Obamacareless begins...

[rwh11385]

Is there still going to be a medi-care/caid/cal tax? Any body know?

Yes, the gubment will continue to force you to have payroll taxes taken out automatically to pay for vedubbin's gf's healthcare.

[Fusion]

Do I need to care about any this if I'm paying health care abroad?

[rwh11385]

Do I need to care about any this if I'm paying health care abroad?

https://www.healthcare.gov/am-i-eligible-for-coverage-in-the-marketplace/

U.S. citizens living outside the U.S.

U.S. citizens living in a foreign country are not required to get health insurance coverage under the Affordable Care Act. If you're uninsured and living abroad, you don't have to pay the fee that other uninsured U.S. citizens may have to pay.

It's qualified upon whether or not you are excluded from having to file taxes because of being out of the country 330 days in a year, etc.

That said, if you an expat but not gone for 330 days a year... then here's a long unclear answer: http://www.dol.gov/ebsa/faqs/faq-aca13.html

[Fusion]

Cool, thanks.
Wouldn't want to get penalized for not signing up after getting off a flight, being searched by customs and frisked by some fat guy while my phone logs into an NSA scanned network. Hooray.

[FL318is]

From the trenches. Don't get sick people.

The industry is changing. The new mantra is: "Do more with less, for more." It is becoming a production line. So wait for a long time, then your turn comes and in a instant, the staff has come and gone. I suggest while you wait, (and you will) right down your questions and concerns and see how many of them get answered and how many get deferred,

NEXT!

[z31maniac]

Side note, went to our insurance and quarterly meetings yesterday.

If I want to keep my exact same plan, BANG 20% increase. And I already use a CHDP with a high deductible and an HSA.

Looks like I'll be taking the new plan with a nearly doubled deductible which will be approx. 33% of the cost of my existing plan starting next year.

[BraveUlysses]

And a gun was never mentioned, till you brought it up!

You can't really be this daft :rofl:

[rwh11385]

Got benefits package today... rates going up $7.22 a month [oh noes?]

[Turf1600]

My insurance got better and cheaper this year. Granted - I work for a hospital so more insured people isn't the worst thing in the world even if Medicare reimbursement rates are dropping.

You know - what I think people fail to understand is that the uninsured are only guaranteed treatment from emergency rooms. That's not exactly the cheapest way to go. Whether you like it or not it costs tax payers anyways - so you may as well give people access to primary/preventative care. It's cheaper for everyone in the long run. I rarely see self pay ER bills below 5k. You can pay for a lot of obamacare for $5000.

[nando]

Yep - and if they cant pay, the hospital just passes it along with higher bills for everone else.

[z31maniac]

Got benefits package today... rates going up $7.22 a month [oh noes?]

That's good. Although it seems that isn't the case for most people.

My insurance got better and cheaper this year. Granted - I work for a hospital so more insured people isn't the worst thing in the world even if Medicare reimbursement rates are dropping.

You know - what I think people fail to understand is that the uninsured are only guaranteed treatment from emergency rooms. That's not exactly the cheapest way to go. Whether you like it or not it costs tax payers anyways - so you may as well give people access to primary/preventative care. It's cheaper for everyone in the long run. I rarely see self pay ER bills below 5k. You can pay for a lot of obamacare for $5000.

Don't get it wrong, I sincerely believe we should provide healthcare for EVERYONE. I just think in the haste to pass the ACA, the D's got a lot of stuff wrong.

[nando]

They could work on fixing the problems, but instead they chose to waste over 40 bills to repeal it entirely.

Also, it was a window of opportunity - the GOP would never in a million years have passed a universal healthcare bill, flawed or no.

[rwh11385]

Technically that's a ~16% bump, but the baseline was tiny to begin with. ($2500 deductible) All the talk of companies dropping coverage to "save" taking the tax versus cost of benefits ignore that many use benchmarking to compare to their competition because they know the free market will have the workers they need go elsewhere. Papa John retracted his empty threats pretty fast, and that was just for a restaurant job.

Thanks Patrick for sharing your perspective. And yes, most people ignore the strain uninsured put on the ER. Or how those costs when unpaid get passed on like Chris said.

Buddy - there were plenty of opportunities to improve parts but instead they sat pissed in the corner and didn't want to work with anyone. And wasted a lot of time on trying to scrap rather than modify. And shutdown the government and risked default instead of, again, compromising to find a better solution.

And if it got repealed, the next opportunity might have been single payer so fighting instead of fixing made no sense. No no, the preference was ignore the problem entirely and not offer alternatives and then realize they didn't have the votes for anything they don't gerrymander.

[canadiankid]

They could work on fixing the problems, but instead they chose to waste over 40 bills to repeal it entirely.

Also, it was a window of opportunity - the GOP would never in a million years have passed a universal healthcare bill, flawed or no.

Obamacare is NOT universal healthcare. It is mandatory purchase of health insurance.

Universal healthcare is when they take it out of everyone's income tax and you never see a bill.

[Kershaw]

you pay for it either way. what difference does it make?