President Obama has assured Americans that they can keep their private insurance if they want to but, he didn't mention the process by which to do so. He also didn't mention that those with Individual private coverage cannot make any changes once the option is chosen. This is a very good reason why we should not count on our legislators to read and interpret Bills for us. We must be pro-active and read the bill ourselves even if it is 1,018 pages long.


Congress: It didn't take long to run into an "uh-oh" moment when reading the House's "health care for all Americans" bill. Right there on Page 16 is a provision making individual private medical insurance illegal.


When we first saw the paragraph Tuesday, just after the 1,018-page document was released, we thought we surely must be misreading it. So we sought help from the House Ways and Means Committee.


It turns out we were right: The provision would indeed outlaw individual private coverage. Under the Orwellian header of "Protecting The Choice To Keep Current Coverage," the "Limitation On New Enrollment" section of the bill clearly states:


"Except as provided in this paragraph, the individual health insurance issuer offering such coverage does not enroll any individual in such coverage if the first effective date of coverage is on or after the first day" of the year the legislation becomes law.


So we can all keep our coverage, just as promised — with, of course, exceptions: Those who currently have private individual coverage won't be able to change it. Nor will those who leave a company to work for themselves be free to buy individual plans from private carriers.

I've spent the entire day today and I didn't even make a dent in reading this bill..... but page 16, SEC. 102. PROTECTING THE CHOICE TO KEEP CURRENT COVERAGE. Does flat out state that private medical insurance is going to be a thing of the past.


Click Here to read the entire bill.

H.R. 3200: America's Affordable Health Choices Act of 2009

Considering the private medical insurance in America's been a complete failure, I hardly find it depressing.

Does flat out state that private medical insurance is going to be a thing of the past. -5.56

AMEN, HALLELUJAH!!!

5.56 I of course don't wish you ill will, but your blind obsession to one of the worst systems of health care for a 1st world country is just breathtaking. All I can say is for you to wait for the day that you or someone close to you needs an operation that costs tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars cash of medical expenses and watch that decision get passed out of the hands of your doctor to Debbie in accounting who decide that a funeral (yours) is cheaper for the company then it is for them to save your life. The WHO has rated US Heath care the 36th just below Cuba. I sincerely hope you don't have to find out this the hard way, but there are thousands of Americans who have.

And thats of course excluding the people that cannot afford to pay the premiums and have no health insurance at all.

The insurance is not worth the paper the contract is printed on.
They hardly cover a damned thing and it's almost like you have to have an accident in the exact way the insurance company envisions, but of course if that happens questions arise as to if you did it on purpose!
The monthly payments are usually outrageous and it's better off that you just simply put that sort of money that you'd pay an insurance company away in another savings account to cover medical expenses and hope you don't get into anything serious for another 10 years. Yes, it won't cover everything but it'll probably cover more than the insurance company will.
I've lived in a lot of countries and been to hospitals in those countries as well and the only countries I found worse than the US are indeed 3rd world countries you'd never consider comparing with the US.

Seriously, there is hardly a single good thing to say about the US healthcare system. There's a LOT of good things about America, but the healthcare system is just not one of them.
One of my people from the Marines went over to the US, oddly enough, close to DC, and he told me that he heard that medical system is really bad in the US and he asked if there was any advice I had on what was good and what wasn't. I told him the unfortunate fact is that there simply isn't much good news when it comes to health care in the US.
The only good news is, if you can afford it, they're competent.

I pay $110 a month.... choose my own doctors, choose my own plan, etc...

I don't need the Government to tell me what I can and can't do.

Mmarsh.... it's not about the healthcare system. IT'S ABOUT GOVERNMENT CONTROLLING MY ING LIFE!

But hey.... in the end you're just a ...err... in the end I'll keep my mouth shut so I don't violate CoC.....

If you have nothing nice to say just don't say anything.

I threw out my back a couple of months ago..... went to my doctor, waited forty five minutes because he was seeing someone else. He saw me, gave me a injection of a muscle relaxant and proscribed me some pain killers and muscle relaxant. Total price out of my pocket for co-pay was $50. My Insurance paid the rest.... I threw out my back at 1pm, went to the Doctor's Office at 3pm, got my meds and treatment at 4pm.

I like what I have.... I don't want some douchebag in DC deciding how, when, and why I see my doctor.

Originally Posted by 5.56X45mm

I pay $110 a month.... choose my own doctors, choose my own plan, etc...

I see what you are saying. It seems that if a health care plan is going to be out there it needs to be universal and actually be able to be used.

Not all people can afford to pay $100 (and in some cases a lot more) per month for health care...but I also don't see how this is really helping them either, unless they have something severe happen.

You pay $110 per month for medical insurance?
You're getting VERY badly ripped off.
Here's the thing, if I'm not happy with what the government is offering me, I can pay out of my own pocket and choose my own treatment, but I've never had this sort of problem. I've gotten the right kind of treatment.
No one tells me when to see a doctor either. I show up with the problem and even in a heavily densely populated place like Seoul, the wait time isn't very long. If I go to a major hospital where it services litterally millions of people, the wait time is a little longer but if I go to a neighborhood hospital (still great service) it's practically instantaneous.
Paying $110 per month is about $1,320 per year. For some people, that's about 2/3rds of a month's salary.

The government might trash talk about private insurance being a thing of the past, but the truth is, private insurance is getting pressure to become more effective instead of a massively expensive bureaucracy. The beauty of having a working government version is that it automatically gives the private sector competition regardless of where they open up shop.
If companies cannot cater to our demands, we can just give them the finger and go off and get the public service. If the companies can deliver to our demands (high quality, low cost), then we will gladly employ their services.

Let me explain to you as to why it is that private health insurance doesn't work very well.
First, you have the patients who usually know how likely they are to be sick (family history etc).
Then you have the insurance companies who don't know you that well.
The people who are not likely to get sick or hurt generally skip out on insurance because they'd actually lose more money paying insurance than if they just paid out of their regular wallet.
What happens is the people who hold insurance get sick and injured often, just as predicted.
The insurance company tries to severely restrict payout, but this hurts their image and even less people buy insurance (basically the reason why I don't buy a policy).
But still the payout is considerable and the monthly rate goes up.
Even less people can afford it. More people cancel their insurance.
Monthly rate goes up even more.
And it pretty much spirals out of control.

When I made about $3,000 a month, I paid about $100 in taxes and that paid for the medical insurance, the roads, retirement fund, the military, the fire department, the police force... basically the whole package. For $100 a month. That left me about 2,900 to do everything else. I'd say for a hundred bucks that's a great deal.
But having said that, there is private insurance in South Korea as well. But they're not very popular and of course, they're insanely expensive. Good news is I don't have to worry about it.

And what about a medium term? Something combining best things of both systems? Would it be possible somehow?

Originally Posted by the_13th_redneck

You pay $110 per month?
You're getting VERY badly ripped off.

I'm 25 years old, I smoke, I drink, I eat meat, I work in a high risk hazardous profession... $110 isn't bad for someone like me..... I can afford it and I only make $45,000 as my take home pay. Yet you know how I live my life. What I spend my money on, etc.....

What insurance policy do you use?
Because when I was in DC, they were all bad. And expensive.