There is no way any tax increase could surmount my current health coverage cost!

[Phoebe Loosinhouse]

We pay almost $900 a month on a COBRA for healthcare for 2 people. I sincerely doubt my taxes would be raised 10-12K a year for a single payer system. Even if they did, at least my money wouldn't be going to fund the unconscionable for-profit middleman health insurers who ADD NO VALUE to our system.

My healthy in her twenties niece pays $384 a month for a non-employer provided health policy with high deductibles and co-pay. This is a crushing burden to a young person who is also saddled with student loans with our wonderful student loan system. She is emblematic of our young people who are being buried with debt before they even get out of the starting gates in life.

EVERY single person I have spoken to who has to shoulder some cost is close to 4-5 hundred for an individual and a around 1K for a couple or family for COBRA or private insurance. People with pre-existing conditions pay even more or they can't get insurance at all.

We are not looking for the vulture insurance companies to reduce their premiums! They could never reduce their premiums enough to bring us into the same ballpark as Canada, England, France, etc. The insurance companies need to vacate the ballpark. They made their money. It was a good run, but now it's over. They will have to find some other carcass to feed at.

Now, how much is your health insurance costing you (or your employer)? Please be specific. Do you think that your taxes could ever be raised the same amount?

[Turbineguy]

1. If we go to a single payer now

will people still complain about the cost? Will people care about those raking it in? People complain when it costs them, not the government. So the first step is to alter the landscape of profits and then make the switch.

Instead of insurance companies we should have not-for-profit foundations or co-operatives. Good health has to be seen as a societal good, not a profit center.

[Kolesar]

2. My employer is "self insured" and only pays Aetna to manage the program

The health care coverage price is the sum of all costs divided by the number of employees in the health plan. If one of my coworkers had a million dollar hospitalization, it would cost each of us $100 in the next year's premium increase.

Find the cost of the Medicare budget and divide it by the number of Americans on Medicare and you will have your answer. good morning

[Bandit]

15. No that is really shortsighted

Comparing current medicare costs to single payer is off base. Medicare exists in a health care environment of big insurance and HMOs and those pretty much control costs and delivery practices. If we were to have real "single payer" Huge Private insurance costs would be eliminated as well as huge HMO costs. The price for everything would plummet as soon as government controlled all aspects and also when people could do preventative screenings and didn't have to use the emergency room as their regular doctor visit center. In fact since employers would be off the hook for health care people's salaries would actually go up some..Everyone in America would benefit by spending less and getting more.

[pnutbutr]

3. look at other providers

I know individuals who pay $100-$200 a month for midlevel coverage. I pay about $600 a month for top level BCBS coverage for me and my family.

[Kolesar]

4. If one has no "preexisting conditions", they may do better with a private policy

There may be some participants in the OP's health plan with huge medical costs that every other coworker must pay for.

[ejpoeta]

12. until something happens.

[Phoebe Loosinhouse]

5. Many lower cost plans are just stupid on the face of them.

They have enormous deductables and capped coverages. We have looked. They do not make economic sense. We are keeping the more expensive coverage for as long as we can simply because at least it is for real coverage. It is also a BCBS plan. There is a wide variance is prices, due to the state one lives in, which is just one more issue in our current system.

[KharmaTrain]

6. True Economic Recovery Means Healthcare Reform

While I strong support single-payer, anything that reigns in the insurance companies and big pharma would go a long way to helping allievate a crisis that has been destroying the health of this nation for the past 25 years. There's NO reason that everyone shouldn't have some form of insurance or the accessibility to not just catastrphoic, but preventative care. I'm watching too many of my friends who couldn't afford insurance now in their 50s starting to develop severe problems...many IMHO that could have been prevented and will tax our healthcare system in the years ahead. While its too late for some of them, it's not for a vast majority...and time to make healthcare something of a value, not an expense.

There also will be a big need for tort reform...cutting down on the money pot to be made in malpractice.

I'm self employed and self insured and I don't see any relief coming my way anytime soon. I'll be getting a "tax break" since I didn't make as much last year than in past years...but my insurance rates remain the same. But I also know how fortunate I am that I can afford the insurance...been there and done that with years not having coverage.

Healthcare costs could be greatly contained with a comprehensive national program, as well as repealing a lot of the crap from the boooosh regime. If this country is to restore itself as a world leader, healthcare for all its citizens are a must and not attached to the cost of doing business...as we know that when its your health or their profits....profits always win.

[Phoebe Loosinhouse]

7. What "pre-existing" condition folks have to deal with - how about 20K for coverage?

This is from another thread. This is some of the outrage our compadres have to deal with in our current system!

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=5336058&mesg_id=5337158

[madrchsod]

8. my wife carries our insurance where she works .

last year it cost her around 5000 dollars excluding employer contributions.if she did`t have an enormous amount of overtime we could`t afford insurance. there`s no reasonable way to figure out how much they will pay because every procedure is paid at a different percentage. right now we owe about 15,000 for my various surgeries over the last few years and i`m having another in a few months.unfortunately we have decided to file chapter 13 on these medical bills because there is no possible way we can pay off these bills.

there is about a 1000 dollar difference between her payroll taxes and insurance payments. no taxes will never be raised that much to cover my wife and i.

hospitals are going to be the next huge problem the obama crew will be facing. the two area hospitals where i live has a 5 million dollar deficit because of late payments due to the state`s non payment medicaid bills. we have over 4000 people in two counties that are unemployed and an unknown amount of people with out any health care. the use of the emergency rooms as the primary health care provider only makes the problems for the patient and the hospitals worse.

[Epiphany4z]

9. we are on an HMO

His employer pays part of it our part is 89.00 a week with a 15-50 dollar co pay for most things Drugs are between-15.-30...we pay another 28 or so month for 1000. in dental a per year...and have no coverage for eye. The cost to us increases every jan without fail...this years increase i believe amounted to 150.00 a month. Our health insurance increases have kept up with any raises he has gotten..I think we make 500 a year more than we did 5yrs ago.

[Vinca]

10. We currently can't afford it, but the last quote I got

was $12,000 a year with a $5,000 deductible per person. This was the same policy we had to give up because we couldn't afford it. It was the cheapest policy available in the state and only covered anything if you were laying on a gurney taking your last breaths. Every year we paid hundreds or thousands for medical care despite the lousy insurance policy and forget dental and vision. I agree with the OP re taxation for healthcare. Our taxes would have to quadruple or more to approach the level of a year's worth of health insurance from a private company.

[ejpoeta]

11. we WERE on independent health, but had to do an acrobatic act

at the end of the year because they were raising rates AGAIN!! it would have been over $300 every two weeks for us and the kids. So we found out that our income allowed us to put the kids on child health plus without them having to be without insurance for six months. We pay $9/mo for each of them. but no copays. WE switched ourselves to a less expensive Cigna Insurance Plane which has high deductibles. 20% copay after the deductible. This really sucks since just after we went over to this other plan I found out I am pregnant. So... I don't know how much we are saving ourselves anymore. One benefit, I guess.... Bob was prescribed Chantix to quit smoking. He tried to fill that prescription under our old insurance... but the insurance wouldn't cover it. ANY OF IT. the Cigna pays for some of it.

I can't understand how anyone doesn't think a single payer system would be the best thing for all of us. We would still be paying into our health insurance, but administrative costs are amplified over a patchwork of various plans and such. If we are that concerned about the poor health insurance companies, they would probably do just fine offering supplemental insurance on top of the single payer. It's not 'socialism'. We are already paying for the uninsured... but it costs a lot more because they don't get any help until it gets bad. It's like paying to temporarily fix something instead of fixing the whole thing all at once.

[L0oniX]

13. This is a stickup ...your money or your life.

$300 a month and a $5000 deductible ...for a healthy 57 yo man ...making $18k a year ...sure I can afford that ...I'll just go with out food. Sociopath health care system ...ahhh don't cha just love it

[Bluenorthwest]

14. The insurance costs are just the tip of the iceberg

Premiums are just the start. For me the most expensive part of it is that the treatments that work for me are not covered. The medicines that work best, also not covered. I've tried it all and that which works is 'alternative' and thus I pay 100%. Several times a month.
Also, no dental coverage, and dental expenses have been and will be huge. Just huge. And dental health is just another part of health. Untreated dental problems can lead to huge medical problems and outlays.
The insurance companies are the problem. Everyone agrees.

Maybe some wise person can explain to me why an insurance company should get profit when Gov money will be risked? If they are not 'insuring' with their funds, what exactly is it they will do to deserve that profit? If we are taking the risk as a nation, why do they get profit from that risk? I don't see that they'd be 'insuring' anything. What am I missing?

[antigop]

16. Phoebe---chart of average premiums (individual and family) by state

http://www.americanprogressaction.org/issues/2009/03/cost_shift.html

Scroll down to see the table.

[Phoebe Loosinhouse]

18. Thank you! What a goldmine of info. I will be bookmarking.

That really deserves it's own thread.

[Kansas Wyatt]

17. Having had pre-existing conditions my entire adult life....

I've known for the last 25 years exactly what people are faced with today. As long as health care INCLUDES "for profit," the profit margin, and all the outlaying costs associated with it, will always make health care UN-affordable.

This is what needs to happen:

1) Pick up the Insurance Industry and toss them out the window, preferably through the glass, and tell them to stay out of the damn building. Tell the security guard to shoot them if they try to come back in.

2) Implement Medicare as a National Health Care Plan for all, with no co-pay, deductible, or prescription cost to the patient.

3) Tell the "for profit" hospitals and providers that a comparison audit will determine exactly how much they can charge.

4) Put the pharmaceuticals on notice that they will be receiving a rectal exam with a microscope, and their shit had better be in order. Place their profit margin by the same standards as when the government determines the poverty level for people in the United States. Better start tightening them belts you crooks! And BAN those damn prescription commericials... No wonder you can't cure anything, because you blow the research money on advertising for more obscene profits. OH FUCK! I'm getting myself worked up... Well, let's just say the Pharmaceutical Industry needs to be bitch slapped.

Follow these steps, and health care will become better and one hell of a lot less expensive. Yes, that is a fact and it is guaranteed!