My Rant; Your Precious Obamacare - Page 3

Sorry, bee, but our insurance company actually stated that the hike in our prescription plan is a result of Obamacare changes.  My son's meds are about to go generic.  He has been on them for 3 years now.   We now have to pay high deductibles for certain meds before coverage kicks in--something we did not have to do before.

CBO confirms that Obamacare increases presription drug prices:  http://www.speaker.gov/general/cbo-confirms-obamacare-will-increase-prescription-drug-prices

http://cbo.gov/sites/default/files/cbofiles/ftpdocs/116xx/doc11674/11-04-drug_pricing.pdf

Additional Fees to Drug Companies Nets $107 Billion

Drug companies will be charged higher fees to help cover the "donut hole" in Medicare Prescription Drug Part D benefits.  (http://useconomy.about.com/od/candidatesandtheeconomy/f/Healthcare_Reform_and_Budget.htm)

 The drug manufacturers and the insurance companies aren't going to admit they are raising rates to try to make as much as they can before the 2nd phase of Obamacare takes effect later this year. So far the only changes for them have been they can't deny coverage for a pre-existing condition and they must allow kids to stay on their parents' policies til they are 26. Nothing else has changed yet, but they are being proactive so they can get every cent they can while they can. Health care has been out of control way before anyone ever even  heard of Obama. If you read the articles I linked here you will see they are not of a political nature. Some are going to blame Obama because they can.

Anyone who thinks the insurance  companies and drug companies are not only about money is living in a fantasy world. They just love it when we don't do our homework and blame it all on Obamacare or anything else but their bottom line. Don't drink the Kool Aid. You don't pay $2.00 for a tetracycline capsule for a dog yet the vets still make money; why do you think you pay that for one for yourself? Why do you think the threshold for your total cholesterol results have been lowered every year til they are almost impossible to meet without statins. Doctors get rewarded by the drug companies for prescribing their meds. Normal BP used to be 100+ one's age, now if it goes over 120,  you get put on a channel blocker. How many men have had unnecessary chemo for prostate cancer. BMI is set so low that only the very thin can meet it. I am 5 foot tall, should weight 90 lbs, I don't.

Hell, I can't even get my damned teeth  cleaned by one of my providers wthout being charged for all sorts of additonal xrays and services I don't want. My insurance, a medicare advantage plan, pays for one cleaning and bitewings annually.  So far I've tried to make an appointment for a cleaning and bitewings with 4 different dentists on my provider's list. No luck, First I have to see the dentist so he can examine my teeth and decide what sort of cleaning I  need. Then I need to have full mouth xrays that will cost me anywhere from $150 to $200, can't get the bitewings instead, the doctor requires a better look. Then I need to make another appointment to come back so the hygenist can clean my teeth. I went out and bought a new automatic toothbrush. a box of baking soda and used my dog's tooth scaler.  I won't be going to the dentist until I get a toothache or until another crown falls off - regluing one recently cost me $85 and I was in the chair for 7 minutes. I am trying to buy the glue off the net so I can do it myself next time. How hard can it be? 

I have a lot of empathy for those who truly need to see a doctor for a serious healthy issue. They have you by the short hairs. Just put the blame where it belongs.....corporate.greed.

Like I said, double digit increases in costs or close to it have been the norm since the 80's.  Obama wasn't around then, but he does make a nice scapegoat in this whole thing.  Other than  Bush guaranteeing billions in extra profit by his medicare prescription bill, no other administration has done shit to change "healthcare" in this country in 30 years.  

The generics should help, or one would think so. 

I was paying COBRA until recently. It was horribly expensive and certainly the insurance company made more than what I received in claims. That is of course what profits for an insurance company are all about. It never was about breaking even!

Now, the new employment comes with some decent benefits, I certainly do appreciate this perk! Here's an interesting, maybe, story... I was picking up a prescription for my DH who has asthma and now, a thyroid condition. I only have a script for something that is considered optional and is not covered under any plan. So, I was pleasantly surprised when the new insurance sent a RX card to present for a discount. I matter of factly, give the Walgreens clerk this card. She'd never seen it before. She gets the boss pharmacist... who does all this stuff to activate it.... and then she tells me now, instead of paying $7 for his pills, I needed to pay $37.50!

I said, "Say What?" ... and then made her change it all back....Oh the line got fairly long behind me, but I had no idea! It does make me wonder... how much are those pills, really?

What is more annoying for us, is all about the "Insurance and hospital records" and what happened with getting life insurance. A couple years back, while on vacaton, my DH almost drowned when he got caught in a riptide. He spent the night in the hospital... he was in bad shape, asthma was kicking in and they saw "something" with the heart. 

He had a zillion tests when we got back home, stress ones etc... and it all came back OK... the "heart" thing was most likely due to extreme adrenaline... (you would think, maybe?) It didn't matter to the Life Insurance Co.... it was listed as "heart event". No amount of letter writing or records from tests would budge them, we are doomed to paying double. Or rather I am, I suppose! He costs more to keep than I do, that's for sure, lol.


... Oh and I just read your link... One has to read it all to be clear, but really it says only a small percentage for some will pay more for their prescriptions... a bit different than saying Obamacare will make the manufacturers increase costs for brand names ...and still, too, there are different catagories people fall into... and you apparently get the one that pays slightly more...! 

Like I said, generics should help..... 

A good friend survived a brain aneurism a few year ago. After the surgery and rehab, her insurance was cancelled and she wasn't able to find another provider she could afford. A year or so later she begin to suffer from vision problems and was told  there was a big problem going on that required her to have at least 5 injections directly into her eye to the tune of $1,200 per treatment. She didn't have the money, bank wouldn't approve a loan because she was a poor risk - might croak from another aneurism before she paid them off. She had to wait for almost 6 months til her medicare kicked in so she could get treatment that should have been given her immediately. God forbid the opthalmologist could have allowed her credit terms or the drug compnay given her a break on the cost of the med.

Bee if your DH is taking synthyroid it is a very inexpensive drug. Last time my vet got me a bottle of the generic for a dog that was hypothyroid, it cost me around $10 for 1,000 his cost.  Same drug, same manufacturer, different distributor.  The mark up on meds is astronomical. Is there any doubt why people buy their drugs on the net from Canada or Asia?

I agree, zdog.  My company is taking advantage of te Obamacare hype.  The problem is that mine isn't the only company; many more will follow, all in the name of the new health care.  My biggest complaint with Obamacare is the fact that by 2014 we will all be REQUIRED to have health insurance.  So with that, I really have nothing to fight my company with.  My company knows I will have to have insurance and that chances are I will stay with them, just because it is easier than any government red tape.   ----------  oh, I forgot to mention, my company is self insured.  So my premiums go straight to them.....  As someone mentioned, they need to make a profit.

fawndallas, I certainly don't know you personally, and I have no reason to think you and your family are anything other than fine, hard-working honest folks just trying to live an average American lifestyle, so yes, I am sorry that you may find yourselves adversely impacted as a result of the changes in health care coverage.

That said, life is a series of choices.  You're having to decide between a gall bladder surgery on your child, or a root canal for yourself.  You are not the first parent to have to make such a choice, and you won't be the last. Comes with the territory for most parents, at some point in time; comes a lot sooner, and a lot more often, if you make choices without really examining all of the potential consequences.  Hell, I had to choose between paying my regular bills or having a root canal, back when I was in my late 20's; the regular bills won out, and I'm missing an upper molar because having it pulled was far, far less expensive than the root canal.

Your husband has a hereditary heart condition, yet he chooses to smoke--which not only may rob you and your child of his company if it kills him, but which also robs you and your child of a hefty chunk of change each week just in the cost of the cigarettes, let alone the medical costs. I smoked a pack a day for more than thirty years, too, so yeah, I do know how hard it is to quit as well.  Yet during the times when money was at it's tightest, I quit--cold turkey, no help from patches, etc. since that costs about the same as the smokes back then--because I had a mortgage to pay and it would have been selfish to spend money on cigarettes instead of things for the household.  So sorry, your hubby gets little sympathy from me--my mom smoked for 50+ years, always 'tried' to quit but wasn't successful, yet after she had an emergency four-way by-pass, she never smoked another cigarette again...she was too afraid to do so.  If your husband doesn't want to quit--REALLY want to, not just go through the motions--you could sew his mouth closed, and he'd find a way to work the cigarette in between the stitches.  Yeah, cigarettes are addictive, but failing to fight against that addiction is a character flaw, not an illness, especially when he's got a wife and a child with compromised health to whom he has obligations.  It's a matter of being willing to endure the hardship of quitting for the benefit of his family.

And I'm sorry your child has health issues. Of course, it certainly does NOT help that matter when Daddy continues to smoke--even if he only smokes outside, it still has an effect on your child's respiratory system. Again, back to the selfishness problem.  This will sound evil and cold, I know, but it was also selfish to choose  to have a child fathered by someone with a hereditary  heart condition...such offspring would be at much greater risk of inheriting the flawed genes responsible for your husband's ailment or some other congenital problem. 

That doesn't mean I think your child should suffer, but by the same token why should the rest of us feel responsible for underwriting the child's health and well-being when the father of the child won't step up and stop wasting the family's money on a selfish vice?   Why should the everyone else help shoulder the expense of your husband's medical care, when he mocks the existing public health care system by continuing to smoke?

Your situation, unfortunately, is not unique, which is exactly why we're at the place on the map that we currently find ourselves. 

I do believe all Americans--legal citizens, not just anyone who manages to inhabit the country--are entitled to basic health care at taxpayer expense; that doesn't mean everyone gets to have the pinnacle of treatment, either preventative or responsive, however.  There's just going to be some folks for whom the most that can be offered is management of infection and pain, and the hand they've been dealt will play itself out.

But people really do need to start taking responsibility for their own decisions, good or bad, and sometimes that's going to mean that they don't live as long as they might have done had they been more cautious in their choices.  It might mean not getting one's 'heart's desire' if that desire is self-centered at it's core, whether that means foregoing having children because of a medical condition carried by one or both potential parents that could pass to the child, or not taking their 'dream job' if it doesn't pay enough to support their family.  I still remember when there was no such thing as credit, and the only type of health insurance that even existed was Major Medical, which helped with catastrophic medical costs ONLY...and if you managed to land a job that came with that benefit, you were ecstatic.  Being 'a responsible adult' meant not buying a house until you had saved enough for the down payment; you didn't get married, let alone start having kids, until you could fully support YOURSELF first, let alone a family.  We stopped doing that at some point, and we need to get back to that behavior. Fast.  We've become selfish and demand to have our wants--not just our needs--gratified IMMEDIATELY. 

I was reading an article over the weekend about an American woman who recently went missing while on a solo trip to Turkey; naturally, her family is worried sick, and odds are certainly low that this story is going to end well.  My first thought when reading the piece?  What a selfish, selfish person this woman was--as the mother of a couple of kids who are still minors, she really had NO business traipsing off, all alone, to a rather politically and culturally volatile place in Western Asia/Southeastern Europe, on a pleasure trip to take pictures because 'it's what she loves to do'.  Screw that--you start having kids, you need to put that kind of crap on hold until those kids reach their majority and can support themselves.  I read an article today by an economist who was bitching because his taxes will be increasing by virtue of his income, and who had the NERVE to complain that he was going to be losing some of his ability to deduct charitable contributions--he actually said that because of the lost deductions, 'the cost of giving has risen about 45%', and that this was going to reduce the donations made to charities.  Newsflash: if the sole reason you're donating is because of the tax deduction, it's NOT a 'charitable gift'--it's an offset for your greed. In the past few years, I've donated far more money to individuals in need than I have to IRS-recognized charities, despite the fact that the former can't be claimed on my tax return.  None of the individuals are related to me, many of them I don't even know personally, but they needed help and I was in a position to give them at least a little. 

Selfishness:  it's the new American way. 

So that's MY rant on the state of healthcare in the US, and social responsibility to one another.

• Fawndallas, why in the world would  you opt to stay with a company that is screwing you to the wall every chance they get? Government red tape has absolutely nothing to do with your finding another insurance company; that's a cop out. Do  your homework and and chose another provider if it benefits you.You are an insurance company's dream client.
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• I don't see any reason why most shouldn't be required to pay for health insurance if they could afford it if by simply giving up a carton of cigs every week, the internet, spending 24/7 talking on a cell phone,  having the latest iphone or gadget, $5.00 Starbuck lattes, eating out,  paying  several hundred a month for their kids texting their friends or wearing $200 sneakers, video games, cable TV.....    If a family meets the definiton, they are eligible for government assistance to purchase insurance. If not eligible that means they are reponsible to pay their own freight even if they have to make some sacrifices by giving up non-essentials.
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• A shared responsibility requirement, commonly called an individual mandate,^[17][18] requires that all individuals not covered by an employer sponsored health plan, Medicaid, Medicare or other public insurance programs, secure an approved private insurance policy or pay a penalty, unless the applicable individual is a member of a recognized religious sect exempted by the Internal Revenue Service, or waived in cases of financial hardship.^[19]
• Health insurance exchanges will commence operation in each state, offering a marketplace where individuals and small businesses can compare policies and premiums, and buy insurance (with a government subsidy if eligible).^[20]

Amen, Hexe  and  I didn't even catch the part about the smoking.  And this is Obama's fault?