PrairieSeasons Loc: Red River of the North

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/health-insurance-costs-rise-by-nearly-5-latest-cpi-data-shows-2016-02-19

I thought that Obamacare was going to control and even reduce the overall cost of healthcare.

It's apparently continuing to rise at twice the level of general inflation and the Congressional Budget Office predicts that it will continue to do so for the next decade.

Jim Plogger Loc: East Tennessee

The train is now leaving the tracks!

sb Loc: Florida's East Coast

First of all: the ACA did nothing to limit charges by pharmaceutical companies and insurance companies. I have referred to it for years as "The health insurance corporation protection act". Even some of the cheapest generic drugs have seen price increases of hundreds of percent, and it would apparently be un-capitalistic to consider any sort of price controls.

Question: does YOUR insurance cover Jublia, the heavily-advertised toenail fungus drops? Do you know how much the "new, larger bottle" costs? About $1500! For TOENAIL FUNGUS (it probably does not work any better than applying Vicks Vap-o-Rub daily to your nail! )

Even without getting in to price controls, we could have a discussion about direct-to-consumer advertising of prescription drugs. We are about the only country that allows it. Is there really a need for advertisements about injections that increase the white blood cell count of patients on chemotherapy? Don't you imagine that your oncologist KNOWS about those medications? Or the new lung cancer treatment Iressa - 30 daily pills cost $7,400? (That works out to about $30,000 per ounce... Time to shut down the crystal meth lab and start making prescription pharmaceuticals! :) )

But aside from drug prices skyrocketing, the basic thing that makes the premiums high is that the average cost of health care for Americans is $8500 per year. So I tell people - if you think you can get health insurance for less than $8500 per year, you are sadly mistaken. Sure - you can pay less, but you will have a VERY high deductible - $8,000 or more! But you will still pay a lot, because that insurance has to cover the preventive health services that it is now required to cover - colonoscopies, mammograms, Pap tests, etc., and they have to bankroll money for when you are diagnosed with some disease that requires an $8,000 per month medication!

So - we have some big problems in our system. But given our inability to have frank discussions about anything anymore, nothing is likely to change any time soon. Getting rid of the ACA will just throw the system back in to the same chaos that it was before - where the only people with good health insurance were those on Medicare or those whose boss paid the premiums. Many republicans want to get rid of the ACA mandates for coverage (including the one that says you can get insurance even if you have a pre-existing condition) and allow "shopping across state lines" as a way of "bringing competition" - what that means is they they want you to be able to buy the crappiest insurance possible with the least coverage possible. There are reasons for the ACA mandates. For example, one study showed that having a 10% copayment for mammograms reduced the odds of a woman getting a mammogram by about 10% compared to having no copayment.

An always-interesting story. I would like to see the problem solved in my lifetime, but doubt that it will ever happen.

WNYShooter Loc: WNY

Sure, the ACA did address some problems in our system, but the big problem is that, because it was so broad in it's reach in regards to all of different areas of our system it tried to rewrite, it ended up creating a bunch of new problems and inefficiencies. I personally lost two Doctors directly due to the act, and I have "Cadillac" insurance through my company.

BigBear Loc: Northern CT

The cost of the failed website alone would have more than covered all of the uninsured for their lifetime.

PrairieSeasons Loc: Red River of the North

All of these may be true. They are not what was promised with Obamacare.

BigBear Loc: Northern CT

He knew his promises were as empty as the suit.

PrairieSeasons Loc: Red River of the North

Reminds me of the old adage -- s**t in one hand and wish in the other to see which fills up first.

thom w Loc: San Jose, CA

You seem to want a president that is more than human.

PrairieSeasons Loc: Red River of the North

I'd settle for one that is honest. We don't have one of those, and don't look to have one next year either.

BigBear Loc: Northern CT

Liberals don't care much for honesty.

Jim Plogger Loc: East Tennessee

No, we just want a president who will be honest with the people. We haven't had that in 7 years.

Keenan Loc: Central Coast California

This is an incomplete analysis and conclusion when ignoring what the healthcare inflation would have been under the pre-ACA scenario. From everything I've seen, the overall inflation of healthcare since the ACA went into effect has been substantially lower than it would have been without the ACA, based on the trends and projections prior to the
ACA.

Also, there are still many things the ACA cannot control, such as the out of control pharmaceutical price increases and the protections Big Pharma has to avoid competition and keep out cheaper foreign drugs, as well as many other areas of our privatized health care system that encourages price gouging and corruption.

The ACA was a political compromise that solved some problems and made the health care system more humane, but certainly didn't solve all of the problems and price gouging that our system allows. Nobody that I know of claimed that the ACA was a perfect law and would magically solve all our problems. Hopefully one day we can move to single payer and bring our health care costs under control like the rest of the civilized world.

thom w Loc: San Jose, CA

There will always be things missed. There will always be unintended consequences that weren't foreseen.

PrairieSeasons Loc: Red River of the North

Two of the very specific promises Obama made were that his health care plan would save $120 billion/year, or $2,500 per family and that he would not sign off on a plan that would add "one dime" to the deficit - either now or in the future. I didn't believe them then, and I'm not holding my breath now.