The seven big for-profit U.S. health insurers, which also control access to prescription drugs, have seen revenues increase by over 345% in the last decade.
Also former public employers (such as NYC), who provide healthcare for their Medicare eligible retirees, should not be allowed to force these retirees out of Traditional Medicare and into a Medicare (Dis)Advantage plan to save money. I believe there is a loop hole in the regulations that Secretary Becerra, the current Secretary of Health and Human Services, could plug.
Whenever the heath insurance industry can think of and implement a new way to pass the burden of paying upfront costs, they find a way, don't they? They have deductibles, co pays, and out of pocket expenses, etc. I am sure that they are trying to come up with another patient expense before they pay their share.
Our healthcare should not be a profitable industry. Thanks President Nixon and Kaiser, you changed that for us.
The evidence is overwhelming that with the price increases being demanded by the Big Insurance just like Big Pharma, the profiteering of Medicare Advantage, even though patients are experience horrible denials and delays in healthcare services, and Big Media does the American taxpayers and patients no service, when preventable illnesses or injuries go without care..Medicare Advantage is now a monstrosity that is the feared Death Panels, which Administration and executive compensation is glorified in the name of free enterprise! Health care has to be guaranteed by Government regulations, in which Medicare Advantage policies are supposed to reflect traditional Medicare; NOT flaunt the established rules and regulations. I am emphatically disgusted at this mindset that private and public businesses can do a better job rather than the established Government Agencies. Look at privatized correction facilities that Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch both have criticized flagrant violations in Healthcare delivery and outright Human Rights abuses. Privatized healthcare has failed to bring down prices, competitive insurers put profits over human lives, which is outrageous and unconscionable. I was denied a routine ankle replacement for an accident that occurred some 44 years ago and has become arthritic and excruciating because the the provider’s policy denies convalesce and recuperation at a skilled nursing or acute care facility “because it is an outpatient procedure. For circumstances out of my control, I cannot recover at home because there is no family member able to care for me, our house is trilevel and requires climbing 3.5 staircases to access bathrooms, dining room, shower facilities that are accessible for a person who must be off his feet for at least 6 weeks! The said home care benefits both medical/non-medicare, and transportation to hospital appointments are insufficient. How is this not a medical necessity? I have learned that under Medicare it’s a patient’s right to ask for skilled care under such circumstances so long as the surgeon writes up the order to include skilled care, which was not done. Nor was I informed that this was the case until I appealed to Kepro which hinted that I should have requested the doctor to include skilled care. The fact is I did request skill care, but the doctor did not comply. I have spoken to other patients who have had knee replacement as well as hip replacement surgery who also have been denied skilled nursing facility care, because these procedures are all designated outpatient surgery. How convenient and inhumane can American medical businesses be?!
Until the Democrats have a strong majority in both the House and Senate health insurance in the US will never be more affordable. We had a chance with public option but Senator Lieberman made sure that do not happen. Medicare Advantage is an example of Republican healthcare.....
It's not just me, yes? The type of medical coverage offered by most insurance revolves around crisis care and crisis medicine. This may have been adequate in the 1970s and 1980s, when plans were first established and accidents were of primary importance. But today, hard to miss that chronic care demand has increased exponentially whereas its nearly impossible to get adequate assistance for chronic health conditions within this rigid, structured "Pharma"-drug-insurance based system. Its way off target and something's gotta give.
As a self-employed 60 year old, I have long said that I -- and so many others with "Obamacare" --am merely "the conduit" through which large sums of money are passed to insurance companies via the ACA. There is no actual healthcare involved, for me. The policy I can afford has a 7K deductible, and is basically a "catastrophic" plan (ex. get hit by a Mack truck, cancer, something big-and-expensive, none of which I have, thankfully.) I have found, due to the hugely jacked-up prices that are privately negotiated between insurance companies and hospital systems, that on the rare occasions when I need medical care I am better off paying out-of-pocket at a private practice or walk-in clinic, where I decline to give insurance information, and ask for the "cash price." It is usually less than half, and I cut out the greedy "middlemen" delineated in this article.
Our so-called healthcare system is profoundly, fundamentally broken. It is not about health, at all. It is about profit and greed.
Also former public employers (such as NYC), who provide healthcare for their Medicare eligible retirees, should not be allowed to force these retirees out of Traditional Medicare and into a Medicare (Dis)Advantage plan to save money. I believe there is a loop hole in the regulations that Secretary Becerra, the current Secretary of Health and Human Services, could plug.
Whenever the heath insurance industry can think of and implement a new way to pass the burden of paying upfront costs, they find a way, don't they? They have deductibles, co pays, and out of pocket expenses, etc. I am sure that they are trying to come up with another patient expense before they pay their share.
Our healthcare should not be a profitable industry. Thanks President Nixon and Kaiser, you changed that for us.
The evidence is overwhelming that with the price increases being demanded by the Big Insurance just like Big Pharma, the profiteering of Medicare Advantage, even though patients are experience horrible denials and delays in healthcare services, and Big Media does the American taxpayers and patients no service, when preventable illnesses or injuries go without care..Medicare Advantage is now a monstrosity that is the feared Death Panels, which Administration and executive compensation is glorified in the name of free enterprise! Health care has to be guaranteed by Government regulations, in which Medicare Advantage policies are supposed to reflect traditional Medicare; NOT flaunt the established rules and regulations. I am emphatically disgusted at this mindset that private and public businesses can do a better job rather than the established Government Agencies. Look at privatized correction facilities that Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch both have criticized flagrant violations in Healthcare delivery and outright Human Rights abuses. Privatized healthcare has failed to bring down prices, competitive insurers put profits over human lives, which is outrageous and unconscionable. I was denied a routine ankle replacement for an accident that occurred some 44 years ago and has become arthritic and excruciating because the the provider’s policy denies convalesce and recuperation at a skilled nursing or acute care facility “because it is an outpatient procedure. For circumstances out of my control, I cannot recover at home because there is no family member able to care for me, our house is trilevel and requires climbing 3.5 staircases to access bathrooms, dining room, shower facilities that are accessible for a person who must be off his feet for at least 6 weeks! The said home care benefits both medical/non-medicare, and transportation to hospital appointments are insufficient. How is this not a medical necessity? I have learned that under Medicare it’s a patient’s right to ask for skilled care under such circumstances so long as the surgeon writes up the order to include skilled care, which was not done. Nor was I informed that this was the case until I appealed to Kepro which hinted that I should have requested the doctor to include skilled care. The fact is I did request skill care, but the doctor did not comply. I have spoken to other patients who have had knee replacement as well as hip replacement surgery who also have been denied skilled nursing facility care, because these procedures are all designated outpatient surgery. How convenient and inhumane can American medical businesses be?!
There should only be catastrophic insurance. Pay as you go for “healthcare”
Anything the govt subsidizes it fu<ks up
Until the Democrats have a strong majority in both the House and Senate health insurance in the US will never be more affordable. We had a chance with public option but Senator Lieberman made sure that do not happen. Medicare Advantage is an example of Republican healthcare.....
It's not just me, yes? The type of medical coverage offered by most insurance revolves around crisis care and crisis medicine. This may have been adequate in the 1970s and 1980s, when plans were first established and accidents were of primary importance. But today, hard to miss that chronic care demand has increased exponentially whereas its nearly impossible to get adequate assistance for chronic health conditions within this rigid, structured "Pharma"-drug-insurance based system. Its way off target and something's gotta give.
https://open.substack.com/pub/gregorypettys/p/might-the-sickness-be-shedding-light?r=f1gey&utm_medium=ios
No surprise in wake of another plandemic eh?
https://open.substack.com/pub/lionessofjudah/p/dr-mike-yeadon-pandemic-treaty-and
As a self-employed 60 year old, I have long said that I -- and so many others with "Obamacare" --am merely "the conduit" through which large sums of money are passed to insurance companies via the ACA. There is no actual healthcare involved, for me. The policy I can afford has a 7K deductible, and is basically a "catastrophic" plan (ex. get hit by a Mack truck, cancer, something big-and-expensive, none of which I have, thankfully.) I have found, due to the hugely jacked-up prices that are privately negotiated between insurance companies and hospital systems, that on the rare occasions when I need medical care I am better off paying out-of-pocket at a private practice or walk-in clinic, where I decline to give insurance information, and ask for the "cash price." It is usually less than half, and I cut out the greedy "middlemen" delineated in this article.
Our so-called healthcare system is profoundly, fundamentally broken. It is not about health, at all. It is about profit and greed.