Hmm, the promises of the ACA that started in 2014 did not bend the cost curve at all. And left half of the 46M uninsured still uninsured.
A large majority of the 650K medical bankruptcies each year are by people who are employed and have health insurance. Their incomes are generally $30K to $50K a year. They file because they can’t cover the copays.
It definitively made health care more affordable to MILLIONs then it was before. I have at least 3 nephews and nieces that benefited greatly from ACA when they turned 26. Jobs they had didn’t offer any health insurance and private insurance not through ACA almost 3 times what ACA cost them. While it’s not perfect it sure did help millions of people.
It’s not just the co-pays. It’s all not covered expenses. Many small companies that offer health insurance don’t offer the greatest coverage and there are a lot of things they don’t cover that are very expensive. Ambulance rides are a big one around here. Many insurance companies don’t cover ambulance rides. Drug costs are probably #2. Long term medical care from cheaper insurance companies doesn’t even cover 1/3rd of the cost.
That is untrue with respect to my personal experiences with the ACA.
I was paying for private insurance for 1.5 years before the ACA went into effect with coverage better than a Bronze plan. If I’d stayed with that private plan, my cost would have doubled the day the ACA went into effect.
I signed up for the ACA and without subsidies, the cost more than doubled. With the subsidies paid by you taxpayers (Thank You), the cost was a 1/3rd lower but my deductible doubled. Each year the full cost increased by about 15% each year. Double the rate on the posted chart. The deductible also increased to $6300 for the a Bronze plan I chose. You taxpayers footed about 75% of each increase. Thank You.
But I agree with you about things that are NOT covered by lower tier insurance plans. Just looking at the ACA lower tier plans, the deductibles run $12,000 to that $6300 I posted. That can be a huge (or catastrophic) hit for a $30 to $50K a year employee.
Considering we went from 46M uninsured to 22M, if we use old-school grading, as a program, that would be an F, especially if we counted cost containment.
I was lucky and always had employer insurance. After retiring was still able to participate until 65. Now we just buy the supplemental plans through a private agent/broker for $100-150 a month. Plus the Medicare cost. Prescription coverage through welcare for zero monthly. The whole thing is messy and confusing. So far blue cross and medica have worked fine and we’ve avoided the whole aca issue. Last thing I want to see is a Canadian or UK system.
I would love to see the Canadian system implemented here. It works very well for our 40 million neighbors to the north.
The ACA could definitely use a lot of improvement, and I have a concept of a plan.
They will do anything but reduce prices. Probably will introduce 10 year loans and figure out something else when that crisis hits. Of course, with lots of inflation, you could pay off the loan with one paycheck.
The country could sure use a better plan!
And just how would they reduce prices ? And is a fact that cheap vehicles just don’t sell in the USA.
It doesn’t work as well as Canadians would like it to work. Which is why so many Canadians come to the US to get medical procedures like knee or hip replacements in couple of weeks instead of 6 to 12 months.
Cancer treatment outcomes are less successful than in the US because of the 4 week or longer waits to receive treatment. And then there are those cancers that just get palliative care instead of curative treatments because the system has limited resources. And there is a shortage of palliative care facilities, too.
Three ways come to mind. 1. Eliminate all the middlemen (or, PC correct, middle women). 2. Rapid inflation. You pay off the loan with cheap money. 3. Force the Chinese to make their cars in the US. With their high degree of automation requiring very few employees, you should be able to buy a well equipped high tech China car for about 15,000 2025 US dollars.
By my estimation, $15000 would get you a pretty lousy new car
That would likely lead to unemployed auto workers who had labored for GM, Ford, Stellantis, Subaru, Toyota, and other companies with factories in the US
If you could get private insurance cheaper then why did you have to sign up for ACA?
Because my out of pocket cost doubled as I wrote below…Maybe not so clearly.
The actual cost of the ACA insurance was even higher than my private insurance quote, but with the taxpayer subsidies, that reduced my my out-of-pocket cost to 1/3 lower than I was paying. So you loyal taxpayers subsidized the cost of my healthcare (again, thank you)
A little off track but at least we are generating badly needed traffic.
Let’s change that a little to “WEALTHY Canadians”. Being close to the Canadian border and Boston (having one of the Best if not thee best) hospital systems in the world where some Canadians do come for elective surgery. But it’s out of pocket for them, so for the average Canadian it’s not very feasible.
State your source. Everything I’ve read shows Canada has as good or better Cancer outcomes then the US. Problem with US healthcare is that because millions of people don’t have healthcare there is less screening to detect cancers at early stages. Many people are too afraid to go to the hospital unless they have symptoms that are very severe and by then it’s too late.
Exactly! But that’s part of the Make America Great Again plan. Force the foreign manufacturers to do it here. Maybe they could retrain for chip manufacturing or as programmers.
Me thinks the word (failed ) goes between Again and plan.
A source… Cancer Survival Rates by Country 2025
The US leads Canada in all four of the cancer types listed.
Another source… Cancer Care in the United States Is Unrivaled - AAF