'My health insurance is going up to $800 a month with a $15k deductible and that's the CHEAPEST PLAN"

[80zephyr]

View attachment 1198754

Notice what happens to costs when the government get involved.

 

[Greenbeard]

View attachment 1198754

Baumol effect - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[Lisa558]

View attachment 1198754

Looking at the chart, it seems that most of the explosion in prices is in areas where the government is “helping” via subsidies.

 

[Lisa558]

Notice what happens to costs when the government get involved.

Oops. I just noticed this post after I wrote mine.

 

[dblack]

Looking at the chart, it seems that most of the explosion in prices is in areas where the government is “helping” via subsidies.

Whodathunkit?

 

[JoeB131]

Whodathunkit?

Except not really true. Every last one of those commodities have some government involvement.

The reason why College and Health Care have gone up by crazy amounts is because- wait for it - everyone really needs those things, and the people who control the supply can charge whatever the hell they want.

Take education. When I went to UIC back in the 1980s, it was the "Affordable Urban Campus". Tuition was only about $1500 a year. (Or about $4608 in today's money.) The state heavily supported the operations of U of I system.

Now, what changed? Well, first, the state cut back its stipends, so that was shifted to the student.

Secondly, UIC got a little pretentious and went on a crazy building spree, including dorms (even though we live in an urban area easily reached by public transit), and wanted to attract more international students.

In-state tuition at UIC is now $18,800 a year.

Now, let's put that in perspective. I got through college by being in the IL ARNG, and by working two minimum wage jobs. Back the, the minimum wage was $3.35 an hour, which sucks, but it was enough to pay my $1500 tuition by working a mere 10 hours a week.

Today, the Federal minimum wage is 7.25. It hasn't gone up since 2009! To pay the 18,800 tuition, you'd have to work 50 hours a week at minimum wage to just pay tuition.

Of course, IL has a $15.00 Minimum wage, much to the screams of convervatives and Libertarians, so you would only have to work 25 hours a week to hit the min wage.

 

[Greenbeard]

Looking at the chart, it seems that most of the explosion in prices is in areas where the government is “helping” via subsidies.

Yes, that’s why government tends to get involved in those sectors.

 

[dblack]

Yes, that’s why government tends to get involved in those sectors.

I'm curious, is there any "sector" you don't think government should control? Any at all?

 

[dblack]

Except not really true. Every last one of those commodities have some government involvement.

The reason why College and Health Care have gone up by crazy amounts is because- wait for it - everyone really needs those things, and the people who control the supply can charge whatever the hell they want.

Take education. When I went to UIC back in the 1980s, it was the "Affordable Urban Campus". Tuition was only about $1500 a year. (Or about $4608 in today's money.) The state heavily supported the operations of U of I system.

Now, what changed? Well, first, the state cut back its stipends, so that was shifted to the student.

Secondly, UIC got a little pretentious and went on a crazy building spree, including dorms (even though we live in an urban area easily reached by public transit), and wanted to attract more international students.

In-state tuition at UIC is now $18,800 a year.

Now, let's put that in perspective. I got through college by being in the IL ARNG, and by working two minimum wage jobs. Back the, the minimum wage was $3.35 an hour, which sucks, but it was enough to pay my $1500 tuition by working a mere 10 hours a week.

Today, the Federal minimum wage is 7.25. It hasn't gone up since 2009! To pay the 18,800 tuition, you'd have to work 50 hours a week at minimum wage to just pay tuition.

Of course, IL has a $15.00 Minimum wage, much to the screams of convervatives and Libertarians, so you would only have to work 25 hours a week to hit the min wage.

History doesn't support these excuses. But i know that doesn't matter. You'll attempt to justify government taking over pretty much everything. Why?

 

[JoeB131]

History doesn't support these excuses. But i know that doesn't matter. You'll attempt to justify government taking over pretty much everything. Why?

Because I want to make sure everyone gets a fair deal.

The problem is, where government is involved now, it's too biased towards the investor class and not the working class, because the working class forgot how to flex its political muscle.

 

[Lisa558]

Yes, that’s why government tends to get involved in those sectors.

The prices skyrocket AFTER their involvement.

 

[80zephyr]

Baumol effect - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Then explain Lazik and chiropractic c are.

 

[Lisa558]

Then explain Lazik and chiropractic c are.

LASIK prices were always affordable because insurance didn’t cover it.

 

[initforme]

The Dems’ definition of “affordable” is having someone else pay for it.

“Hey! My health insurance premium is so affordable - only $120 a month - because my next-door neighbor, his cousin, his cousin’s brother-in-law, and the guy who fixes my toilet are all pitching in to pay the $680 difference.”

Agreed. However its crazy to see insurance companies also buying up healthcare services. Thats corrupt if you examine it. Here our nurses are going to pissibly strike. The cheapskate corporstion should just pay them.

 

[Captain Caveman]

You got what you wanted.

America has got the system they want, an expensive private system that gives many an expensive bill if they dare use it. When you live in a country with State funded and private healthcare (choose and mix and match both), America's system seems bizarre.

 

[Delldude]

Problem is, no one wants to raise the taxes necessary to begin to help fix the problem.

Why should we pay taxes to fix something that the government has no business controlling?

Sorry, but that "free market" is one of the reasons we are in this position.

No it isn't. If we had free market health insurance, all companies would have to compete nationally instead of limited companies in states.

 

[Delldude]

JACKSON HOLE, Wyo. — Like millions of other Americans, Stacy Newton turns to Healthcare.gov to shop for health insurance for her family. The Affordable Care Act website, according to the government, is where consumers are supposed to find “a menu of health insurance plans.”

But for the Newtons and many others in the country, next year’s menu is severely limited: There is only one company offering ACA plans here — and costs have risen steeply.

To continue health coverage for themselves and their two teenage children, the Newtons would have to pay an annual premium of $43,000 — about a third of their gross income. It is the price of the cheapest plan available to the family from Blue Cross Blue Shield of Wyoming, the only ACA insurer left in Teton County.

This year, millions of American families that have relied on the ACA, popularly known as Obamacare, are being squeezed on multiple sides: Premiums are rising, the covid-era subsidies that helped pay for those policies are shrinking, and there are fewer choices due to insurers pulling out of some markets.

The squeeze here is a symptom of broader trouble in American health care. In western Wyoming and other regions, the expected rollback of enhanced subsidies has destabilized the economics of Obamacare, pushing some insurers to retreat from the government-supported market because it won’t be profitable.

That is leaving consumers such as the Newtons with little choice but to buy a pricey, unsubsidized policy from a local monopoly.

Next year, the number of counties with only one company providing Obamacare will jump from 72 to 146, according the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. That number is expected to rise further if, as appears likely, Congress fails to renew the enhanced subsidies.


WaPo

If those companies were pushed to compete in all of the country and not just states and/or counties, competition would create better pricing.

 

[Lisa558]

Agreed. However its crazy to see insurance companies also buying up healthcare services. Thats corrupt if you examine it. Here our nurses are going to pissibly strike. The cheapskate corporstion should just pay them.

Are you sure it’s insurance companies buying up medical practices?

But I agree that the big corporations have a monopoly on certain health services, and customer service has plummeted.

 

[Greenbeard]

The prices skyrocket AFTER their involvement.

No, you've reversed the causality.

Then explain Lazik and chiropractic c are.

Lasik looks much more like industrial production than most of health care. Much lower labor share of production costs than is typical in health care, highly standardized and routinized processes, quite narrow in scope, and actually has achieved substantial productivity growth (clinic throughput) over the past few decades. Health care (like most industries in which the primary output is labor) in general is Baumolian, but Lasik surgeries are not.

 

[initforme]

Are you sure it’s insurance companies buying up medical practices?

But I agree that the big corporations have a monopoly on certain health services, and customer service has plummeted.

Yes, agreed. And people who pay for insurance and treatment arent fairing well. Why does it HAVE to be this way?