Thanks Obamacare!

[Jerry Rapp]

my daughter got me an official looking Border Patrol hat for my birthday. You should see them run when I go into the Hospital for a check up. I once walked into an Emergency Care Clinic with it on for S&G and I sure wish I would have videoed it.

[Greasy B]

Your right Phil, the big rainbow is much more interesting than this thread. When I was young I woke up one day in terrific pain. I called my health insurance referral service and described my problem. They gave me a specialist to see. Mid afternoon I was diagnosed with an ailment that needed immediate surgery. Arrangements were made for surgery at 6:00 that evening. At 5:00 I got a call from the hospital, they informed me that my employer had missed his insurance payment and I could not be admitted. WTF. I was twenty years old, broke, in screaming agony with nowhere to go. Who would have eventually paid for the EMT to scape my half dead carcass off the floor and perform the much more expensive surgery anyway?

Would that had happened if i were a Canadian citizen? Single payer is the only answer.

[gotmuddy]

That's why we must have a requirement that everyone has to be insured. Just like with a car wreck, you don't get to buy after you have the wreck, you are required to have it in case you wreck. You should be required to have insurance for when you do get sick, because eventually you will. The well people then offset the cost of the sick people with the insurance companies.

Many people have pre-existing conditions that cost insurance nothing. My wife has a pre-existing condition that has disappeared and hasn't required medication for 10 years yet still makes her uninsurable, that ain't right.

FWIW, you have to have car insurance for the OTHER guy, not you. Your required to have insurance in case you hit someone else. Also, the little I have dealt with insurance(working at Eaton, and my wife's employer), both have open enrollments that allow people with pre-existing conditions.

. In this day and age, it's a pity that we are one of the only advanced, industrial nations in the world to not offer health care to its citizens. And in the end, we will pay the price for it.

Ask a British person how they like their health care system. I won't even mention Cuba.

We are adding personal accountability, right now if you don't have insurance you will still be treated, life flighted etc. even if you can't pay for it. I say let those without insurance pay for it before being treated, if they can't let them die. I bet everyone would get insurance then!

With the new "system" I can just pay the tax and go to the ER and not spend a penny. Who is going to pay for that?

[Justin Spencer]

With the new "system" I can just pay the tax and go to the ER and not spend a penny. Who is going to pay for that?

I assume you mean you are choosing not to pay for insurance and then pay the fine, if by tax you mean paying for insurance then the insurance company pays (after your deductable). If you just pay the fine then you will be personally responsible for the bill and it will endanger your personal finances and you will have collectors breathing down your throat. There is no way to abosolutely force people to get insurance but we can do our best to "stongly encourage" it. Just like with car insurance, there are plenty of people driving around without it and when they run in to somebody they are responsible for the bills (good luck collecting), but at least it encourages personal accountablility.

I think it is fine for "rich" people to not have insurance because they can absorb a million dollar doctor bill, but for most of us if we fall out of a deer stand, bust a pelvis, spend a week in the hospital getting bolted back together and leave with a $275,000 bill we are financially ruined, and the hospital slowly gets paid over the course of our lifetime.

Hospitals, and doctors offices are a business like any other and they are out to make money also. When there bills don't get paid prices must go up to cover the unpaid bills. If 1/4 of my customers could only pay a penny for their canoe rentals then I would have to raise my prices from $40 per canoe to $50 per canoe just to make up for lost revenue from those who can't pay. The same thing is going on with health care. It may be wishful thinking to believe that getting everyone insured will stop rising healthcare costs, but it should help, and it will curb the number of personal bankruptcies in this country.

[gotmuddy]

I assume you mean you are choosing not to pay for insurance and then pay the fine, if by tax you mean paying for insurance then the insurance company pays (after your deductable). If you just pay the fine then you will be personally responsible for the bill and it will endanger your personal finances and you will have collectors breathing down your throat. There is no way to abosolutely force people to get insurance but we can do our best to "stongly encourage" it. Just like with car insurance, there are plenty of people driving around without it and when they run in to somebody they are responsible for the bills (good luck collecting), but at least it encourages personal accountablility.

I think it is fine for "rich" people to not have insurance because they can absorb a million dollar doctor bill, but for most of us if we fall out of a deer stand, bust a pelvis, spend a week in the hospital getting bolted back together and leave with a $275,000 bill we are financially ruined, and the hospital slowly gets paid over the course of our lifetime.

Hospitals, and doctors offices are a business like any other and they are out to make money also. When there bills don't get paid prices must go up to cover the unpaid bills. If 1/4 of my customers could only pay a penny for their canoe rentals then I would have to raise my prices from $40 per canoe to $50 per canoe just to make up for lost revenue from those who can't pay. The same thing is going on with health care. It may be wishful thinking to believe that getting everyone insured will stop rising healthcare costs, but it should help, and it will curb the number of personal bankruptcies in this country.

rising healthcare costs are caused by lawsuits and people who refuse to pay their bill, not people who can't pay. Already people with no insurance just walk into ER's and use them like doctors offices because they know they do not have to pay. Where in the 1000+ page bill does it say this will change? I can just pay the TAX and not worry with it.

I say tax because the IRS is making sure we pay it.

[Justin Spencer]

I'm not sure what you mean by tax. Are you taking about insurance premium or government fine for not getting insurance. If you mean premium then it's the same as you are doing right now probably, and the government doesn't foot the bill for your medical bills so it is not a tax to the goverment, if you want to call it a tax you pay to the insurance companies then fine by me, all I care about is that I pay some money and if something bad happens my medical expenses are covered once my deductible is met. To me money is money I don't care what you call it, if you want to call it a tax so you can feel like you are getting screwed then go ahead, as long as we all have ownership in our own medical expenses and no one is getting a free pass, then I feel it is fair.

[Wayne SW/MO]

Ask a British person how they like their health care system. I won't even mention Cuba.

Or a Canadian, the ones I know would prefer our system. Our cancer survival rates are the best in the world, not bad for a broken system.

There's a mixed message through all of this thread, part of it concerns how the Affordable Care Act will change our access to health care and part of it is directed towards what is lacking in our access to health care. All the act is going to do is muddy the water and put more people on the government dollar. The cash cow for lawyers, aka the pharmaceuticals, was given a bye.

The figure for failure to by insurance is given as 2.5% of income or $695 X ?, family members I think. There is no penalty for not paying, but they will deduct anything owed from rebates and no liens will be attached to property. I can't guarantee this is accurate because there is very little information coming through the transparency portal.

Obviously if you don't want to spend thousands on health care there is a way out, at least until this act fails and the government does what it always wanted, to take over health care.

Justin how is this going to affect you regarding your employees?

[Phil Lilley]

We are calling our insurance people is this week for a pow-wow... see if we (the resort) can get legal, if we're not--and I bet we're not.

Personally, we use Christian Medi-share http://mychristiancare.org/medi-share/ It's not an insurance company but I bet it won't count when asked if we have health insurance... probably put them out of business. They've been very good to us through several incidents.

[Justin Spencer]

Justin how is this going to affect you regarding your employees?

The way I understand it, it won't affect me. I only have 3 full time employees and they are only employed from Memorial Day to Labor day. I have others that only come in on Saturdays during the summer, and my full time only come in as needed before memorial day and after labor day. Maybe someday I will be able to afford help year round, but right now I still have to do much of the work myself, darn the luck!

[Feathers and Fins]

Justin it should not affected you directly IE you having to provide it to the employee. But it will affect you in other ways, companies that supply to you will have to charge more to cover their cost, the employees you have will require more pay to cover themselves having to buy it or pay the tax ooppss fine etc. This bill will affect all of us from the clothes we wear to the food we buy and the toys we want. You think getting a little check back is something wait till you are paying 10x's that amount for goods and services in the future because of it.

Example. You have Coke for sale in the store. You now have to pay more to them for it because they have to pay for the employees but they are paying more to the truckers and the ingreidient suppliers and so on so now you as well must raise your cost for that affecting how much you sell cutting into your profit all the while you had to pay more to them to get it and to your own employee so he can pay his ins or tax. Bad bad bill ramed down our throats.