What do you know about our new health care law?

It's almost 3 months since the Health Care bill passed into law. The news media has filled in countless hours of very expensive advertising dollars to cover the controversy. We know all about big fight in Congress and the demonstrations by the Tea Party, but how much has the news media informed us about what this law means to we the people?

Does the news media have a responsibility beyond entertainment and making profits? Shouldn't we all know what to expect when we get sick?

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I don't watch TV News anymore. Except The Daily Show, sometimes.


This is why.

 

some things are lost, some things are gained. then there's the amnesty issue which makes more loss..

 

Most people I know have not gained anything. For most those on Medicare they've seen their premiums for the supplemental insurances rise by a rate of about 25 percent.

I don't think legally the news media has any real responsiblity. In a perfect world yeah we should know what to expect. But then this isn't perfect world.

 

Our insurance doubled.

But, now I would be eligible for medicare or whatever if I had to quit school -- before I wouldn't've been.

 

the health care policies are going throught the "phase in" period.
we won't see the bulk of the effects until 2014.

 

nah, they gave that up. It was too boring and required reporters to be educated. Few really get educated anymore - which is why EVERYTHING IS GETTING FUCKED UP

 

I've been curious on this new bill myself, for a few concerns to me and thousands of others that I know. I don't have a tv, so I don't know what these retards on FoX are talking about, and really, this computer devices I'm using doesn't even belong to me, so I really haven't gotten in there to dig around and find the direct answers myself.

I really don't care too much about health insurance, I myself haven't been to a doctor since the late '90s, I just seem to heal quickly. What mainly sits with me is the need to have health insurance by the year 2014 for risk of being fined like I read in a more simplified version of the bill. I am houseless, and I don't like medicaid which I'm eligible for, more so, I just don't like pharmaceutical-junkie doctors. From what I've gathered from the bill so far, is I will have to be on medicaid by 2014, and knowing (a little bit) of the medicaid system, I'll have to apply or transfer in every state I visit, which is like 10 a year. And there's thousands of kids like me all in this same boat..

I haven't been able to find much on this issue aside from that I have to get Medicaid if I'm "homeless", when the full bill comes into effect. I doubt the media would even fathom the idea of doing coverage of the lesser poverty and their issues with this, unless they wanted to make a sob story out of it followed by a wal-mart commercial to boost the moral to buy more, spend less. Either way, I'd rather rack up fines so I can have a few extra shit tickets then bother with this worthless bill if it is to be of so cause. To me, it all just seems a way to keep people in check.. mentally, physically, and pharmaceutically.

 

I think it says that everyone except the indigent will now have to have insurance. Those who don't have coverrage through employment now have no choice bit to cough up the money. It remains to be seen if the insurance companies gain or lose from it - but I wouldn't bet against them. The penalty to insurers who refuse to cover your expenses is 100 bucks a day. How much to be hospitalized with a serious illness - more than that?

I could be wrong, though. It's what I've heard on tv.

 

From everything I have seen, there is NOTHING that says you MUST get insurance (although they do try to make it sound that way)...

There isn't a police force that will come get you if you don't have it.

For someone like sanddollar, the only time they would have to worry, is if they do what they say they don't, which is go for medical treatment.

IF you go to the hospital or doctor, and you DON'T have some form of health insurance, then yes, you will get fined from what I can see, but that in no way affects someone who has made an active choice not to be part of the system.

 

Once fined, then garnished from then on.

 

How does this affect someone who chooses not to use the system?

 

I went to my primary care doctor last Thursday. My appointment was at 9:40 am. I got there at 9:25, checked in at the desk, walked 15 feet to the bathroom and as the door was closing, the nurse called my name. She took my vitals and we talked a bit, she pointed me to the bathroom in the back so I could do what I was about to when she called me.

When I walked out of the bathroom my doctor was waiting for me. He renewed 5 of my prescriptions, changed the sixth, added 2 more and gave me some topical ointment, all free. I talked to him about a few problems I've been having and he set up my next physical and I was on my way. All of this at no cost to me. This is the VA system, a government run health care agency.

To you conservatives who like your $15,000 per year health care policies, are your doctor visits this fast and pleasant? Does your doctor answer every question you ask until you understand it? Can your doctor prescribe everything he thinks you need without getting permission from your insurance company? And, do you get preventive care and consults with nutritionists and other experts about your health, free vaccines?

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From what I read, under the Individual Mandate part, if you refuse to buy into the new system and remain uninsured, you will be fined a tax penalty of 695$ per person per year, starting in 2014. The fine will be raised in further years. I didn't see anything about garnishing wages, but then again.. I didn't look too hard under that part cause I wouldn't work for payroll. I don't know how one that doesn't work/pay for taxes would be fined this, other then building up gov. debt for when they finally do find a way to stick it to you.

Then again.. there's the religious and indigenous exceptions, guess it's time to dig through the tree for my reservation card. But that only helps me out.. and I'm just not trying to find the answers for me out.

As it is still 4 years away, and subject to change.. like many things I hope do. They already technically do fine you when you walk into a hospital, just they can't pursue the payment in legal fashion aside from debt collection agencies.

 

If you aren't living as part of the system, then you aren't living part of the system...

However... lets just assume that you break your leg in three years (well three years after this takes effect)... You get picked up by an ambulance, rushed to the hospital, get your checkup, the xrays, the cast and whatever else they do. Say the ding you for the $2085.00 for the fines... that is still cheaper then going in and getting it done now, uninsured... No?

 

It would be cheaper, indeed, seeing how the basic emergency room checkup is about 500$ alone. But that would just be the federal fines, the medical coverage I'd expect would be similar to the now-a-days plundering, on top of the fines. And don't forget the fine for the ambulance too..

And regardless of being part of the system or not, if you have a SS number, then you're in the system, indefinitely.

The handy splint, some arnica for the inflammation, and some good lithium hot springs would be my trip. Plus a slave to carry my pack, preferably a midget so it'd look like my pack walks itself.

 

Being 'in' the system doesn't matter a single bit in terms of living outside it, unless you try to rejoin it.

The rest...

Would you feel better about it if they changed the wording of everything so that instead of people being fined, the cost for the basic health care plan was just added to people's taxes?

That is what our system here is based on.

What it means, is that when your child gets sick with cancer (like a relation of mine) at 2 years old, and needs 2 million dollars worth of health care over the next two years, she gets it, and the family isn't destroyed by the financial hardships of saving their child's life.

It also means that if you are working in your back yard and slip and break a leg, you don't have to go take out a loan to get it fixed...

And yes, lucky people who never need any type of health care at all, will be paying out for those who do need it... I challenge anyone here to state (truthfully) that nobody in their family (up to first cousins) has went to a doctor EVER.

 

Neither pleases me, cause it all appears to be the same. You're being taxed for it in one form or another. If you don't pay taxes or under the minimal income for the household, you are still being "taxed" to pay for health insurance through "exchanges", unless you're under the medicaid margin, in which you receive it for free.

My point is not wanting to be on a medicaid roll, yet still being fined for not having a form of insurance, from what appears written in the bill, is what I'm mainly trying to figure out.

I don't disagree with the system, I always liked the way Canada has had their health care roll in place with the taxes and wished it was like that here once upon a time. But what I'm concerned with is mainly the individual mandate. My son, is under medicaid and always has been, being a type-1 diabetic, it covers the needles and insulin. I'm just mainly stating my own personal agenda on how I live, and trying to get the answers so other homeless youth/young adults(which I work with, and being houseless myself) that are troubled with this part, that I might have the answers for.

Also for you're challenge, yet not much of a feat, but two kids, brothers to be exact, and nearing the age of adulthood now, have never been to a doctor, nor have certificates/SS numbers. Amazes me it's been so many years and they've escaped it, they're mother has her personal agenda, and has been afraid that they'd be entered in if they ever went.

 

The challenge was that nobody in your family has needed a doctor... not that some of them haven't.

The point of it is that everybody is effected by health care issues whether they personally need it or not.

 

Regarding the mandate, granted if you don't sign up you get fined, but for all the people who complain about it, I wonder how many of them would actually not sign up for health insurance.