I get a stipend from my work to pay for health insurance. My job pays me a salary and, in addition, pays me a stipend to spend on health insurance. They provide me with a list of providers, and I get to use their money to pay for one of their providers. If I choose a health care provider who costs more than what my stipend is, I have to pay an out-of-pocket expense for that health insurance. If I choose a health care provider who costs less than my stipend, the amount of money I don't spend is returned to me in my paycheck. So if I'm concerned with bringing home as much money as possible, then it makes more sense to choose a cheap health care provider than an expensive one.
With the insurance that we "pay for" ourselves, there are still co-pays and costs associated with going to the doctor. It's not as much as it could be, but there is a cost. So even though I pay for insurance to pay for health care, I also must pay for health care. Which means I need the money to pay for health care, which brings me back to the concept of getting as much money in my check every month as possible.
Last year, we were told that our premiums would increase. We were told this was because of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), aka ObamaCare. It's one of those answers we get far too frequently: an answer that sounds like it makes sense, but it doesn't. We don't know why ObamaCare was raising prices, we were just told ObamaCare was raising prices. It feels like a very Cave Man way of thinking. Did ObamaCare actually raise insurance prices? No. It didn't. But so many people simply will not believe that because the answer to Why Is My Health Insurance Price Rising is ObamaCare, and anyone with a Cro-Magnon brain knows that (that's Early Human to those of you without Cro-Magnon brains). It's the same reason why all full-time employees (excluding management) at Carl's Jr. were suddenly made into part-time employees: ObamaCare. Did ObamaCare force Carl's Jr. to give employees less hours and cut their benefits? No. But the reason why people making minimum wage are now working less hours, cutting their paycheck substantially, is ObamaCare.
It doesn't matter that Carl's Jr. decided to cut employees hours so that they wouldn't have to provide health insurance or benefits for their full-time employees and "take care" of the people they hired to make sure their business continues to operate on a daily basis. It doesn't matter that insurance companies have increased their prices without increasing services. It doesn't matter, because people continue to parrot the blaming point ObamaCare.
It's like an all-too-familiar situation I've been in for the last 7 years of my life. Mom and Dad get divorced, and the children are caught in the middle. One parent wants to care for the children, and the other parent wants to Win The Battle. Doesn't matter that there isn't a battle, because he's gonna win it. So the parent who is taking care of the kids tries to make them comfortable. The parent who is trying to win the battle says to them, "if you do what I say, I won't bother you. If you do what your mother says, I'll make your life a living hell." He's not concerned with the welfare of the kids because anyone who says "I'll make your life a living hell" isn't concerned with health and welfare! Kinda like the employer who says "you can have ObamaCare which will assist you in caring for your health, but if you do, we will actively prevent you from being able to care for your health." The insurance company and corporations like Carl's Jr. are holding employees and policy holders hostage. And while they hold the guns to our heads, they point to ObamaCare and say, "Look at what your foolish president is making us do!" And then they pull the trigger.
Here are some key provisions of ObamaCare. If your company has 50 or more full-time employees, you must provide those employees with health insurance. Your company doesn't have to pay for it, because the federal government has allotted money to assist you with this cost. All you have to do is accept the money. When you do, the government will provide you with insurance providers they use, or you can use their money to pay for insurance providers you would prefer to use, and your employees will have those same options. Insurance companies will be paid with these funds. In turn, insurance companies will pay doctors and health care providers to provide you with care for your health. So you can live healthy. Insurance companies cannot turn you away because you were sick before you got insurance. This was a very common practice previous to ObamaCare. Insurance companies would deny their services to those who needed it most. ObamaCare said that insurance companies couldn't do that.
In order to combat the evils of caring for people, insurance companies increased their prices without increasing their services. And companies like Carl's Jr. decided to cut the hours of their full-time employees, making them part-time employees and, thus, wouldn't need to provide them with care for their health as well as stripping them of their income. Corporations like Hobby Lobby decided to take their concerns to the Supreme Court, which agreed that Hobby Lobby wouldn't be forced to provide care for their employees. Hobby Lobby has always insisted that they pay their employees $11 an hour or more, far above minimum wage, so that they can buy health insurance. An employee making $11 an hour for 40 hours brings home about $1200 after taxes. The cheapest living arrangement I could find just now was a room for rent on Craigslist with a 58-year-old casual beer drinking male who was looking for a laid back woman, "espanic or Caucasion", to pay him $200 a month and be his wife. So after getting a room and a husband, that employee now has $1000 a month to live on. I pay over $1400 a month for health insurance. So after paying the $1000 the employee has, and $400 that the employee doesn't have, that employee now has health insurance, a husband, a place to stay, a job, and nothing else (except the $400 in debt). No food, no toothpaste, no condoms, no aspirin, no clothes, no deodorant, no nothing. No extra money for anything. And debt. Thank you, Hobby Lobby, for being so considerate of your employees that you provide them with nothing except debt and expect people to thank you for it.
http://prescriptions.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/01/12/why-does-health-care-cost-so-much/?_php=true&_type=blogs&_r=0
This site is home to the New York Times blog entitled "Why Does Health Care Cost So Much?" In this blog, you'll find this passage:
"That question — why medical care, and insurance to cover medical care, cost so much – is at the core of the legislative debate in Washington. And as Congress gets closer to approving a final bill, it is being asked by smart observers everywhere. ...So let’s ask two experts, from opposite sides of the political spectrum."
No, New York Times blog, I don't want to ask "experts" so affiliated with a political party that their answers will change based solely on their political affiliation. I want answers based on facts that don't change until the facts change, you stupid fucking blog! Facts sound something like this: Health insurance companies are a business, and as such, they are primarily concerned with making money. When they have to pay people money they have less money for themselves. So they try not to spend money in all different kinds of ways. Some of those ways include, but are not limited to denying coverage to people, and increasing prices when they can't deny coverage to people in order to keep money coming in.
I think you would be hard pressed to find somebody who would say that it's a bad thing for people to make money. I think it would be equally as hard to find somebody who would say it's a bad thing for businesses to make money. But when it comes down to making money or taking care of people, like it does so often with insurance companies, suddenly the business is all about caring for people. Because Caring For People Is Our Primary Concern. Without Our People, We Wouldn't Be Here. Which is a lie. Without money, you wouldn't be here, and making that money is your primary concern. But it sounds good to say those other things. Makes people not worry so much about how they continue to get screwed, and how they continue to give companies their money.
(In case you were wondering, the above article was posted in 2010. If you visit the homepage of prescriptions.blogs.nytimes.com, you will get this message from February 2012: "The Times is discontinuing the Prescriptions blog, which was created to track the debate and aftermath of the 2009 health care law." Using a word like "aftermath" makes it pretty clear where this blog stands on ObamaCare-- it's to blame for everything. Fuckin' blog.)
Two years ago, I was able to pay for insurance for my wife and myself and get about $120 back in my paycheck from my stipend. I used that $120 to buy groceries for myself and my family. Then I added one child to our policy, and prices increased. Both of those things took my take-home pay from $120 to about $40. I used that $40 to buy my son a week of groceries. Two years ago I was told prices were going up because of ObamaCare. I was not told anything this year.
So today I went online to adjust my health insurance. I needed to change my primary care physician. Last year, my wife went to the doctor and she said that the primary care physician we had made her feel bad. So I wanted to change. The only thing I changed was the physician. When I checked out to make sure everything was correct, I noticed that my out-of-pocket expense had changed, even though my services had not. Last year, I got $40 added to my paycheck after insuring my family. This year, I have to pay $80 a month to insure my family. That represents two weeks worth of food for my son, three if you count the $40 I'm losing as well. And that $120 total is going to pay for a service that I can't afford to use.
I don't know what the answer is.
I do know that I'm getting fucked.
And the gun that's being pressed against my head isn't being held by ObamaCare. It's being held by Global Health and Delta Dental and all the other corporations that claim to provide care. They are eating three weeks of my son's food and giving him nothing in return.
And I am powerless to do anything about it.
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