old geezers.

[hokiefan]

I agree he had to compromise, with one of three institutions: doctors, big pharma, or the insurance industry. Ashame he chose the easy way out and sold out to the worst of the three, the one that provides no added value and is just a big sucking parasite.

'Course with less inept leadership we may have ended up with a single payer system. <sigh>

Ya know Paul, for a conservative you're a pretty far out liberal.

Cheers,

Bobby

[Boston]

I have no insurance, I'm still pretty young so I can get away with it for now, but its nerve wracking. Its a sob story I'll spare you but my biz went down the tubes and here I sit broke and wondering what to do next. General contracting is a biz thats not coming back anytime soon.

Pretty sure I want to do something in the alternative energy sector. Got some pretty good ideas on that one and even converted my old truck to run on used motor oil. But for now I can't really afford much of anything. Living month to month sucks but it is what it is until things pick up.

[johnw]

'Course with less inept leadership we may have ended up with a single payer system. <sigh>

Dream on. We could have had better reform under Nixon, but the Democrats were holding out for single payer. The result? 40 years later we get this, a plan designed by the Heritage Foundation and derided by the Republicans who were supposed to make it law. Well, maybe it's a start. Medicare for everyone would be better in my humble opinion, and would cost less than buying health insurance from the insurance companies, but then the cost would be a tax instead of the market working its magic, so that would be evil.

Politics is the art of the possible. I'm hoping someday, something better will be possible.

[Peerie Maa]

Here is a view from a Right Wing newspaper comparing our system with the USA, as it happens the patient will be paying for the UK treatment as she is no longer resident in the UK. For the rest of us it is covered in our tax bill, so shared out over the total population, reducing the cost to that of the average spend.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/ar...best-care.html

Of course, looming over all of this is the price tag. In America, the bill that landed on my doormat a month after I was discharged was £63,500 ($100,000). That did not include bills for the surgeon, the anaesthetist, the radiology department and the pathology laboratory, which added up to an extra £3,322 ($5,227).
Thankfully, my insurance covered most of it, but I still have to pay £4,766 ($7,500) of it myself — what in British insurance terms would be known as an excess.
The NHS was not free to me because I have not lived in Britain for so long. I have yet to receive the bill, but the published cost of a gall bladder removal by laparoscopy is around £3,000 in the UK, so I am expecting a similar charge for my appendectomy in London.
But no one was rushing to get my signature on the dotted line, unlike in LA. A pleasant lady turned up with a form giving my insurance details, which I could sign at my leisure on the day I left the Chelsea and Westminster.
Of course, for most people reading this article there would be nothing to pay. So, next time you hear an NHS horror story, remember the other side of the coin.
The NHS may have its faults but, rather like having surgery itself, it really is so much better than the alternative.

[Canoeyawl]

Wow, $4 per person. You've solved the health care crisis.

Well, yeah - Let's say that is the profit, $4/person.

Then let's add in the lobbying, the advertising, the percs and the absurd salaries along with the other frivolous expenses, and we are probably closing in on 25% or more.
Whatever that number is, it might begin to solve the health care issue. (At this time it's only a crisis if you are sick, have a pre-existing condition, or are only making a 5% profit on others misfortune).

It's an unsustainable model for an advanced civilization... If it continues, corporate greed may take down the entire nation.

It reminds me of the fire department watching your house burn down if you didn't belong to their insurance company.
If your house was ablaze, that would be a pre-existing condition by todays rules.