mikesouth

one of my commeters on mikesouth.com had this to say



Mike: Like me via my daughter, you have experienced health issues and understand how valuable real health insurance is if you have an issue. I’m not talking about the kind of plan you get for $50 a month with a $3,000 annual cap. I’m talking about health insurance that pays your bills, according to the contract, if you get sick.

During the debate over the affordable care act, Obama said once that the biggest problem with the argument of health insurance is that most people don’t know what health insurance costs. It costs a lot – in fact, real insurance costs that covers you when you’re ill costs a lot.

Here are the things that people don’t understand. Prior to Obamacare, health insurance was regulated at the state level by the state insurance commissioner. The commissioner determines the base plan that an insurance company has to offer to do business in the state – that applies to all insurance, including auto, homeowners, life insurance and health insurance. There are states – they tend to be Republican southern states – where insurers can offer very cheap, no frills insurance plans for any of the above. The problem is — they don’t cover squat when you need them.

I live in a state where the base plan is pretty good, when it comes to heath insurance. Even a crappy plan offers a lot of coverage if you’re sick. It’s just a very high deductible and no co-pays or very high co-pays.

Now, I’m the treasurer of a non-profit organization that offers its director a family health insurance plan with $20 co-pays, prescription coverage, and $1,500 maximum deductible/out of pocket from Blue Cross/Blue Shield. The annual cost for a family plan? $26,000. That is not a misprint.

Now, when the feds announced the cost of the exchanges for my state, Michelle Bachman was still running for president. The exchange plan that was equivalent to the Blue Cross plan my director enjoys was about $18,000. Michelle Bachman said: $18,000. That’s outrageous. Who can afford that? Meanwhile, I’m looking at it and thinking, I can’t wait to get that plan for only $18,000, because it’s $8,000 less than what I’d have to pay for a BlueCross plan.

My $968 a month plan – just under $12,000 a year – comes with a $7,500 per person deductible per year ($22,500 for my family), no prescription coverage; and a $75 office co-pay.

Again sounds like a gyp, right? But prior to Obamacare, I was paying $1,350 a month to cover me, my wife and daughter, $10,000 per person deductibles ($30,000 a year), no prescription, no office co-pays and no coverage for lab tests, annual physicals or things like my wife’s mammograms or the formerly mentioned colonoscopies. I used to spend $2,000 a year on my wife’s physicals, so she could get mammograms and pap smears.

So, is $968 cheap? It is not. But, it is a bargain compared to what I spend.

Obamacare is only expensive to people who were previously uninsured, had no desire to buy insurance, and if they got ill, went to the emergency room because the hospital was obligated to treat them. If you were buying real insurance – insurance that covered you in an illness – it’s a bargain compared to the alternative.

Last point – health care isn’t like an automobile if you need it. If you or I go to buy a car, we can choose a new Mercedes for $100,000 or a 98 Honda Accord for $1,000. Either one will get you to work.

If you get cancer, break your leg, need a heart bypass or, like my daughter, develop a post surgical infection that threatens your life, you cannot choose between a Mercedes or an old Honda Accord. There’s one standard of care and it costs what it costs. You get treatment or you don’t. You live or you die. You get an Xray and a cast for your leg, or you risk losing your leg or developing gangrene.

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Mike South

It's No wonder I took up drugs and alcohol, it's the only way I could dumb myself down enough to cope with the morons in this biz.