

How Much Does Obamacare Rip Off Young Adults? We Ran The Numbers. - ytNumbers
http://www.forbes.com/sites/scottgottlieb/2014/03/28/how-much-does-obamacare-rip-off-generation-x-we-ran-the-numbers-here-are-the-results/?partner=yahootix

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smokey_the_bear
I was (am?) a proponent of Obamacare, but I was really taken aback when I got
our notification of what my young family's new premiums and plan would be
under the ACA. Our premiums are going up 38% and our max-out-of-pocket is
doubling. We are also now responsible for 20% of costs after the $3000
deductible instead of 0%.

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Fomite
"Obamacare is asking young adults to effectively subsidize the healthcare
costs of older Americans." \- so is every other goddamned healthcare system in
the world, besides "Devil take the hindmost".

Low risk subsidizes high risk, but someday you will be high risk.

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mhurron
You know, it almost sounds like this ACA thing is some sort of insurance.

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glenra
No, it sounds like it's a welfare program. If it were insurance, it would
charge proportional to the expected cost of serving the relevant demographic
group. But due to the "community rating" provisions, charging actuarially
appropriate rates is illegal, so instead we're charging rates that are pretty
much guaranteed to make health care even _more_ expensive than it was before.

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jrs235
I've heard the car insurance analogies which don't work very well. Perhaps a
life insurance analogy would work better... Now everyone can apply and get
life insurance regardless of preexisting/current conditions. To make it
affordable the young and healthy will pay more than the statistical
probabilities that they will die tomorrow. The elder will pay less. How is
this sustainable except through ever drastically increasing premiums?

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josephby
"How much does _pay as you go social program_ rip off _demographic not
currently served by program_? We ran the numbers."

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jessaustin
I'm not sure whether to believe TFA, because it conforms _so exactly_ to my
initial expectations when I first heard of Obamacare back in 2009. I'm not
noted for any skill at predicting outcomes, so this makes me suspicious. If
the government wants to transfer (even more) resources from young adult single
people to older family-type people, it's going to have to pick a non-voluntary
method. ISTM _taxes_ are often used for this. I know the excuse why that
didn't happen: that blatant inter-generational transfers wouldn't have passed
the legislative process, while this Byzantine obfuscated rat's nest for which
dozens of parties can plausibly be blamed did. Maybe that's a problem?

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sharemywin
Great you pointed out healthcare is hard to solve. How do you fix it? ignoring
it is not a good solution.

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fleitz
I dunno, maybe ask, every other developed country in the world?

Maybe after the US drops the "rah rah, we're the best fucking country in the
world" bs and eats a slice of humble pie it will realize that providing
healthcare to it's citizens isn't really a very difficult problem to solve.

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thedufer
Yes, the US healthcare system is broken. But its not as easy as you make it
out to be. Look at our drug costs - they're way higher than anywhere else.
Where's that money going? Largely to medical research companies. The US is, to
some degree, subsidizing medical research for the rest of the world.

Now, there are a lot of places we could improve by looking to other countries.
But even doing all of those things isn't going to make things as cheap here as
they are everywhere else.

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jessaustin
Drug costs are a great example of where the USA could easily improve, if the
lobbyists allowed. Because they are predictable and unceasing, drug costs for
chronic conditions should not be covered by an insurance regime. It's as silly
as purchasing food or clothing with insurance. Of course, once actual
consumers are buying, competition will drive costs down.

That isn't to say I don't have sympathy for those who need extremely expensive
drugs on an ongoing basis. That is a hardship, which could be ameliorated by
government payments, e.g. Medicare, Medicaid, or something similar. But there
should also be a middle category, of drugs that are expensive but which most
patients can reasonably afford without government assistance. Drugs in that
category will tend to see swift price drops as soon as the FDA allows generic
competition.

