A few states are doing this, namely Vermont and I believe Oregon. Of course, I have no worries, us Federal Employees get our health care cheap. I'm just sad that the rest of my fellow countrymen aren't offered the same kind of care.

There are two basic models out there. A (mostly) privately run health care system that we have in the USA. And every other industrialized nation on earth has a publicly funded system that doesn't allow people to profit from other people's illnesses.

So how do these costs measure up? See the image below.

Might I remind you that despite all this health care spending, the USA ranks 40th in the world in life expectancy.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_life_expectancy

And ranks 34th in infant mortality (just behind Communist Cuba).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_life_expectancy

In short, your capitalist wet dream of making a buck off sick people have fucked this country 6 ways from Sunday.

And does this create a system that is even affordable? Nope. The single leading cause of bankrupcy is medical expenses.

http://www.clearbankruptcy.com/financial-literacy/10-leading-causes-of-bankruptcy.aspx

Does this even create a system that covers 100% of the people like it does in every other civilized nation? Nope. 15% of the population has no health insurance at all.

http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2012/09/12/161012698/more-americans-have-health-insurance-but-not-many-more

Does this have a cost? Yes, 45,000 people die from a lack of health insurance.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2009/09/17/us-usa-healthcare-deaths-idUSTRE58G6W520090917

So let's put this all together.

We have a health care system that costs about twice as much as the rest of the world pays, it fails to cover every American, it results in poorer health that results in Americans dying sooner than other industrialized nations. Medical costs are the leading cause of bankrupcy, and lack of insurence kills 15 TIMES more people than who died on 9/11, every single goddamned year.

And why do we do this? So our for-profit disease industry can MAKE A FUCKING BUCK.

Oh yes.  Things get really affordable when they are provided by the government.  If we all just turned over our entire paychecks, then we wouldn't have to worry about anything.  We could stand in line to get bread, we could be allotted 1 roll of toilet paper a month, we could be provided with meat 3 times a year. We could wait 5 years to see a doctor.  We could wait our entire lives to receive a car.  Oh wait.  USSR did that already.  
BTW, your healthcare isn't cheap.  "Us" taxpayers pay for it.

I agree a single-payer system is not the way.  But I do think we should have had a government alternative to private options.  Obama compromised on that and should not have.  I, for one, never believed the crocodile tears shed by the insurance industry shills that said they'd get driven out of business by subsidized gov't. insurance.  I think the gov't. plan would have kept them honest.  But i guess we'll never know.

ACA brings us more of the latter.

WOWZA, Willy's back,  welcome, glad to see you,  long overdue.    As usual we will probably will not agree on much,  but thats OK, I don't care (no one grows with all like minds)  its the debate,  without the superfluous denigration of one another.

I haven't changed any,  I am still a capitalist girl and so it goes with the medical system.  First,  we can maybe agree that Private Businesses can certainly run a  business with higher standards and quality better than our government.  Second,  what is going to push the visionaries forward  (I believe most country's prescriptions don't cost as much as ours do,  because of they are just the "copycats")  for new and inventive ideas,  it will make us lose our  pioneering spirit,  consequently we/the world become stagnated in medical technology and there will no moving forward.

Single Payer/Universal Healthcare is like the government run social security system. Just because you give money to the government doesn't mean they're going to spend it on what they claim to (and they usually don't).
Cheaper prices and better products are created through competition, and when the government takes over an entire business, they don't care to produce the best product, nor do they have anyone to compete against.
Under the current system, the U.S. currently has the highest number of survivors from any type of illness.
Under single payer healthcare you may eat healthy and exercise but still have to pay for someone who smokes two packs a day and doesn't take care of himself. Can you imagine how much somebody like that would cost to take care of?

So the per person cost is actually $5000 and $4000 respectively or $416 a month. Further, the ACA provides a premium assistance tax credit and cost assistance for lower income families.

        That is pretty reasonable for the consumer I think. The insurance companies are the ones who will take it on the chin- Obamacare caps the maximum they can charge each year and as the baby boomers start to get sick pre-Medicare I predict you will see many insurers exit the business.

The difference in cost between a single insured versus a four person family is not a simple divide by four math formula.

A single person cost is on average 900 to 1200 per month, as quoted by the largest HC insurer in the country.

why does my ex and her daughter pay $500 per month each for their health insurance?  It's a high-deductible plan from Oxford.

-- Modified on 2/1/2013 2:48:02 PM

Smoking, obesity and drug and alcohol use have a large effect on the life expectacny. The best medical care in the world can't make up help you if you decide to ignore it.
   Maybe banning these things would help, smoking, pop, candy, fast food, alcohol, illegal drugs ect....

...but I suspect they have cigarettes, soda, candy, and fast food in other nations too.

Hospitals can't deny anyone medical care by law (look up EMTALA). Th uninsured tend to wait longer to see a doctor and when they do treatment cost 10 times more in many cases then if they would have gone to a clinic earlier over an ER after things have gotten out of hand.
    Every insured person pays for the uninsured either through hospitals passing the costs on or gov programs that provide insurance. The truly huge expenses for medical care are for seniors in the last 90 days of their lives, either through expensive last ditch treatments to try to save someone or maintaining someone on life support who is terminal regardless but wants to have every option exhausted.
    The answers are hard, and the truth is politicians don't want to answer them. My grandmother was diagnosed with Leukemia at 95 yrs old. Her doctor wanted to do chemo, radiation treatment and put her on a list of drugs that would have cost $10,000 a month. She declined any drugs and asked only for pain killers and had to fight her doctors to respect her wishes.
    When do we as a society have to weight the benefits of providing services like these to people? Doctors are under no obligation to deny treatment for something even if the patient is terminal from something else.

The OP was lamenting the $20,000 cost of a “bronze” family plan under the ACA in 2016.

           But his link explains this is the minimum cost for families of four and five:

"The examples point to families of four and families of five, both of which the IRS expects in its assumptions to pay a minimum of $20,000 per year for a bronze plan," reports CNS News.

      So it seems to me you are effectively paying $4000 or $5000 a year per family member for your bronze plan purchased on the ACA insurance exchange, or marketplace, as they now call them.

     Frankly, I did not understand your post, or your numbers, at all. We are not talking about the cost of insuring an individual, which is more under the ACA than the cost of a family plan as a general proposition.  We are talking about a family plan where you save money as opposed to buying four or five individual policies. And we are not talking about now but rather in 2016. And finally we are talking about the bronze plan, the cheapest one available. You simply threw a number out without any of these qualifications.

     Sorry, but you completely lost me.

of course but american are sorely lacking of self control and have more disposable income for such things. Every one thinks we have i bad in this country, out of the 195 countries in the world there are only 4 or 5 I'd compare to the US. With all our faults we still have it pretty good.

Whether you get educated or not is your  problem, not mine:

Bipartisan Policy Center
http://bipartisanpolicy.org/blog/2012

http://bipartisanpolicy.org

Tax Policy Center
http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/index.cfm

Kaiser Family Foundation
http://www.kff.org/healthreform/KIHRPI.chm

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezraklein

-- Modified on 2/1/2013 10:05:41 PM

Bipartisan Policy Center
http://bipartisanpolicy.org/blog/2012

http://bipartisanpolicy.org

Tax Policy Center
http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/index.cfm

Kaiser Family Foundation
http://www.kff.org/healthreform/KIHRPI.chm

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezraklein

-- Modified on 2/1/2013 10:05:02 PM

they don't have to provide care to anyone that waltzes in.  Explain when that has ever happened per EMTLA.  And the emergency medicine literature is full of situations where affluent hospitals have dumped patients on full time teaching inner city hospitals. Happens every day.

Emergency rooms are not equipped via budgets, personnel, or hardware to give care to any chronic problem that waltzes in.  Will there be mover people doing it because of stupid GOP governors like Deal in Georgia who are idiots refusing medicaid expansion funds when the vast majority of medicaid clients are children and elderly who need assisted living care?

You bet you're ass.

I've seen emergency rooms.  I was the doc in them for eight years and the rest of my career family medicine. I'm very familiar with the laws and problems that apply to them.

-- Modified on 2/1/2013 10:10:52 PM

The E is for "Emergency" in EMTLA by the way.

http://www.emtala.com/faq.html

"EMTALA is primarily but not exclusively a non-discrimination statute. One would cover most of its purpose and effect by characterizing it as providing that no patient who presents with an EMERGENCY MEDICAL CONDITION and who is unable to pay may be treated differently than patients who are covered by health insurance."

I just give her alimony and have told her that plan costs to much.  It's just a lot cheaper than the other poster suggested was the norm.

EMTALA in fact is far more limited than that.

       The law does require hospitals that have an emergency department to screen a person who requests medical care  to see if he has an “emergency medical condition.” If the screening does not diagnose an emergency medical condition or a woman in labor, the ER need not provide any further treatment.

       If the screening does disclose an “emergency medical condition” or woman in labor, the ER is still not required to provide all possible medical care. The ER is, however, required to either provide treatment needed to “stabilize” the medical condition, or, in certain cases, to transfer the patient to another facility where he can get this treatment.

           So really all federal law does here is provide a first response to medical emergency situations. After that, the patient has to pay his way as far as EMTALA is concerned.

I didn't mean ETMLA meant they treated anyone who walks in, but ER s have to treat anyone with a life threatening condition. If you ahve a cold you might not get much treatment, but those arent the expensive treatments to provide anyway.
  I realize patient dumping happens all the time even though many places have laws against it.
  How do you feel about universal health care in theory?
   Even with my views on gun control I voted for Obama and in theory support universal health care. I am no expert on emergency room budgets ect but from almost all the literature I've read its far cheaper to provide general health care and take care of problem ahead of time then after they are life threatening or chronic to the point they will be life long. And being honest once someone is disabled they have health coverage anyway. In this country patients will not die because of lack of money or insurance to pay for service in general, we just pay for it on the back end instead of doing the smart thing and investing in good general health practices from an early age. I could be wrong and am not writing this as gospel.

That s pretty much what I meant, they wait until things are an emergency situation then head to the ER. I did it when I was young with an inner ear infection, in college nd not wanting to pay a co pay for my parents insurance. I waited until I almost lost my hearing and had to be kept on an I
ve drip.

True.  Because that "super-majority" he had never existed in the first place.  Because of DINOs.  Democrats in Name Only, like Ben Campbell.

taking care of things on the front end is what absolutely should be done; that was part of the thrust of ACA/Obamacare.  The refusal to take Medicaid funds by so many governors particularly in the South, is going to hurt teaching hospitals as well as private hospitals in every state.  It threatens the four Level 4 trauma centers in Georgia significantly, and getting badly injured people to those places quickly does save lives (the golden hour and that meme).

I'm sorry about your ear infection.

We saw ACA watered down and public option get obliterated because of people like Ben Whitehorse Nelson, Leiberman, Mary Landrieu and that drama played out in slow motion in the Senate Finance Committee.  Many of those Senators on both sides of the aisle were on the leash of conservative business interests who were opposed to a health care plan passing at all.

to kill our way of life. We want more assault weapons, we may have to just organize to take the country back from Obama socialists!

Typical American stereotyping of other nations.

Save the clip and when your ego makes you feel great watch it again. Accepting facts is the only thing that is going to make us great again not thumping our chest every chance we get.

Facts are facts, they don’t change because you dislike them.

Oxford is not very well known company and probably brokering Health Insurance. You can compare policies on the internet? Either of them employed? Are both employed?

It is just like buying car insurance. Remember, insurance company’s can’t deny coverage on the basis of pre-existing condition.

Just to help you out, check out the link. Other things can be found on the internet besides pussy and porn!

I was not just refering to the freedoms we have in america. The main thing americans have is dispoable income. We have so many things in such abundance over any other nation its staggering when you really look at it. We in general have double the disposable income per capita over all but the top 3 other world nations. We are the top nation for disposable income per capita by 35%.
    Disposable income is what really provides a strong economy, exculding the fact the US economy is becoming top heavy and money isnt circulating as much as it does in a more middle class economy.
     You can argue medical, social, education issues in all of what makes a nation great but strictly looking at the economic side of it I'd look at disposable income as a if not the major indicator.
                 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_per_capita_personal_income

The IRS is only using $20,000 as an example.

NaturalNews cited CNS news as their source. Not a fan if Bent Bozell either? Good news then as CNS cited the IRS as their source. Both NaturalNews and CNS distorted the IRS’s data, CNS slightly less so.

Here is a direct link to the IRS report for their lasted rulings regarding the IRS regulations of the ACA.

http://www.irs.gov/PUP/newsroom/REG-148500-12%20FR.pdf

In various examples the IRS used $20,000 for a family of 5 and $5,000 for a single individual as the average premium cost for a Bronze class insurance plan (Bronze is the minimum allowed coverage). So two distinct points of fact - 1) There would be Bronze plans cheaper than $20K and $5K as these are AVERAGES and most importantly 2) these numbers were used only as EXAMPLES.

Personally, I think that by 2016 the numbers the IRS is using in its examples for insurance premium costs will be on the low side of reality. Cost containment (insurance premiums or delivery costs) never seemed to be a goal of Obamacare. Quite the contrary in my opinion as it seems clear the end game is to drive private insurance out of the market.

Most people now are covered through their employer, this does not change!

Many who work for employers that don't provide coverage, will now be getting insurance or a voucher paid by the employer.

More low income families will be covered by the expansion of Medicaid.

Only a few will be buying insurance on their own.  

But everyone one having health insurance will help to keep cost under control.  

It's a great deal for the entire country!!!!

Hyperbole scare tactics didn’t work for you in 2012 and it is not going to work in 2016. The general population is smarter than Repugnants. Goes to show, you wing nuts haven’t learned shit from the thrashing.

Result of Scare Tactic:
Lost Presidency
Lost Senate sets
Lost house seats
Lost Budget battle
Going to loose the House in 2014
Your party called you the “stupid party”
Your own party leader called you irresponsible

What more proof you want. To whom are you trying to prove your stupidity? Haven’t you done that already beyond shadow of any doubt. Apparently some in your party thinks so!

That $2100 (only for employees working more than 30 hours/week) will go towards taxpayer subsidies when those who used to have healthcare insurance will have to purchase their own.

That's what The People voted for. And it is a Universal Truth that you get what you pay for. A shitty insurance policy for catastrophic health care only. Lots of copays. Lots of deductables. People were led to believe they were getting free healthcare when they were actually getting a shitty deal on shitty insurance.

It is expected that in the first year of ObamaCare that 7million employees will get dumped onto the taxpayer funded healthcare scheme.