A friend of mine recently started a discussion topic asking for people to post their opinions about the ACA (Affordable Care Act, otherwise known as Obamacare). His "ground rules" included the following: "The object is to understand each other better....I expect
disagreement, but would be deeply disappointed by "disagreeability".
Respectfully challenging sources is fine; challenging integrity,
intelligence, veracity, or spelling(!) is shameful."
I personally would ask that the same ground rules be followed with this Blog post, which is basically the same response I made to my friend in his discussion topic. The response (and the main part of this Blog post) is as follows:
The biggest problem with the ACA is that it's addressing the wrong problems. The main problem isn't that enough people don't have health insurance, the main problem is that health care should not be as expensive as it is. Health insurance is basically totally over-used in this country. Insurance should be used only in unusual circumstances--much like auto or home insurance. I've heard it said before (and very much agree) that if we used auto insurance the way we use health insurance, we'd be paying for oil changes with auto insurance.
Here's an example of health care costs being too expensive...
On 10/4/16, I went to have my semi-annual CBC (Complete Blood Count) done that had been ordered by my primary care physician. This is a matter of course, with most of my counts historically being within normal (or near normal) ranges. The billed price: $2,439.00.
But that is not how much was paid. That was the amount billed to the insurance company. The insurance paid $93.27, and due to the contract between the insurance company and the provider, the provider wrote off $2,291.43, leaving me to pay a balance of $54.30. Right there is a MAJOR part of the problem: There should not be charges to anyone showing $2,439.00 when payment in full (from all sources) is $147.57.
Everything medical shouldn't have to be sent through an insurance company. When I moved to Ohio in 1984, I would still go to a family doctor, and would pay cash (or check--just no insurance involved) for the office visit. The amount charged was $25. Based on the U.S. inflation calculator -- https://www.bls.gov/data/inflation_calculator.htm -- the equivalent of $25.00 in 1984 dollars would have been $57.75 in 2016. But a couple of years ago (having NOTHING to do with the ACA, but rather with the insurance offered through my wife's employer) we had to change family physicians to someone who was in our insurance's "network" because we now pay a "co-pay" of $20 for an office visit to the family physician, but we would have had to pay about $135 for an office visit to the out-of-network provider. $57.75 for an office visit in 2016 would represent a 131% increase over 32 years (from 1984 to 2016). But the $135 in 2016 compared to the $25 in 1984 is an increase of 440%. Medical costs are just too high, and a significant part of the reason has to do with overuse of health insurance.
I have too many issues with the ACA to be able to enumerate them all here. The biggest ones are the MANDATES. The federal government should not be able to mandate that people purchase coverage, or that employers provide coverage to full-time employees--AND define full-time as (I think) about 30 hours per week. I have been working "part time" at a golf course for the past 5 years (generally seasonally, about April-October). This is a small business, and the owner has to make sure that part-time employees don't work more than 30 hours per week. So that means that people have actually lost work hours since before the implementation of the ACA.
There are a few aspects of the ACA that have the POTENTIAL to be good. One is the elimination of lifetime maximum payments from the insurance companies. Actually, there's really nothing negative about that provision.
Another potentially positive aspect of the ACA is the part about not being able to deny coverage for pre-existing conditions. That should be something that remains, but it also needs to be amended so that people don't take abuse it (such as by electing to not pay for any health insurance until a condition is found, and only then purchasing insurance).
A third potentially positive aspect of the ACA is for people to be on their parents' health insurance through age 26. But rather than being MANDATED that this MUST be the case, it should be an OPTION along the lines that the insurance cannot automatically drop a person's coverage until age 26, but that the insured can choose whether or not to have that person covered through the policy.I could go on, but I think I've written a book already. By the way, for the record, this is written by someone who has worked in the medical field, and who has immediate relatives who work in the health care field as well.
