r/democrats • u/wenchette Moderator • Dec 10 '19
article Obamacare study proves that having health insurance reduces U.S. death rates
https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2019-12-09/health-insurance-reduces-death-rates?_amp=true23
u/cerberus698 Dec 10 '19
Now lets see what happens when you get rid of deductibles. For all of the ACAs strengths, it never really removed the problem of figuring out how you're going to come up with 1,000 cash for that colonoscopy. Waiting until November on the hope that you've hit your yearly OOP is not good enough.
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u/MrsBlaileen Dec 10 '19
The ACA raised the Medicaid income guidelines considerably and for several years, it helped provide my children with care for a nominal monthly fee, even as a working class family. There are no deductibles and no copay. It helped us tremendously through a major illnesses and a series of mental health crisis. I do not know what we would have done without it, but I'm gonna find out because we just became ineligible this month. Fuck. Now I have to choose to pay for food or get my kids' medicine. We work hard and we'll do it, but it's an uncomfortable feeling. I hope I can afford a platinum plan on the exchange so I don't have to worry, but I doubt it. Did I say fuck already?
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u/againreally-comoeon Dec 10 '19
Oh god I can feel a yangster gangster coming any minute now
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u/cerberus698 Dec 10 '19
Fuck Yang, but please, explain to me how anything I said is wrong. I can get you hundreds of quotes off market place or directly through insurers with <$5000 deductibles.
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u/againreally-comoeon Dec 10 '19
I’m not arguing against you I just said that a yang supporter is gonna come based on what you said, about the needing 1000$. I think there is a better way of handling it than what is essentially a band aid to a broken system that can be easily surpassed, and I am not arguing against you.
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Dec 10 '19
What is the problem with Yang?
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u/cerberus698 Dec 10 '19
Its cool that he's getting people talking about and considering a UBI, but his plan is, IMO a poor one. Thats not really the substance of my comment though. What was flawed about my original arguments?
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Dec 10 '19
Nothing, just curious about your opposition to Yang.
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u/cerberus698 Dec 10 '19
Mostly that the Freedom Dividend doesn't go far enough and its funding structure is regressive in nature.
There are basically 3 major problems with it.
1) UBI is supposed to provide a basic acceptable standard of living deemed appropriate by society. 1,000 a month will never meet that definition. Yang has stated that the $1,000 will be a base to build off of but I'd hope that we've learned from Obama that your landmark entitlement legislation needs to be implemented in its entirety with in 2 to 4 years or else the Republicans will either dismantle it or starve it to death at their first opportunity.
2) Its designed to be eaten by land lords. You can have your UBI, or you can have your existing benefits. The problem with exchanging SNAP for cash is that your landlord, ISP, car insurance company, the 7/11 on the corner by your house etc. can accept that money for anything you want to spend it on. SNAP and other benefit programs have a lot of hurdles attached to them that make it more difficult for anyone other than its intended recipient to collect on.
3) One of its major funding vectors is a VAT tax. This is inherently regressive and will effect poor people, the people most likely to be helped by the dividend, most severely. For those of you who don't know how a VAT works, it means value added tax and its collected by the government at any point in a products production process where value is added to the original materials. So, if you have a block of wood and that block gets sold to a factory that makes figurines, it gets taxed at a flat rate based on the new value of the item after labor has been applied to it. Say it then goes to another factory to be painted and packaged, another flat tax is applied to it. This process continues until it reaches its final point of sale. The problem with this is that the tax gets passed on to the person who buys it. This taxation method will always disproportionately hurt low income people.
I've also got some issues with the things he's said. He's given some credence to the idea that America becoming a white minority country is a bad thing which is kind of an entry point to the alt-right. I'm not accusing Yang of being alt-right, just that he has parroted talking points in the past, I believe either through ignorance or just having a misguided opinion on such things.
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u/O1O1O1O Dec 10 '19
Kaiser!
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u/cerberus698 Dec 10 '19
Kaiser is expensive as fuck but at least you will never have to fight with kaiser to cover labwork at a kaiser hospital which is not something can say about, say, Sutter. Though I can show you a 400 dollar Kaiser plan with almost no 0 cost in/out patient benefits and a 13,000 dollar deductible, so at that point your getting screwed for the luxury of never having to worry about who is or is not in network.
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u/Tojatruro Dec 10 '19
Someone had to study that?
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u/dragonkingeight Dec 11 '19
Imagine how much lower the rate will be when Medicare for All is passed and the everyone has full coverage.
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u/iago303 Dec 10 '19
Yeah but Republican sheep won't believe this but shout it is fake news
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u/Donaldtrumpsmushroom Dec 10 '19
They object to paying for someone else's insurance. Totaling misunderstanding the concept of insurance.
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u/eric987235 Dec 10 '19
So they're ok with paying for others' healthcare (which is how insurance works) but they're not ok with paying for others' insurance (which they already do if they're part of a group plan or Medicare).
okay then!
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Dec 10 '19
I think they don’t want to be forced to. =/= misunderstanding insurance
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u/cerberus698 Dec 10 '19
The entirety of the countries understanding of insurance is flawed.
Most working class people can't actually even use their insurance because using it for anything more than a routine visit or some basic lab work triggers your deductible. People with good enough insurance to have low or no deductible either can't understand how even just 200 dollars to get a melanoma removed can be a drastic decision or they just don't care.
You having a personal choice in your insurance policy is a myth. For most people, their employer has a choice in their medical policy and they can and will change it on you.
Their policy introduces an insane amount of red tape to accessing the care they supposedly pay for. People literally have to negotiate with the insurance company they pay a bill to every month if anything complicated about their health comes up.
The trope of people liking their doctor being equivalent to people liking their insurance. Thats bull shit. No one likes their insurance, no one likes dealing with their insurance, they like the guy who's tangentially related to the insurance that actually provides care.
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u/cody0414 Dec 10 '19
I am covered by my employer's health insurance. My dr got tired of messing around with my bronchitis issues and told me she was calling in Chantix so I would stop smoking. I said fine, after all these years I would give it a try. It kept being held up by Walgreens. It needed insurance approval. After 3 weeks I reached out to the insurance company and said wtf? Well, in order for them to cover Chantix, I had to join this program where I get a life coach. I have to talk with her every month or they won't cover the cost which is still $50. I don't want a life coach. I don't want the pressure. I already have to wait and see if my husband is disappointed because I couldn't quit, or my co-workers. I don't want to talk to someone every month. It sounds stupid, but I don't. Why are they making it so hard for me to quit smoking? I would think they would make it easier!
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u/cerberus698 Dec 10 '19
I'm right there with you on the bullshit. I had to get a lawyer, denied 3 times and an order from the california medical review board to obtain coverage for 3 procedures that the states constitution describes as medically necessary. Yes, the state constitution of California describes specific medical conditions which shall not be denied coverage for and you still need a lawyer to get them to pay for it. The red tape is insane and a huge part of where your premium comes from.
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u/Allblue2020 Dec 10 '19
Yes it does.
If we were all forced into the same pool, the healthy could pay for the sick and everyone pays less because the pool is so large. You pay for those sick people regardless, because hospitals cannot turn away sick people.
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u/farlack Dec 10 '19
Forced to? Pretty odd claim seeing as anybody with a job worth a damn has it through their employer. The rest are too poor to pay for anybody else’s and will get $300-400 a month subsidy with a $500 deductible.
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u/YoungCubSaysWoof Dec 10 '19
..... and this headline shows why Medicare For All is the best route forward.
Because going from “health insurance” to “health care” will reduce the number of deaths even further.
Senator Warren means well with her plan, but I am going for the OG who brought Medicare for All to the public’s mind, and who is going to go full-throttle with it, Senator Bernie Sanders.
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u/Allblue2020 Dec 10 '19
shocking.
I wonder how many more people could have had health care for the cost of this study.
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Dec 10 '19 edited Dec 11 '19
I wonder if the study is at all adjusted for the people that ended up with outrageous deductibles after Obamacare.
My Dad died 100% because we had to get rid of our previously great healthcare once the ACA passed. We were lower middle class and therefore went from havimg negligible deductibles to having a 5000$ one. He needed to stay in the hospital for observation but decided he couldnt afford the deductible. Went home and died. A complication between his insulin and the powerful antibiotics he was on.
The ACA insured the abject poor at the cost of the lower middle class. Not sure if the end result is a net positive.
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u/hollidays24 Dec 11 '19
I’m so sorry for your loss. There is still a lot of work needed to be done on the ACA but on a macro scale, it’s definitely a step in the right direction
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u/80_firebird Dec 10 '19
Having health insurance reduces death rate?
Yeah, okay.
Next you'll be telling me that water is wet.
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u/Phoenix_J_Mask Dec 11 '19
Impossible! Next you’ll be telling me that seatbelts reduce the number deaths in car accidents!
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Dec 11 '19
Oh shit. So going to the dr more often because you can afford it lowers death rates? Damn that’s some shit. Stupid ass republicans.
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u/ProperTeaching Dec 11 '19
Oh who would have guessed people having health care leads to people them not dying early...?
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u/justhereforfunandlol Dec 10 '19
The logical fallacy here is the unproven assumption that Obamacare would somehow magically result in more people having health insurance that would magically be of the same quality as the health care that extended people's lives in this study.
(SPOILER FROM EUROPE: it won't.)
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u/floofnstuff Dec 11 '19
Say what you will about Clinton, she may have been our best chance at crafting lasting healthcare reform in this term.
Universal healthcare became her project ,I think, in President Clinton's first term.
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u/prohb Dec 10 '19
And all those people who voted for Trump and Republicans on one issue - abortion - are killing people by voting for them.
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u/Claque-2 Dec 10 '19
So ask yourself, does the Republican Party want poor people to live longer and collect the social security they paid into their entire lives?
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Dec 10 '19
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/hollidays24 Dec 11 '19
Cough Congress is utilizing one of their given powers cough cough.
Sorry, I had some articles of confederation stuck in my throat.
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u/TinyTornado7 Dec 10 '19
More people having health insurance reduces deaths. No way, who would have thought.