Personal healthcare saving accounts

LilOlLady

Gold Member
Apr 20, 2009
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Reno, NV
PERSONAL HEALTHCARE SAVING ACCOUNTS
Is the plan by many RRWE candidates to replace Obamacare and the others would replace with Romneycare which include a mandate also. Without a mandate no healthcare plan would work because there would still be 40 million Americans uninsured that would use hospital emergency rooms for their healthcare and it would cost us more. Why is it unconstitutional for Obamacare to have a mandate but ok for Romneycare?

Can you imaging a family of 4 living from pay check to pay check and credit cards, not having food at the end of the month on $30,000 a year or less having a healthcare saving account which one illness would deplete it? It’s ok for Santorum to suggest this because he has never had a pennyless day in his entire elite life.
Obamacare provides affordable healthcare for the 40 million who cannot afford healthcare or those who can but cannot afford to use it because of the cost of co-payments. A $100 co-payment to use the emergency rooms.
Whether it’s call Obamacare or Romneycare the results are still the same. Dumb and dumber if you think not.
If not the Personal Healthcare Saving Plan or Obama/Romneycare Radical Right Wing Extremists do not have a plan to replace either.


"We're where we are because we've forgot where we've been and how we got to where we are."
James Pence
"When fascism comes to America it will be wrapped in the flag, and carrying a cross".
Sincla*ir Lewis.
 
PERSONAL HEALTHCARE SAVING ACCOUNTS
Is the plan by many RRWE candidates to replace Obamacare and the others would replace with Romneycare which include a mandate also. Without a mandate no healthcare plan would work because there would still be 40 million Americans uninsured that would use hospital emergency rooms for their healthcare and it would cost us more. Why is it unconstitutional for Obamacare to have a mandate but ok for Romneycare?

Can you imaging a family of 4 living from pay check to pay check and credit cards, not having food at the end of the month on $30,000 a year or less having a healthcare saving account which one illness would deplete it? It’s ok for Santorum to suggest this because he has never had a pennyless day in his entire elite life.
Obamacare provides affordable healthcare for the 40 million who cannot afford healthcare or those who can but cannot afford to use it because of the cost of co-payments. A $100 co-payment to use the emergency rooms.
Whether it’s call Obamacare or Romneycare the results are still the same. Dumb and dumber if you think not.
If not the Personal Healthcare Saving Plan or Obama/Romneycare Radical Right Wing Extremists do not have a plan to replace either.

"Why is it unconstitutional for Obamacare to have a mandate but ok for Romneycare?" --

Personally, I don't think the mandate is a good solution at any level, but unfortunately it IS constitutional for most states (depending on the state constitution, of course). States generally have more leeway regarding what services they can provide.

As far as health care savings accounts, the idea is that they are paired with high-deductile catastrophic accounts that cover you once your HSA is depleted. Overall, there's no difference in coverage. The difference is that, if you stay healthy, you get to keep the money in the HSA. With PPACA the insurance companies keep it.

Many Republicans want to extend the tax incentives that have herded people into the low-deductible group plans to HSAs as well, to restore some sanity to the market dynamics. But I don't really think this is necessary. All we really need to do is eliminate all the incentives that are currently skewing the market and let people decide for themselves how to handle it. Many are already going with the catastrophic plans as it is, because they make more financial sense.
 
The only way you're going to bring down the cost of health care in this country is to put more of the burden of cost on the consumer. It's the government subsidized programs like Medicare and Medicaid ad well as so many people having "Cadillac" insurance plans that cover every single sniffle and sneeze that is driving up the cost.
 
The difference is that, if you stay healthy, you get to keep the money in the HSA. With PPACA the insurance companies keep it.

Where did you hear that?

I have an HSA and he's right; that's exactly how it works, so stick it up your ass you know it all son of a bitch.
 
The difference is that, if you stay healthy, you get to keep the money in the HSA. With PPACA the insurance companies keep it.

Where did you hear that?

The PPACA dictates coverage minimums via regulatory 'interpretation'. The last I read, proposed minimums only allow catastrophic plans for those under 30, and then only through the 'exchange' (employers can no longer offer them). Given that the PPACA further entrenches group insurance by requiring employers to provide it as a benefit, the vast majority of us won't be able to use the HSA/catastrophic insurance combo. Most of us will be stuck with the failed insurance model that will continue to drive health care prices higher and higher, and continue to make insurance companies boatloads of money. And we won't be able to say "no".

But there's really no way of knowing how things will pan out. By subjugating ourselves to a regulatory regime that dictates how we finance our health care, we've given control to the same army of lobbyists that created this mess in the first place. Any guess on which way they'll be pushing things?
 
But there's really no way of knowing how things will pan out. By subjugating ourselves to a regulatory regime that dictates how we finance our health care, we've given control to the same army of lobbyists that created this mess in the first place. Any guess on which way they'll be pushing things?


It truly amazes me why people think others {politicians} would know best what is good for them,over anything.Particularly our health.

But then sheep like to be herded. The same group cries a river over the evil insurance companies,but out the other side of their yaps,they insist that a mandate giving said evil companies even more from a captive market???!!! Is the only way.
 
dblack said:
The PPACA dictates coverage minimums via regulatory 'interpretation'. The last I read, proposed minimums only allow catastrophic plans for those under 30, and then only through the 'exchange' (employers can no longer offer them). Given that the PPACA further entrenches group insurance by requiring employers to provide it as a benefit, the vast majority of us won't be able to use the HSA/catastrophic insurance combo. Most of us will be stuck with the failed insurance model that will continue to drive health care prices higher and higher, and continue to make insurance companies boatloads of money. And we won't be able to say "no".

But there's really no way of knowing how things will pan out. By subjugating ourselves to a regulatory regime that dictates how we finance our health care, we've given control to the same army of lobbyists that created this mess in the first place. Any guess on which way they'll be pushing things?

Aside from the fact that none of what you said has anything to do what happens to the money in your HSA if you don't use it (the answer is nothing, it's still yours--that's why the "SA" still stands for "savings account"), you're mixing concepts here.

The HDHP concept is about benefit design (i.e. the terms and conditions by which you can access covered benefits), not covered benefits. An HDHP may cover plenty of things, the point is that the plan has a high deductible. The fact that plans will need to meet guidance for essential benefits doesn't mean the cost-sharing structure of an HDHP no longer dictates when those benefits can be accessed.

The catastrophic coverage available to people under 30 or others who can't find affordable coverage doesn't refer to the size of its deductible. "Catastrophic" in that context means it doesn't meet a minimum actuarial value of 60%, which refers to how much of the costs of covered benefits it expects to shoulder for a standard population. There was a CRS report out a while back estimating the actuarial value of a typical HDHP-HSA pair: 76% (the number gets even larger if employer contributions to the HSA are included). That's well above the 60% minimum actuarial threshold in the ACA.

And HDHP/HSAs are not incompatible with group health insurance. Ask anyone who has one through their employer. The reality is that, given certain provisions of the ACA, HDHPs coupled with HSAs are going to become an increasingly attractive option to employers.
 
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dblack said:
The PPACA dictates coverage minimums via regulatory 'interpretation'. The last I read, proposed minimums only allow catastrophic plans for those under 30, and then only through the 'exchange' (employers can no longer offer them). Given that the PPACA further entrenches group insurance by requiring employers to provide it as a benefit, the vast majority of us won't be able to use the HSA/catastrophic insurance combo. Most of us will be stuck with the failed insurance model that will continue to drive health care prices higher and higher, and continue to make insurance companies boatloads of money. And we won't be able to say "no".

But there's really no way of knowing how things will pan out. By subjugating ourselves to a regulatory regime that dictates how we finance our health care, we've given control to the same army of lobbyists that created this mess in the first place. Any guess on which way they'll be pushing things?

Aside from the fact that none of what you said has anything to do what happens to the money in your HSA if you don't use it (the answer is nothing, it's still yours--that's why the "SA" still stands for "savings account"), you're mixing concepts here.

I assumed you understood what I was saying. The practice of using HSAs with a catastrophic insurance plan isn't allowed under currently proposed guidelines for most people. Under the plans PPACA herds us into, money you save by taking good care of yourself only benefits the insurance companies.

As usual, you're missing my main point. The issue is control. Who will decide how you or I finance our health care expenses? Will we decide for ourselves? Or will the regulators and lobbyists decide for us?
 
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I assumed you understood my initial point. The practice of using HSAs with a catastrophic insurance plan isn't allowed under currently proposed guidelines for most people.

Yes, it is. My post continued after the opener you quoted. You should probably read the rest.

As usual, you're missing my main point. The issue is control. Who will decide how you or I finance our health care expenses? Will we decide for ourselves? Or will the regulators and lobbyists decide for us?

As usual, you start off talking about policy but a few posts later, after it's pointed out that you're way off on the policy, you begin waxing philosophical. You remain in control of your health decisions. Indeed, the HDHP-HSA combo, which conservatives have been pushing as the epitome of the consumer-directed, individual choice-focused health economy for the past decade, is encouraged by the ACA.
 
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As usual, you start off talking about policy but a few posts later, after it's pointed out that you're way off on the policy, you begin waxing philosophical.

No, it's not 'waxing philosophical'. It's a very real and pragmatic impact on our lives. I think it seems idealistic for you because you operate on the base assumption that government should be controlling everything we do.

You remain in control of your health decisions.

That's simply untrue. The ACA creates a regulatory regime that dictates how each of us must finance our health care. Not really sure how you can deny it. You're welcome to keep trying however.
 
Typical Marxist logic:..."without a (government) mandate the plan won't work". Are Americans aware what what a "mandate" means"? A "mandate" is a law backed by the power of federal law enforcement and (as we have seen in the Clinton administration) the military. A mandate strips your freedom and substitutes the power of the government. Anyone care for "mandates" now?
 

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