I would say also that the those cheap policies were in fact a feature of the system--a system designed by insurance companies for the benefit of insurance companies. Their purpose was as you alluded to--get some chump to file a claim for insurance, deny the claim, then tag them as having a pre-existing condition.

But, great post.

but it was more of a money making scam by insurance companies on the individual market than real coverage. Those crappy, phony policies have been deemed insufficient & bogus by experts defining reasonably acceptable health insurance policies.

The Medicaid expansion & subsidies are to help people afford decent plans. It's not perfect (and the Supreme Court & GOP Governors screwed up the Medicaid expansion part) but it is still a hell of a lot better than the previous status quo - which is what it should be compared to - not some fantasy single payer that was simply unattainable in Congress.

It wasn't unreasonable to maintain a 'catastrophic' type policy when well-care costs were low and wages were good

But yeah, with the current pricing and stagnate wages these policies are pointless

I carried it but my ability to have it was simply because others weren't allowed the same thing and women were charged more for the same thing.

I carried it but didn't dare use it because anything they found could lead to being dropped and/or not qualifying for coverage subsequently.

I carried it because it offered the illusion of peace of mind, but that was an illusion. The coverage, the loopholes and the significant possibility of being dropped retroactively meant that I didn't have insurance and I was so aware of it that I didn't use the insurance.

was a huge problem.

I was telling my sister about my child's asthma diagnosis, and she told me that I should have (somehow) gotten the doctor not to do that. She said her friend the nurse said you should never let that get in a child's file, because then he could become uninsurable!

That's the wonderful system we had. You couldn't use your insurance for needed treatment for fear it would make you uninsurable.

husband-to-be's policy after the wedding.

Insurance should not cover routine visits to the doctor, immunizations, tests, imaging, routine drugs, and other normally expected medical costs.

It should kick in to cover 100% of costs over some threshold in a given year. For example, everything over the first $5000 per year.

does your kid get a needed medical test or do you buy them clothes?

the system you think should exist effectively eliminates medical care for the most vulnerable, expensive enough to mean the poor, the working class and a substantial part of the middle class.

i hope your idea never comes to fruition.

it's the Republican plan, frankly.

smells like a Teanut troll to me.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10023871203#post5

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10023541901

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10023011162

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=2869210

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=1862110

yet downthread, they seem to be against charging smokers more because they die sooner.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10023791179#op

disgusting. I'm stunned it didn't have bigger ramifications than a hide.

or you're saying it worked for you so you don't give a care?

the latter.

but you want to post from the conservative side from lots of issues, so why should your post be a surprise?

you posted doubt about the dangers of sea level rise.

you posted doubt about the dangers from lead in ammunition.

but back to health care, your positions and posts are a joke:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=870799

the system you think should exist effectively eliminates medical care for the most vulnerable, expensive enough to mean the poor, the working class and a substantial part of the middle class.

it's the Republican plan, frankly.

That way, people without a hefty income will just skip all that cheap "preventative" care, and can wait until the problem is so massive and expensive that it engages their insurance.

What a great plan for making health care and health insurance cost much more money.

cracks about Obama, and hyperbolic attacks on the ACA citing rightwing sources would advocate a Libertarian approach to health care?

But if your BMI is over 30, I doubt that 22 face-to-face meetings / year with your physician will decrease it significantly. There has been a singular lack of success in getting people to lose weight.

Are you already backtracking on your proposal?

Most lumps aren't cancerous, but the doctor will either examine it and tell you to ignore it or recommend a biopsy.

If you only have catastrophic coverage, you have to pay for it yourself. If you have prepaid medical care, they you have a percentage payment or a copay only.

you get to sit around worrying about it, and hoping it isn't cancer. Then when it turns out to be cancer, we all get to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars to treat you for it.

Or we could have insurance cover preventative care, and cut that lump out when it will cost us less than one thousand.

And that's one disease. There's a nearly infinite supply of diseases that are nice and cheap when caught early, but doing that requires people to actually get preventative care.

You were proposing that we don't do that. That is a dumb proposal. Then you proposed that preventative care should be covered. Now you're back to your first, dumb proposal.

P.S.

http://www.sfgate.com/health/article/Childhood-obesity-sees-decline-in-19-states-4711373.php

than "ideal" weight people.

But I really don't think this particular individual needs facts in their life.

are living in their own reality where actual facts don't matter.

See "Medicare and You - 2014" from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, page 46.

BMI science is unsettled, so we shouldn't have cancer screenings or other preventative care be covered by insurance. Instead, we should wait until the disease is acute and much, much more expensive.

Makes perfect sense!

...and we can't have that...

Patients demand more services, increasing the revenues of clinics, testing labs, imaging specialists, and hospitals, most of which are incorporated.

We get how you people roll.

no surprise.

just more nonsense for CATO.

have a nice day FarFromCenter.

Once upon a time, before HMOs and all that nonsense started, most insurance covered routine medical expenses. The insurance I have now covers it. You need to educate yourself and get off the right wing medical nonsense bandwagon.

You are worried that if patients get more coverage the 'corporate' medical world will make more money? That is your main concern? Do you give an iota about those who need the care? Do you think routine medical care is unnecessary? I had to get a colonoscopy a couple years ago. It is routine for people my age. Do you believe I should have had to pay for it out of my pocket even though it was covered by our insurance?

So rather than prevent illness and disease they should just wait for it to happen and then know they will have no help until they've spent $5,000 they don't have?

Not smart of insurance companies either since that only means the percentage of people getting major illness/disease will rise since they have forgone preventative care. So it is more likely the insurance pays out more this way.

Bad morally, ethically and financially imo.

i use my insurance for my annual, to see my doc for a routine med check every two or three months and fill those three prescriptions. i don't come anywhere near $5k a year in medical expenses, but it would cost me an average of $250 a month we don't have if my insurance didn't cover those things. i'd probably just go off the meds and then things would get damn ugly.

and what do you mean by "actual insurance"?

For example, on a new car I would buy liability, medical, collision and comprehensive auto insurance.

Once the car is old, paid off, and worth only a few thousand, I drop the collision and comprehensive insurance and only pay for liability and medical. The amount that the collision and comp would pay after deductible is small enough that I could foot the bill myself.

The same principle applies to deciding on what deductible to choose on homeowner or renter's insurance. You set the deductible higher and "self-insure" the part of the risk that you can take yourself.

I have insurance, I cannot afford to use it.

you're saying Obamacare allows refusal to cover based on health history by insurance companies?

you're saying Obamacare allows refusal to cover women for maternity and delivery care?

almost as bad as your posts on the endangered species act and protection of wolves.

available under the ACA for certain people.

Those plans didn't cover much and abandoned people with serious illnesses, those who needed care.

Castastrophic coverage, includes the basic preventive services in the health care law, but allows someone who is healthy to pay more out of pocket to keep premiums low, and it covers that person in the event of a serious illness.

the plans under Obamacare I could use. there were many protections for me in terms of price and no future concerns about underwriting.

there are minimum levels of coverage and there weren't gaping holes in the coverage that didn't even count towards the out of pocket limits.

i would have not had to choose a catastophic plan had Obamacare been available then, however, if i had, i would have had more coverage, i would have used it and ultimately, i would have had more healthcare and the high deductible plan would have kicked in and covered a big chunk of my 10k+ medical need which at that time was simply put off.

under ObamaCare, particularly this part:

i couldn't use that coverage.

second, it wasn't catastrophic coverage, I had 10k+ worth of medical needs that the policy didn't cover at all, regardless of any out of pocket maximum.

third, if I actually used the insurance for medical visits, not only could I be dropped based on what they found, I could have made myself uninsurable under the old system which depended upon underwriting.

not only that, this insurance I couldn't use wasn't available to most disabled, many with medical problems. it was all a joke.

catastropic insurance is such a different animal under Obamacare your attempt to compare the two is ignorant of the complete difference between the policy I had and the system that is replacing it now.

Or rather, my husband was and I was unable to avoid it. Whatever stock market show that awful Maria Bartiromo is on. They interviewed a couple of women - obvious shills in my opinion - both claiming they had such cheap insurance before Obamacare but now their premiums were going to skyrocket. The one woman, a realtor who looked 60-ish to me, claimed she purchased her own health insurance for $54 a month! In what universe can a person of ANY age, let alone advanced age, get even a catastrophic policy for that price? Oh, and she claimed she used it and was soooo happy with it, but it didn't meet all the requirements of Obamacare and she's forced to pay almost $600/month for something that's no better.

This is flagrant misinformation -- CNBC should be fined to hell and back, or lose it's licenses altogether if it were up to me. Shameless!

That works out to over $100/month for a person a half-century younger than her. Somehow, I doubt her story. Did she have the paperwork? Of course not.

All states have "minimum" insurance coverage required for auto insurance. Auto insurance is a pre-condition for driving legally on the roads and highways of the state.

The fact the ACA requires certain minimum coverage is materially no different than the existing state minimum requirements for auto insurance.

The point of distinction may well be that Americans do not have to have a car and therefore obtain auto insurance whereas the ACA says if you are living you need to obtain health insurance.

That is an obtuse argument because everyone at some point in their lives will need medical care. We don't know when but it will happen.