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Surprise: New insurance fee in health overhaul law

Posted: Dec 10, 2012

WASHINGTON (AP) — Your medical plan is facing an unexpected new fee. It's to help cover people with pre-existing conditions under President Barack Obama's health care overhaul. The $63-per-head fee — buried in a recent regulation —will hit health plans serving an estimated 190 million Americans, mostly workers and their families. It's payable starting in 2014. Employers are not happy. The cost of compliance works out to tens of millions of dollars for the largest companies, maybe a few hundred for small firms. Most of that will get passed on to workers. Read more: http://nation.foxnews.com/obamacare/2012/12/10/new-obamacare-tax-uncovered-63-head#ixzz2Eh3NHLLG http://news.yahoo.com/surprise-insurance-fee-health-overhaul-law-185726448.html;

Sounds like a great bargain to me! - nm - YD

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NM

probably because you are one who gets free healthcare - thats why its a bargain to you

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I am sick to death of this ****. My husband and I pay 500 a month and a 12,000 deductible for you to get your "Free Healthcare!"

This flippin country is insane.

So you will never have a pre-existing condition? - Lucky you. sm

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It must be awesome to be the perfect weight, normal blood pressure, and will never get pregnant.

Most MTs are aging and have preexisting conditions. - Already some forget our fear of losing

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everything, even our lives, if our insurance is cancelled or we aren't accepted under new coverage--specifically because we need it desperately.

BTW, OP, are you the one who's been posting that Obamacare's flawed because it isn't free? NOTHING is truly free, especially something as valuable as the coverage for preexisting conditions that we didn't pay for before because we had none.

$63 a head. THINK about it.

Perfect! Obama's made-to-order - !

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outcome from the onerous obamacare debacle. Big govt. to the rescue. THINK about it.

But, it IS a rescue. We The People rescuing ourselves. - THINK about it. nm

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x

With Obamacare, we are destroying ourselves and - bankrupting a nation ! nm

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nm

Flippin, runaway healthcare cost inflation IS - a MAJOR reason we have to reform

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our lousy, stinking, dysfunctional, corrupt, cheating healthcare non-system.

It will be much less expensive for what we get, BUT we're getting a lot more, so we're not seeing drops in costs. A very short time ago if you learned you had cancer, that diagnosis could have been followed by notice that your insurance had been cancelled for one trumped up reason or another. That, with the many deaths resulting from it, is shortly going to forever be an atrocity of the past. Also forever relegated to bad memories is being told an oncologist wouldn't be treating you because your limit per illness wouldn't cover your treatment. BTW, you now already have UNLIMITED coverage for whatever's coming down the road for you. Courtesy of healthcare reform.

Who is paying for... - sm

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...that UNLIMITED coverage? It's UNSUSTAINABLE. The govt. has no money to back it up. Will they just print more? The taxpayers don't make enough. Where, then?

What on earth makes you think it's unsustainable? - Did Rush say so? BTW,

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if it's unsustainable are you resigned to dying a quarter century early because you're not a member of the new "healthcare-rich" classes? Do you really want it to be unsustainable?

We're a very wealthy country. We have the money all right. It's all about what we choose to spend it on. Some want all of us to spend it on something that makes them wealthy and consider spending it to keep a bunch of retired clerks, and teachers and firemen well past middle age a terrible waste of money. I strongly disagree, BTW. We The People have a right to take good care of ourselves and to live long and healthy lives.

Given the choice, wouldn't you rather pay for unlimited healthcare for yourself than another for-profit war intended to transfer your tax dollars to war profiteers? You've paid a small fortune in taxes for THOSE these past 30 years. What's your cut been? Feeling rich are you?

Consider this - I would rather

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: would you rather argue with a private health insurance company over benefits denied or argue with the government?! Who usually gets their way most of the time?

We the people have the RESPONSIBILITY to take care of ourselves. Not run to the emergency room with our Medicaid and use it as a clinic, or pass the costs onto other Americans.

Unworkable. We cannot save enough to pay our - own medical bills and take care of

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ourselves. IF we want medical care for whatever comes up, we have to join others to pay into a big pool those who draw the wrong cards can draw out out.

As for gov versus private enterprise, private is milking us into our graves. Literally. Taking our premiums and, way too often, canceling or refusing to renew policies that may have been in place for years when serious illness finally occurs.

If there were a way for you to refuse the protection of the rest of us through our government telling your insurer it couldn't do that to you, I'd say, if you're mentally competent, you should have it. Unfortunately, you're un-screwed whether you like it or not.

The top executives for these insurance companies - sm

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are still receiving high bonuses, while they do everything they can to DENY a claim.

The problem simply is that the health insurance companies need to go, with the government in place to take over with the ONLY missing element being PROFITS.

To define one's ability to continue breathing or not is NOT something that should be profit driven. It's one of the MOST immoral stances to take.

Agree. Medicaid expansions alone are going to - kill this country. Wake up, people !! nm

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nm

BUT, people get sick. What's your alternative? - Death to anyone whose work

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work and/or private retirement settlements don't provide good healthcare? A greater number of us every year?

We need to create a solution, not be a bunch of silly do-nothings wringing our hands and getting in the way of those trying to make this a great country for all of us.

We are a very wealthy country, and we have the money. The question is, WHO gets to benefit from it? The many or the few?

Obviously, the republicans and the top 2% - sm

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are the few who gets to benefit from it.

Believe it or not - old and burned out

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there are logical and compassionate ways to tackle health care costs but politicians, being politicians, won't touch them. Aside from tackling the problem of fraud, which the Obama Administration has been doing more successfully than previous administrations, one of the major issues we should be discussing is end-of-life care. No death panel talk and no statements about killing grandma should be included.

Medicare currently spends 25% of its budget on end of life care. Do we really want to spend such a large portion of our resources keeping someone alive in an ICU when the patient is clearly terminal? Wouldn't hospice be a better choice?

I am grandma and I would rather spend my last days in a hospice, with family around me, than in an ICU was tubes coming out of every orifice. I have my advanced directives on file with my health care provider and believe that everyone on Medicare should be required to do the same, not coerced to be a DNR, just required to provide advanced directives. I believe that many, if not most, would choose hospice care.

This is an extremely difficult and divisive topic to handle, but one that needs to be discussed reasonably.

Nonsense that politicians won't touch "logical and - compassionate" healthcare means. nm

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x

How many politicians - old and burned out

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have you heard discuss this particular subject? I have only heard one.

You're kidding, OABO? It's been discussed for - decades. By good people and scoundrels.nm

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x

You have no idea who I am, but I now know a lot about you - SM - YD

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You jump to conclusions with zero information. You express your bitterness at paying high premiums with high deductibles at everyone except the broken system that they represent. I have paid for continuous health insurance my entire adult life and continue to do so, and my deductible is also high. I support myself and always have. Yes, I think $63 is a great bargain to remove pre-existing clauses, and I support the Affordable Care Act as the first step towards major reform of our healthcare system.

Excellent, YD. - nm

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x

If you're going to be angry - old and burned out

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be angry at the large corporations. Corporate profits are higher than they have ever been and they can afford to pay to keep their employees healthy. Healthy employees are better employees. Reduce some of those obscene and undeserved bonuses from the corporate bigwigs and health care can be covered.

EXACTLY! - nm

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and so it starts.... - "free healthcare." HA

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knew it! "buried in a recent regulation..."

Well that explains why my insurance went up - Sympathetic, but worried

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First off let me say I feel bad for people who can't get insurance ones with pre-existing conditions or other reasons. All I want is good health care that is affordable for everyone who wants it.

My next question is when is enough? Why do I have to pay more money for people I don't know to get insurance. I can't afford it. My health care insurance went up this month, as did my power, food, and other monthly utilities. If I make $1000 a month and my bills come to $1000 a month, how can I afford anything more? So now with these new rates I'm paying more for bills than I make, because my pay has not gone up. Doesn't congress understand this. You cannot keep raising the rates of individuals when you don't raise their pays. There is only so much PB&J I can eat.

Again I am sorry, I feel bad for the people who can't get insurance, but why is that my problem now? Since I now have to pay for everyone else, can I at least get a list of their names so I know who these people are. Usually when I give money to someone I like to know who they are that I'm helping.

Sympathetic, insurance is a pool into which - everyone pays routinely but only draws from

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IF needed. You always pay for others to be cared for, and if you're lucky your insurance never really makes up for what you pay in for its protection. I.e., you never do need that $120,000 course of chemotherapy for breast cancer, and thus not the $320,000 in other medical fees that would also be incurred.

patronizing - . . .

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sheesh!

I understand that - guess what I was asking is - Sympathetic, but worried

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When they keep raising the rates to pay for everyone else, and now you're paying out more in bills because of the increases than money you make what next. When is enough enough. Why doesn't congress understand this. When every penny you make goes to a bill how can they keep raising the rates.

Sympathetic, what you are describing is what PRE-reform - private insurance has brought us to.

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Congress, or at least a majority, does understand this and passed "Obamacare" to fix it. Healthcare cost inflation and bad or nonexistent healthcare isn't just a problem for each of us, it's a major national economic problem that's been dragging us down for decades that had to be addressed--and finally, just now, is.

Give it time. Most of the reform provisions aren't even in effect yet. They're being phased in.

Whatever. It is what it is, and we get it in the backside - either way. No energy to care, anymore, really.

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Umhm. With that attitude, longstanding I presume, - will you deserve better if you get it?

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You sound a lot like one of those who let others suffer as long as you had your own. I've been speaking out and voting for healthcare reform since well before the Clintons. How about you? Deserve better or just expecting to get some of your own back?

The question is will that poster even know the difference? - nm

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This "fee" is only helping... - the current insurance companies

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and has absolutely nothing to do with healthcare, preexisting conditions, or anything else. I thought this Ocare thing was supposed to be for the "people", not for the insurance companies... read the article again, all the way through, from the Yahoo news one, and it clearly states this fact in a single sentence, easily overlooked by many. $25 billion dollars in revenue to "cushion" the insurance companies. hmmm.

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