Americans with Govt. health plans most satisfied

>Meanwhile, those with employer-sponsored health plans and those who bought their own insurance were nearly twice as likely to report problems with their medical bills than people with Medicare, the study found.

>The researchers said coverage of Medicare beneficiaries improved over the past decade, while access to care and problems with medical costs got worse for adults with other types of health plans.

>People with individual or employer-sponsored health plans were much more likely to have high out-of-pocket expenses, the researchers said. Although 29 percent of older adults on Medicare reported spending 10 percent or more of their income on medical costs, 37 percent of those with employer-based insurance and 58 percent with individual insurance did the same.

>Paying rent and buying food and other essentials was a problem for 27 percent of adults with employer-sponsored plans and 33 percent of those with individual insurance. On the other hand, 13 percent of Medicare beneficiaries were unable to pay for their basic necessities.

>For Medicare patients, however, satisfaction with their coverage depends on whether they were enrolled in traditional Medicare plans or in Medicare Advantage plans that are offered by private insurance companies.

>Although 15 percent of people with Medicare Advantage rated their insurance as fair or poor, just 6 percent with traditional Medicare felt the same way about their coverage.

>People with Medicare Advantage plans also were more likely to have trouble affording their medical care than those with traditional Medicare. Thirty-two percent of those enrolled in Medicare Advantage had at least one problem with accessing care due to cost, compared with 23 percent of those with traditional Medicare.

>"In the policy debates over the federal budget deficit, the affordability of Medicare and the expansion of health insurance through the Affordable Care Act, listening to the experiences of individuals -- whether covered by Medicare or private employer insurance -- is important," the study's authors wrote.

>The researchers concluded that state insurance exchanges to be established in 2014 may be a way for states to offer traditional Medicare coverage to working-age adults.

>"As we expand insurance and move toward near-universal coverage, it is imperative that we ensure health plans provide financial protection and good access to care," Karen Davis, president of the Commonwealth Fund, said in the release. "The achievements of Medicare in fulfilling the goals of health insurance coverage for beneficiaries can provide important lessons for the entire U.S. health system."

>The study was published July 18 in the journal Health Affairs.

>>162641
Yeah because they're the only ones not getting fucked by Obamacare, everyone else is footing their bill

>>162646
The ACA made private health insurance policies less expensive and more robust by requiring people to subscribe to insurance before they become high risk, and in exchange regulating the minimum coverage insurers provide.
Medicare, medicaid, military insurance have been around well before the ACA, and private health insurance still has significantly higher approval than nothing.

>>162649
The aca litterally cost my family 7,000$ more this year and ruined my tax return

So no, it didn't make it less expensive and more robust (2 options in my state, down from 8)

>>162652
Yeah, but it saved some other family 30,000. You got fucked and I'm sorry. Hopefully we can fix it or replace it with something better. The old way is still more flawed overall than ACA though.

>>162652
Costs have been rising at a far higher rate than inflation long before the ACA. The ACA has significantly slowed that increase nationwide while enforcing mandatory minimum standards of coverage.

>>In 2008, the average employer-sponsored family plan cost a total of $12,680, with employees footing $3,354 of the bill, according to Kaiser data. By 2016, the cost of the average employer family plan was up to $18,142 for the year, with workers picking up $5,277 of the tab.These increased costs for employers and employees alike may seem steep?up around 50% over the past eight years?but they could have risen far higher had the Affordable Care Act never passed. The Kaiser study shows that average family premiums rose 20% from 2011 to 2016. That rate of increase is actually much lower than the previous five years (up 31% from 2006 to 2011) and the five years before that (up 63% from 2001 to 2006).
http://www.kff.org/health-costs/issue-brief/health-care-costs-and-election-2008/

The fact that the law had worked better in some states than others should surprise no one since republicans made a concerted effort to sabotage their own constituencies into viewing change with disfavor. Some states turned down the medicaid expansion and others sabotaged the exchanges by making exceptions for low risk folks to stay on plans they purchased after the individual mandate came into existence but before the exchanges were opened, which meant plans on the exchanges had fewer healthy subscribers.

Of course the law has serious imperfections but our old system had critical failures. I could pay into a policy all my working life, and if I get sick and lose my job, have a brief lapse in coverage, I could lose everything I paid for before the ACA. For example changing how insurers lock out regions was one idea that was never tried because republicans became the majority in congress.

>>162658
>It saved the lowest denominator money
>It costed everyone else

This is, for all intents and purposes, socialism

>>162658
"Some other family"

Go fuck yourself. ACA has screwed every family I know. Not a single guy at my job made out better.

Remeber? Keep your old plan, choose your own doctor, lower costs? What a crock. Oh but some hypothetical family in the ether of the country is doing great. Awesome. What a crock of shit.

>>162665
Its saved a bunch of families i know by subsidising a bunch of expensive medicine they had to pay full price for before.

It's not a hypothetical, people have and continue to be helped.

>>162666
>It's helped alot of people
>It also fucked over alot of people

How do you justify this?

>>162668
By recognizing that it's helped far more than its hurt? The uninsured rate has fallen by tens of millions of people.

>>162668
i bet its frustrating if there are imperfections and you still need help but the solution is intelligently reforming our systems and not blowing everything up

I'm on medicaid under the ACA expansion and it's pretty good. $1 copays and my meds are paid for 100%. Still seeing the same doctors I was before. I literally cannot complain.

>>162646
>>162652
by the way thanks for paying for my medical care, cucks

>>162672
>It's helped alot more
Has it? And at what cost?

>Uninsured has dropped
But is that necessarily beneficial?

>>162681
Socialism is so fucking gay
Get fucked

>>162684
every country has a mixed economy

>>162687
Yeah its gay

>>162687
And they all seem to be running into similar financial issues. Weird.

>>162689
we've been spending much more on healthcare than every other country per capita long before the ACA

>>162641
You should see how happy I would be if the government paid for things I should be paying for myself. By the way, I'm guessing the happy military are the ones who survived the VA.

>>162700
Obama FoodCare - gov delivers for to your house, pending taxes of course

>>162700
>>162769
You may make fun of it like that, but I think if you can work you should be expected to work to the best of your ability, but the idea of having insurance for the citizens of the country to provide for their basic needs in case of misfortune is something most people can appreciate and something that can help people get back on their feet too. And if you have children there's also a reason of meritocracy to at least afford them basic opportunity for success regardless of their parents.

To some extent, this is how every modern country operates, but the American working class is fed so much misinformation that some will actively vote against their own and national interest. Polls showed Obamacare wasn't popular until the prospect actually returning to an older status-quo came up, and then it enjoyed majority support, and something like 1/3 Americans didn't know whether the ACA and Obamacare were the same thing or thought they were different.

As far as insurance goes, having the government cover everyone to a basic level has some benefits over private insurance. For one, overhead is much lower when you're essentially a non-profit and don't have to worry about marketing &c.. And an insurance pool containing everyone is going to have much more negotiating power when it comes to contracting providers.

>>162658
Fuck you

>>162773
>It's how Europe and shithole socialist Latin American countries do it
Not a strong argument

>Government should provide for people's basic needs
No, people should provide for themselves with the help of their family, friends, and community

>Basic opportunity of success
Life isn't fair, but you can help people yourself through charity and volunteer work

>Overhead is lower
It's not

>Non profits are more effecient
They're not

>>162773
You seem to think that without the ACA the poor and disenfranchised had no medical care available to them. That just isn't true. There has been a safety net for those individuals since the 30's. ACA was suppose to fix the problem of people who had pre-existing conditions not able to get health care, and force those who chose not to have any sort of coverage into getting health care.

>>162794
>Europe and shithole socialist Latin American countries do it
>Not a strong argument
what he's saying is that we're falling behind the rest of the world in how we treat our working class
>government shouldn't provide for people's basic needs
>charities should do it
How are they going to do that if no one can afford to give? Everyone is going to be looking out for themselves, and their families in a recession. It makes more sense to tax the rich a little more, and fund the military less so that every American is looked after

>>162805
>How are they going to do that if no one can afford to give? Everyone is going to be looking out for themselves, and their families in a recession. It makes more sense to tax the rich a little more, and fund the military less so that every American is looked after
and that is where the left and right start to diverge, It isn't the government's job to look after it's people. It should protect our rights, insure our safety from outside threats, and protect interstate infrastructure. The rest is up to the individual. The government is our parents, nor our brother's keeper.

>>162805
Since when? The US has some of the finest health services in the world but It's the cost that everyone gets fussy about and let's be honest, most things people complain about are severe and costly long term illnesses. You'll never pass away in a hospital if you're savable cash or no.

>>162805
>Noone can't afford to give

Idk about you man, but I donate a tiny bit of my salary to my church which goes to the local children's hospital. We get updates on kids treatments and everyone gets to see the kids by visiting them.

It's not alot, but get a whole bunch of people giving 10$ and that goes a long way. And the people feel like their community cares about them.

>>162673
You blow it the fuck out. Don't ever defend this shit if it happens to you. You fight that shit with your fucking life.

>>162841
People are defending it with their lives because their lives are literally on the line.They are alive because it happened to them.

>>162848
Who are these people? I'm one that was negatively impacted by it, so why the fuck should I care?

>tfw using americans healthcare for FREE without paying taxes

So much liberty I can't wait to own myself a slave

>>162841
You're not fighting anybody. You're typing angry words and getting riled up on an anonymous imageboard. It's embarassing. I honestly doubt you've done that much in real life besides send a letter to your governor or rep or maybe joined a protest.

Here's some advice for you. If you want to protect yourself and your freedoms if they mean so damn much to you, then you go and get an in with the system, and you change it yourself. America is not some bullshit happy go lucky land of the free where you can just expect people you vote for to help you and to always have your best interests, if you've lived damn long enough you fucking milennial you'll know they have other things on their plate and their own agendas to fulfill. No, do that shit yourself and you get your hands dirty, that's how shit changes. That's the American fucking Dream, which little shits have you forgotten since media became an outlet for people's emotions.

>>162848
Noones lives are on the line you moron. The only thing on the line are maybe people's bank accounts. And everyone seems readily willing to steal the money of others to make up for their needs.

I didn't vote for this. Congress didn't even approve it.

>>162890
>Noones lives are on the line you moron.
exactly! who needs pharmaceuticals when they have bootstraps?

>>162926
Walk into any hospital in the US and they'll treat you before they charge you, you're retarded

>>162812
>the government should protect our rights, but not our right to life
As I've said before, shit happens in life that is impossible to plan for sometimes. People need help when shit hits the fan
>>162826
it's great that you donate to charity, and society would be a better place if everyone did/could. Communities share some responsibility, however; those that control a vast amount of the nation's wealth should contribute too

>>162940
you're right. if you can't afford care, but still need it; you can go to any emergency room in the country, and they HAVE to treat you. That cost is then paid by the government, and taxpayers. So, it defeats the whole purpose of forcing people to rely on emergency rooms- while also fucking over everyone else worse than if we just had single payer

>>162826
>i dont mind donating to healthcare out of charity but god smite whatever government compels me to donate to healthcare!

>People that receive shit for free are more satisfied than someone who has to pay for the same service

>>163208
A good deed by compulsion is not a good deed

>>163208
That's literally the reason we started this country meathead

>>163259
this has to be a troll post

>>163267
>Taxation without representation
>Thinks it's a troll post

Only the left would think this

>>163240
>I literally L I T E R A L L Y only do good things so i can be the worlds most gigantic smug fucking faggot about it
i'd say killing yourself would be a good deed, but you wouldnt be around to gloat about it

>>163269
you were represented when you voted against the law, it just passed despite you.

thats literally how representation works dipshit subhuman retard

>>163288
Hol up -

>"Doing good things out of free will is being an asshole, but compelled fees and taxes are moral and vituous"

Wow idk how you come to this conclusion, only a fucking moron would think this way, Jesus

>I had representation and it passed anyway

I don't recall Obamacare passing with a single Republican vote - they took the nuclear option dumbshit.

Pelosi: "we have to pass it to find out what's in it"

Get fucked commie

>>163302
>Dems used the nuclear option
They didn't, and they didn't keep it behind closed doors like Republicans have with the AHCA

>>163302
>I don't recall Obamacare passing with a single Republican vote

You have it totally backward. The democrats bent over backward to work with republicans when they had a supermajority.
It was Republicans that refused to work with Democrats on the ACA.

>“We're going to do everything — and I mean everything we can do — to kill it, stop it, slow it down, whatever we can.”
-Republican House Speaker on Obama's agenda

Yet Democrats held countless hearings with republicans and included literally hundreds of Republican amendments in the ACA.

>>163369

>You have it totally backward. The democrats bent over backward to work with republicans when they had a supermajority.

On top of that, the Democrats built the ACA/Obamacare off of Romneycare, a Republican idea. They ditched the one true Democratic part of the ACA, the public option, when Republicans complained it was too socialist. The Republicans haven't been able to come up with a unified alternative to Obamacare because Obamacare IS their idea in the first place. That's why all these "repeal and replace" deals just shift the numbers around as opposed to proposing a completely fresh idea. The only true alternative being proposed is the pure-repeal guys who want to return to the pre-Obamacare status quo, which would have even higher prices (the ACA has certainly had its pricing problems, but at the same time it's still somehow a lower rate than if pre-ACA trends continued) and more people off insurance, which is completely unacceptable not only to Democrats but most Republicans as well.

The Republicans have forced themselves between a rock and a hard place. They can give up now, say they tried, and hope to weather the storm. They can give it one more go, produce something more akin to a slight change to Obamacare than a full repeal, and then hope that's enough to appease their supporters (without actually fixing the core problems of health care and kicking that can down the road for another decade, like it always happens with healthcare). Or, heaven forbid, they could try the same method as the Democrats, and then either prove the Democrats to be huge hypocrites when they do the exact same shit as the Republicans did all those years ago, or, by some miracle, the two sides actually work together and make a deal that actually improves the final outcome for the American people.

But that will never happen, because the politics of healthcare are fucking poison and destroys every politician who tries to touch it.

>>163373
>>163369
>>163350

Not Anon, but why can't we all agree that it's unpopular and needs to be redone?

>>163375
It's the "redone" part. Everyone who thinks Ocare fucked up has their own pet theory about what's wrong with it. So they all offer their own "fix" but a bunch of the fixes are mutually exclusive. Hence deadlock.

american fags are so blind. the reason your healthcare cost so much is because the insurance marketers are middle men disguised as 'good neighbors' who jack up your prices so they can pay for yachts and hookers

>>162652
Just make more money. Whats the problem?

>>162649
>forcing people to get coverage before they develop a condition
A. Who is going to better decide what they need in terms of healthcare, memyselfandI or the state?
B. Where in the constitution is the government granted the right to force individuals into commerce?
>>162691
The medical industry has been monopolized by lucrative government legislative entrenchments and high barriers to entry for almost 75+ years.
Instead of repealing the welfare state policies that caused this, you just want to keep funding it?

>>163419
Actually the main problem lies with the FDA, and Hospitals who overcharge the shit out of government backed insurance.

>>163465
>A. Who is going to better decide what they need in terms of healthcare, memyselfandI or the state?
Depends on the individual. Most people don't take into consideration expert macroeconomic perspective in their personal decisions. There's an element of collective interest here.

>B. Where in the constitution is the government granted the right to force individuals into commerce?
You can go without, but the penalty is a tax because everyone is entitled to emergency coverage regardless of ability to pay. It's often not possible to check peoples' ability to pay or ask for consent before providing emergency care. A tax isn't commerce, it's paying your dues to society.

>>163423
You could say the same to the people who are enjoying Obamacare

>>163466
The FDA serves an important purpose. Healthcare prices are high because providers and pharmaceutical companies can get away with profiteering more than any other industries. There are inherent features of the market that make it uncompetitive.

Health insurance also serves an important purpose but using private markets adds more cost than competition prevents. Having dozens of for-profit insurers, each with artificial added costs like marketing teams &c. Let the federal government serve as a non-profit that automatically covers everyone for conventional therapies necessary for basic good health, let people buy more insurance on top of that if they want. An insurance pool containing everyone has a lot more negotiating power.

To all the liberals, may I surmise that a whole lot of people (more than 51% or 99.9999999%) should not be able to force, by law or knife or numbers, or gun or ? others to work for them. They believe that neither the minority nor the majority is born equal. Rather, they are all born unequal. Some or those unequals are winning Gold medals in Sochi right now. Some of those unequals are coming up with really good ideas about how to do things or how to make things. Some of them are just getting along and some are living terrible lives full of pain and hunger and disease and heartache. Libertarians like me believe that if you don't screw with the ones that are coming up with the really good ideas (like confiscating the food they grow or the money they get by voluntarily trading their ideas and/or labor with those of others for shit like Obamacare), then the reward for encouraging and not discouraging those really good ideas and that really hard work, ideas like the wheel and bronze, the law of Thermo Dynamics, The Green Revolution, etc. The result of not discouraging those ideas and work, is a better life for everyone. Especially, those who through the vagaries of chance and genetics would not have come up with those ideas themselves. May I also submit that there is absolutely nothing wrong with giving away most or even all of your wealth, after you have legitimately earned / created it.

If you believe that those who, without the use of force, whether private or governmental, should not be allowed the fruit of their intellect or labor, and that their wealth should be used to subsidize other's health, then I submit that your belief system has been tried on a large scale for many years. The place the idea was tried was called the Soviet Union. The result was a truly disastrous human tragedy.

>>163523
I want all to have a share of everything and all property to be in common; there will no longer be either rich or poor; I shall begin by making land, money, everything that is private property, common to all.

But who will till the soil, you ask?

The slaves.

>>163523
>The place the idea was tried was called the Soviet Union
state capitalism =/= communism
There are just about no liberals calling for the latter.

>>163523

Economy shouldn't simply increase technological progress and produce wealth in the short term, it must also never be parasitical in nature, must raise overall quality of life, protect ecology, and push the envelope in science and technology even when private investors aren't immediately prepared to take an quantified risk.

While capitalism is good for a foundation, a framework of regulation should serve to direct growth in a manner that achieves an optimal balance between these priorities in the long-term for society as a whole. There is so much more and I think economic left is unfairly cast in such a light.

The idea isn't to enable bums to stay bums. Social services should be a reliable tool to enable those who have potential to be productive from becoming invalids because of circumstance beyond their control. It is a matter of providing reliable systems so that we can have a society engineered at every level so that the average citizen doesn't have to worry about their impact on the environment, or whether their business operates ethically with respect to standards offered to their workforce, or whether the products they use are safe and reliable, or what will happen to them in case of some random catastrophe or economic downturn. All citizens of the US should be incentivised to focus purely on their professional training and then the productivity, creativity, and the quality of their work, with all the time and energy they can spare.

I know corruption is also a consideration but there can be protections built into our systems for that. Campaign finance reform is an obvious necessity. All campaigns should be publicly funded. NGO should disclose their corporate donors to the public. Bar politicians from lobbying while in office and immediately after. Implement ranked choice voting.

>>163523
>the fruit of their intellect or labor
their ability doesn't exist in a vacuum but within the the context of a society that recognizes your right to private property. But it's not a hard right. Some of the money you handle doesn't belong to you, aka taxes. And the way our society is organized, we try and agree upon tax rates that set a foundation for the sorts of outcomes we want. Set them too high and the incentive for inputting work is diminished while the incentive to offshore is increased. Set them too low and we lack the revenue for doing the sorts of things like military and space exploration and social security and various other functions of the state like making sure wherever you eat in the country you can probably be assured the same food safety standards are met so you don't have to try and be an expert in everything, and you don't have to worry about your neighbor dumping raw sewage into waterways that don't belong to anyone in particular.