General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Screw the ACA [View all]alarimer
(16,245 posts)Having to navigate to pick the "best" plan, having to deal with co-payments and deductibles, in-network, out-of-network, etc. and potentially having to change it every year. There is nothing keeping insurance companies from dropping out of the exchanges or jacking up the rates.
There is no way this is a sane system. I have good insurance (an 80/20 plan) I can't actually afford to use because the co-payments are too much. This doesn't even include the amount you might have to pay (the 20%), which is always an unknown quantity until you get the bill. Try to explain this "system" to anyone who has a single payer system (Canada or Britain) or even someone from a country that has strictly regulated insurance (France) and they think we're insane. Because we are.
It is so obvious to me that what we need is to pay for a system like Medicare for all (like Canada). In face we already have deductions from our paychecks for Medicare. Why not just raise that a bit, do away with private insurance altogether? What if we made the system completely transparent? X procedure costs X dollars no matter where you are. The government then pays the bills. You go to the doctor, it's paid for. Done. You don't have to worry about medical bankruptcy or avoiding the doctor because of the copayments. Everyone is in the same risk pool.
Everyone thinks we're insane for advocating this; it's not true, we're insane for keeping the system we have. Insurance companies are nothing but money-grubbing middlemen. They need to go.
And me the bullshit about how it can never happen here. It can and it should.