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Medical Costs Bankrupt Patients; It's the Computer's Fault
nbauman writes "Don't get cancer until 2015. The Obama health reform is supposed to limit out-of-pocket costs to $12,700. But the Obama Administration has delayed its implementation until 2015. The insurance companies told them that their computers weren't able to add up all their customers' out-of-pocket costs to see whether they had reached the limit. For some common diseases, such as cancer or heart failure, treatment can cost over $100,000, and patients will be responsible for the balance. Tell me, Slashdot, how difficult would it be to rewrite an insurance billing system to aggregate a policyholder's out-of-pocket costs? 'A senior administration official, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations, said: "We knew this was an important issue. We had to balance the interests of consumers with the concerns of health plan sponsors and carriers, which told us that their computer systems were not set up to aggregate all of a person's out-of-pocket costs. They asked for more time to comply."'"
As long as the payers for service and consumers of it are different entities, this sort of nonsense will keep happening.
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
Forcing people to pay higher premiums just before the election would look bad, hence the delay.
All you really need to know about Obamacare's costs are that, just before going on vacation, Obama granted Congress a waiver so that they no longer have to participate in the system.
It's too costly for our elected officials to pay for, so his Obamaness has decided that they don't have to.
I sure can't wait for the next George Bush administration to decided what medical procedures I'm allowed to get.
Paying taxes to buy civilization is like paying a hooker to buy love.
Obamacare is really an attempt to create the sort of socialism that Americans can stomach.
And I note that I didn't say anything that would show this statement wrong. They couldn't get single payer on the first go, but maybe after some destruction of our health care and insurance infrastructure, Americans will be able to stomach more socialism. One can only hope.
Basically he, like most Americans, deep down want single payer health care. But we're been taught from cradle to grave that socialism is bad. We're indoctrinated. It's called cognitive dissonance. He knows he needs socialism to live. He knows he needs help, and he knows it's his right (as a human) to live. Not just to have some blind dumb chance at good luck, but to actually have a life. But he's been taught, over and over, lied to and lied to. So he breaks down.
No, it's a normal problem of morality. he like everyone else wants free stuff. But free comes from someone else. So should he get what he wants at considerable expense to everyone else? Or should he do the right thing and sacrifice for the community? It's a tough choice and I respect his integrity in not leeching from the rest of society.
Obama recognized that there's lots of people like that. So he's giving them what they need (socialized health care) but doing it in the only way he can. He's letting the devil have it's due, and he's going to give billions and billions to parasitic insurance companies who's only purpose is to make us feel better about getting something that's a basic human right.
A good con man always can recognize suckers.
BTW, what was this basic "human right" again? I can't seem to place it from what you're saying. You've just been yacking about "socialized health care".